Christmas Charity Party

On December 11, the Cultural Events and Programmes Department of Sofia Municipality and Bulgarian Diplomatic Review magazine held the already traditional Christmas Charity Party. The raised funds were donated to Home-7 for Socially Disadvantaged Children.

The Children of home-7

The party was organised in El Do Rado Restaurant in Goroublyane District, and its guests were distinguished ladies: wives of diplomats and ambassadors, businesswomen, representatives of the cultural sphere and journalists. The versatile cultural programme was arranged by Mrs. Margarita Donova, official at Sofia Municipality. The folklore group “Fonton” and the children from the National Dance School fascinated the audience, while Fanny Fashion House presented its latest collection of exquisite business and cocktail garments. Mrs. Margarita Donova had taken care of the sponsorship of the raffle: the cosmetic companies Regal, La Roche, Matisse and the international association AZUR.

Particularly charming were the children from ESPA School, who offered their charitable Christmas cards to the guests. The stalls with articles of traditional Bulgarian crafts attested to the unmatched talent, refined taste and immense kindness of the Bulgarian woman.

Bulgarian Diplomatic Review magazine, published by BULGARIAN BESTSELLER National Museum of Bulgarian Books and Polygraphy, did not only host the event but also made its contribution to the raffle with its editions de luxe, in five languages (Bulgarian, Russian, English, French and German) – “Fifteen Treasures from Bulgarian Lands” by Prof. Dimiter Ovcharov, “Holidays of the Bulgarians in Myths and Legends” by Prof. Nikolay Nikov, as well as the Folklore Calendar of the Bulgarians for 2004.

125 years since the establishment of the National Library

On this occasion an anniversary exhibition “The National Library between the Past and the Future” was opened on December 10, 2003.

120 years since the birth of Sirak Skitnik – solitary peak in the Bulgarian art of painting

Kiss of Judas, 1920

Sirak Skitnik (1883-1943) holds a special place in the Bulgarian cultural history of the period between the two world wars. Versatility, richness and fruitfulness characterise his activities as a painter, critic, journalist, first director of the Bulgarian National Radio, organiser of and participant in various forms of artistic life. Sirak Skitnik’s creative thinking and artistic culture match up to the European standards. His expressive, yet exquisite, style of painting constitutes a unique phenomenon in the Bulgarian and world art.

The exhibition arranged by the National Art Gallery presents the overall development of the artist. Here are the pictures painted in St. Petersburg (1908-1912), the remarkable paintings The Annunciation and The Monasteries dating from the 1920s, as well as the wonderful landscapes and still lifes of the 1930s. Mrs. Bistra Rangelova, senior curator of the New Bulgarian Art Department at the National Art Gallery and of the anniversary exhibition, thinks that his pictures from the St. Petersburg period are interesting “not only as paragons of the artist’s knowledge, but also as evidence of his sensitivity to the peculiar Petersburg sophistication of the style intrinsic to grand masters from “Mir Iskustva”. Sirak Skitnik is the only Bulgarian painter who during his apprenticeship accepted ‘the sophistication’ of the Petersburg tradition as a necessary and obligatory feature of painting.” This is evident in Houses in Petersburg, The Fontanka Channel in St. Petersburg, In the Room, Interior, etc.

Pictures from the 1920s, like The Kiss of Judas, Monastery and Blagovest, were considered even at the time as an idiosyncratic emblem of the style and spirit of “Native Art”. They were highly acclaimed, constantly exhibited and commented upon. Then the artist embarked on a short, but very interesting, series of landscapes, which can be united under the title “Town”: Urban Landscape, Town with Heads, Carnival Showcase, Town. “As a matter of fact, the urban motif occupied a permanent place in Sirak Skitnik’s drawings of the 1920s. There the modern town serves as a background, but also as a counterpoint to a large lonely figure in the foreground. The whole cycle of drawings of that kind is pierced with the conception of broken ties between the individual and the environment. Their version in paintings are the landscapes – deserted squares, surrounded by rigid massive cubes – buildings.” A new motif in our art, a challenge to the views of the ‘old’ and ‘rural’ Bulgaria.

“Sirak Skitnik’s lavish style of painting from the 1930s does not succumb to unambiguous definitions,” Bistra Rangelova says. “It constitutes exemplary modern art devoid of prejudice and complexes, it is a sample of creative and artistic thinking outpacing by far our national achievements of the time. A manifestation of this can be found not only in the quality of painting (Sirak Skitnik’s contemporaries were wonderful and extremely gifted Bulgarian artists), but above all in his interpretation of artistic themes and his creative methods. All his life Sirak Skitnik remained a painter, who overtly leant on nature but defied it. He converted the object into an independent motif of solely artistic dimensions. Their versatility posed a challenge, which spurred the artist into regarding the object from a different perspective, in a new light and hues of colour. His method blends analytical approach with sensual perception, which makes each of his still life and landscape versions both complete in itself and an element of the whole.” The pictures of the 1930s are an expression of a free sensitivity, unfolded in the magnificent landscapes Sketches and Impressions from Greece. They are an essential part of the “Sirak Skitnik” collection at the National Art Gallery.

With his broad outlook on life, intellectual charge and refined artistry, Sirak Skitnik rises like a ‘solitary peak’ in the Bulgarian art of the 1930s, yet commensurate with European art.