Picture CommunicationsBulgarian Modernism - Postmodernism: Jencks and Klotz
Bulgarian modern art
Paintings of the 1920s
The 1920s represent a crucial period in the development of Bulgarian art, especially in its aquaintance with and discussion of the ideas of modern Western art. Only a few decades earlier art in Bulgaria broke with the rules of orthodox icon painting in order to flourish in the worldy art and to seek new forms of artistic expression during the 1920s.
Western European artistic styles like Academism and Liberty have been popular in Bulgaria also before the 1920s. But it was only in this decade that the country lying on the periphery of the artistic map of Europe left the attitude of copying and adapting the formal features of the artistic novelties from Western Europe to their local necessities behind. Untill than the interest of Bulgarian artists and society in Western art aimed primarily at deleting the lost opportunities of artistic growth of the nation due to five centuries of Ottoman dominance.
In the 1920s for the first time voices against realistic and impressionistic Academism rose. Bulgarian artists felt the need of creating something new themselves. It was the young rebellious generation of artists and intellectuals which had studied abroad that wanted to develop the ideas and impressions collected in Western Europe also in their home country. They longed for making an independant Bulgarian contribution to the artistic developments in Europe.
Bulgarian artists and art critics urged to create an art which was in its essence Bulgarian and at the same time would integrate itself into the international context of modern art.
The Bulgarian art critics from the journal "Vezni" believed that any art has its origin in the soul of the artist. This conviction and demand of the art critics had been of great support in gaining public recognition for the surch of modern Bulgarian artists like Ivan Milev. They looked for new artistic expressions that could communicate abstract ideas.
Bulgarian art critics opposed the dominating Academism and old fashioned understanding of art in society. However, they were well aware of the real condition of Bulgarian art considering five hundret years of Ottoman oppression. Therefore, their demands of the artists to break with the old ideas did not refer primarily to the artistic form or style but to the content and attitude of the painter.
Older artists who had a more conservative understanding of art thought of creating a national, Bulgarian style of art by painting everyday life scences of the people and folk traditions making use of the style of realistic Academism. The modern artists instead saw national features of their art in the expression of the soul and ancient characteristics of the Bulgarian people without refering to a particular artistic style.
The social and political aim of Bulgaria to strengthen its national self-esteem overlapped with these artistic and art critical discourses on a Bulgarian artistic style. At this point in history, Bulgaria just like the most of Europe, was facing social uproars and disasters. This gave artists and intellectuals for the first time the possibility to get to know the people and their life in a direct way. Artists began to explore folk art.
The style of Liberty, as many artists got to know it in Austria and Germany during their studies, played an important role in breaking with the ideas of Academism and in surching for new artistic solutions for the expression of abstract contents during the 1920s. The eclecticism of the style characterized also the understanding of the Bulgarian society of art during this period. The melting of different apparently modern artistic elements reassured them in being close to the developments in the centre of Europe. To the artists instead this style gave the possibility for artistic experiments without being bound to art theoretical categories. Painters combined elements of Liberty with those of the Bulgarian folk art and icon paintings. This way they fostered the Bulgarian cultural heritage and strengthened the self-esteem of the nation.
Looking at Bulgarian art and art criticism during the 1920s it has to be refered to as modern art. A small artistic and intellectual potencial of Bulgarians collaborated in order to create something new. Unfortunately this period of Bulgarian Modernism lasted only six years. Although in these years the modern artists established themselves as an opposition to the dominating followers of traditional art and its understanding, this was not enough time to make this Bulgarian Modernism rise in the centre of Europe.
Though short, this period was fundamental to the development of modern art in Bulgaria. During the 1920s modern expressions in art were focused on decorativism but the following generation of the 1930s transported this development to the painterly level. The 1920s layed the path for a modern art in Bulgaria.
"Postmodern" | (top)
Art Perception Postmodernism
To define the magic word "Postmodernism" reveales itself so difficult because it does not only describe a social period. "Postmodernism“ is everything. An attempt to define "postmodern" thought was made by Steinar Kvale who summarized the main themes of "Postmodernism“ as follows:
„A doubt that any human truth is a simple objective representation of reality.
