“The Landscape and the City” presents three creative generations in Bulgarian art

The city art gallery “Boris Georgiev” in Varna presents from today until May 16 the thematic exhibition “The landscape and the city”. It includes 43 works of painting by 37 artists from the fund of the art museum, created by three creative generations in Bulgarian art. The selection is made by art critic Rumen Serafimov, chief editor at the Gallery and curator of the exhibition, who gives an overview of the exhibited works:

“The urban landscape is a thematic direction in the landscape genre, which has had its place in the development of world painting for many centuries. Since the beginning of the 20th century, this genre has also been developing in Bulgarian art. The earliest Bulgarian author in this field of painting was the exceptional Nikola Petrov (1881–1916), who created poetic anti-style paintings of Sofia and Vidin architectural landmarks. Significant authors of urban landscapes are also two other artists working in the impressionistic painting style – Nikola Tanev and Danail Dechev. A master in this thematic direction is Boris Denev, and Tsanko Lavrenov dedicates quite a few paintings to the romantic urban environment and atmosphere of old Plovdiv,” emphasizes Serafimov.

The exhibition “Landscape and the City” presents works from the collection of the Varna Gallery, related to the above-mentioned painting genre and unknown to the cultural public.

Canvases of artists who began their creative journey in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century are shown – a very strong period for Bulgarian art. These are big names such as Boris Denev, Danail Dechev, Vera Nedkova, Dechko Uzunov, Bronka Gyurova, Hristo Kavarnaliev, Preslav Karshovski, Georgi Pavlov – Pavleto, Petko Abadjiev. The landscapes of these artists preserve the realistic credibility of the depicted motifs, carry the romanticism of that early period and suggest calm, poetic moods. Only Hristo Kavarnaliev is more expressive and tense, and Vera Nedkova is so modern in her autonomous painting that her conventionality borders on abstractness.

The second large group of authors appeared on the artistic scene in the 1960s. Among them are the Varna artists Daria Vasilianska, Margarita Deneva, Hristo Vekov, Yordan Yordanov, Dora Kancheva, Angel Atanasov, Iliya Kasabov. Their landscapes are much more conventional in form, they seek a more tangible structuring of compositions such as color spots and linear-plastic relationships of architectural motifs. Daria Vasilianska is notable for the rich emotional atmosphere and embodied spiritual mystery of her midnight landscape.

The other participants from this group are among the most significant names of the latest Bulgarian art. Here is the outstanding colorist Emil Stoychev with a sonorous and expressive work. One of the first and most valuable Bulgarian abstractionists, Georgi Bozhilov, has a surprising early landscape. A wonderful watercolor by the great Lyuben Zidarov resonates with its free pictorial play. Svetlin Rusev’s work is chromatically ascetic and refined with its laconicism. The naive composition of Rumen Gasharov and the monumental canvas of Hristo Stefanov are constructively clear and definite. Dora Boneva, Nikifor Tsonev, Velimir Petrov, Selim Gigov, Nikolay Daskalov, Veselin Parushev and Ivan Kanev are presented with paintings that are impressive in terms of painting.

The series of cityscapes ends with a lively, sensual and completely liberated artistic look at a famous Varna street, interpreted in the characteristic high style by Andrej Daniel, who is of the strong generation established in the 1980s. From the same generation are Dimitar Kirchev and Stefanka Stoycheva, included with exquisite paintings.

The presented collection of cityscapes by classical Bulgarian artists is a purely museum exhibition, which provides the cultured and inquisitive viewer with many opportunities: to get to know undisplayed paintings by quality Bulgarian artists; to find out more about the “cityscape” genre; to feel the states and moods embodied in the works of different periods of spiritual creation; to encounter diverse stylistic interpretations of the urban landscape – from realism, impressionism, expressionism and neo-primitivism, to modern autonomous painting; to take into himself the humane and harmonious feeling, the romantic excitement and artistic inspiration with which these works were created; to save himself in art, at least for a while, from the aggression and tension of the modern world.