EXPRESSING THE GRIEF OF A NATION

 

“Milev was the first and only one to paint Bulgarian rural Christianity. In his painting are our souls, our manners, our hopes, our sharp profiles and rounded backs, our hard long fingers that grip the kaval  (flute) or ax hard.
In Ivan Milev I had what the civilization of Occitania (the region of Western & Southern Europe  where Occitan was historically the main language spoken)  gave me as a whole: the prayer in the cathedral and the flowering tree in the fields.“               Vladimir Svintila (Bulgarian author)

Our Mothers are Always Dressed in Black

The end of last year, I came across an amazing artist I had not heard of who had quite an influence on future generations of Eastern artists, in spite of having died at the age of 30. He is regarded as the founder of the Bulgarian Secession and a representative of Bulgarian modernism, combining symbolism,  Art Nouveau and expressionism  and icons in his work.

IVAN MILEV was born on February 19, 1897, into the family of shepherd Milyu Lalev, from the village of Shipka in Bulgaria.

 In 1917–1918, he fought as a soldier in World War I. Also in 1918, the same year that he finished high school in his hometown, he arranged an exhibition in Kazanlak.  He spent three years in the village of Gorski Izvor, Haskovo Province, teaching in the primary school in order to save money for art school. These years were extremely formative and significant for his work as his sensitive spirit was exploring the beliefs and legends of simple villagers. 

In 1920, he was admitted to the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, where he had three one-man exhibitions.

In the summer of 1923, he visited Turkey, Greece and Italy with a group of fellow students. He was introduced to the achievements of the Italian Renaissance and the Italian Baroque in Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. In 1926, he graduated in set decoration from the National Academy and worked for the Ivan Vazov National Theatre as a stage designer.

Afterwards he became an independent freelance painter and illustrator and he also painted frescoes. Generally living in poverty, Ivan had a brief 18-month marriage to opera singer Katya Naumova; their daughter Mariya Mileva eventually became an architect. Ivan died of influenza in Sofia 1927.

Regarded as one of the great masters of tempera and watercolor painting in Bulgarian art, van often created socially loaded works. He  explored social themes, religion and mysticism and his sensitive spirit  explored the beliefs and legends of simple villagers. 

Most of his life he lived in poverty, but that didn’t kill his creative spirit, on the contrary- the poor people, the villagers are a constant subject of his work. He painted them  as if merging with their beliefs and values, to observe and absorb their way of living. But he was after all the son of a shepherd.       (Painting to right: Madonna of the Field)

My favorite, "Our Mothers are Always Dressed in Black"  deals with the national theme of sorrow. To Ivan, the Bulgarian mother, both humanly and symbolically in the form of the land, is the epitome of suffering. After the wars, it was the mother who had lost most of all and the artist often depicted her grief-stricken.

Although the women’s faces are blank, their gestures, almost ritual in character, convey a sense of unbearable grief.

Ivan ’s “Crucifixion”  is one of his most expressive paintings, conveying a mystical and deeply emotional atmosphere. The  three women dressed in black are standing and crouching before the crucifixion in a crammed chapel, identified by the icons of two Orthodox saints hanging on the wall.  This work was painted just after another violent event in Bulgarian history - a Communist bombing of St Nedelya church during a general’s funeral. The black-clad women in the painting are thus alluding to the perpetual grief and death in the country and the resignation that these entail, but also to the endurance and endless piety of the simple folk at the face of calamity.