A focus on the way society uses language to construct their own realities.
A preference to the local and specific over the universal and abstract.
A renewed interest in narrative and story-telling.
Acceptance that different descriptions of reality can’t always be measured against one another in any final – i.e. objective or non human – way.
A willingness to accept things as they are on the surface rather than to search for deeper meanings.” (1)
These main aspects of "Postmodernism" point contemporarily in different directions and are not necessarily concording with each other, but this is also a characteristics of "Postmodernism". Typical of the "postmodern" is the fragmentation of issues and ideas on the one hand and the attempt to form or find an all embracing frame to these contradictionson the other.(2)
During the 1960s artists began to question the various aspects of life and the connections between them, as for example the relationship between art and everyday life, art and mass media, "high culture" and "low culture" (3); the value of art itself. "Postmodern" art acknowledges to share the same world as all other aspects of everyday life and culture.
Strolling along any town centre of today one will find the above mentioned characteristics in display on "postmodern" architecture: a mixture of different architectual styles and elements from various periods; styles from different geographic locations; decorations and ornaments; the use of different materials, surfaces and colours; references to the local surroundings and to art history. (4)
The viewer playes a fundamental role in "postmodern" art. Thorsten Scheer writes about the role of the recipient: „ ... bringt jeder Rezipient sich als konkreten Kontext des Werkes in die Situation mit ein, d.h. seine Möglichkeiten des Verstehens sind durch eine individuelle Perspektive determiniert. Ästhetische Kommunikationen sind gerade dadurch charakterisiert, dass sie eine Vielzahl von Kommunikationen und Resonanzen ermöglichen, ohne ihre Identität zu verlieren ...“. Said in other words: "postmodern" art offers as many definitions and ways of interpretation as the art work has viewers or recipients. One single, so called right meaning of "postmodern" art does not exist. Apart from the fact that the artist does not aim to create one single interpretation of his work. It is therefore not surprising that "postmodern" artists do not comment their work. „Everything goes“.
Kvar´s main characteristics of "Postmodernism" crystallized the problem of authenticity and reality as one of its permanent issues. Refering to the consequences of having second hand experiences coming from mass media and the apocalyptic prophecies of McLuhan's "global village", "postmodern" art argues that one single truth does not exist. In order to experience "postmodern" art one has to look at it from different points of view and in different emotional states.
This complexity of the experience of "postmodern" art is not restricted to the viewer. When the artist creates his work he faces the same possibilities or problems of accessing his art as the recipient. Thorsten Scheer describes the „postmodern“ artistic process as following: „ Der postmoderne Künstler kann nur noch in mehrfach vermittelten Prozessen auf seine Gegenstände reflektieren. Der unmittelbare Zugang zur Welt ist verstellt; Zeichen verweisen auf andere Zeichen. Die verbleibende Möglichkeit ist der Versuch, den Metadiskurs aufeinander verweisender Verfahren und Zeichensysteme kritisch aufzuladen. Die moderne Kritik durch ständige Innovation wird zu diesem Zweck in der Postmoderne in eine Überprüfung der aktuellen Relevanz moderner und traditioneller Verfahren sowie deren Verhältnis zueinander umgedeutet, die als Variation im Sinne einer permanenten Reflexion erscheint." (5) "Postmodern" art inverts the classical philosophical discourse on art. The "oppositions of art and nature; of sensibility and intellect; of form and content; of surface and undercover; of appearance and truth; of sign and signified ect" (6) do not seem to be enough any more.
Rada Bieberstein
(1) The Fontana postmodernism reader, ed. W.T. Anderson, London: FontanaPress, 1996, p. 18
(2) Ward, Glenn: postmodernism, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997 (teach yourself books)
(6) Postmodernism and Deconstruction. Texts of contemporary French philosophers [Postmoderne und Dekonstruktion. Texte französischer Philosophen der Gegenwart, germ.] ed. P. Engelmann, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990 (Universal-Bibliothek Nr. 8668), p. 224
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