The exhibition tells the story of the impact of the art of China and Japan on Bulgarian artists following the development of their acquaintance with the two Far East countries, which started with the help of printed editions in Bulgarian that came out in the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

Far Eastern art came from the West under the cover of and through the influence of impressionism on the work of Bulgarian artists, most notably Nikola Petrov. Art Nouveau brought the fashion, and the end of World War I brought the spirit of transience that would be all the rage during the 1920’s, only to be forgotten in the next decade. The latter trend was most prominently exemplified by the work of Ivan Milev, who was profoundly affected by the Far Eastern aesthetics. Timid steps were taken to get to know the two countries’ poetics better through Nikola Dzherov’s translations, while Nikolay Raynov’s interpretations helped shed more light on their art. ‘Bulgarians are the Japanese of the Balkans’ was a phrase coined at the turn of the twentieth century that would be sent into oblivion after the communist coup.

Curator: Krasimir Iliev