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Bansko
Art School
The monumental painting of the Bansko Art School of the last decades
of the 19th century is an fine example of the fol k lorisation of religious
art. After D. Molerov's death its artistry suffered a sharp decline -
the murals by Mihalko Golev, Dimitar Sirleshtov, Ivan Kostov Terziev
etc. have no stable iconographic foundation to step on and could be interpreted
as a flight of the imagination that has finally overcome the fear of
the canonised manner of modeling . They are less pretentious, and in
a some sense , somewhat " naively preaching " in tone. The focus is on
the most complex and mystical scenes and ethic aspects, combined and
plainest mot if s taken out of everyday life. Artists are almost addicted
to scenes from the Apocalypse, to demonology reflecting the wisdom of
folklore, to popular astrology, to contemplation of time and death. The
Bansko Art School continued the enlightening and patriotic traditions
of Bulgarian Revival art by several decades after 1878 in the hostile
environment of foreign tyranny and social and spiritual oppression (until
1912). It seems no accident that during that period Bansko School artists
focused mainly on painting Cyril and Methodius (the authors of the Cyrillic
alphabet) . Unlike other artistic schools of the time, this one existed
for the longest period as a typical Revival-period phenomenon. That is
why even after 1878 the school continued developing its own tradition
and styling that account for the stable line of artistic progress . The
repeated patterns, ornaments and theme accents in the work of later iconographers
is the specific expression of their desire to demonstrate their belonging
to the school. They do not merely try leeching off its past glories ;
they genuinely wish to prove that they are part of it, that they respect
it s tradition and want to develop it further. Around the end of the
19th and early 20th century one can still see the influence of Toma Vishanov
's daring style in the hermitage "Sveti Luka" ( "St. Lucas" ) in the
Rila Monastery, in the churches "Sv. Sv. Petar i Pavel" ( "St. Peter
and Paul" ) in Dobrinishte and "Uspenie Bogorodichno" ( "Assumption of
the Virgin" ) in Bansko.
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