The Painter Lazar Lichenoski
The Painter Lazar Lichenoski

Summary/Abstract: Lazar Lichenoski was born in March (28.03.1901) "on naked ground, by the fire, in ash, on a straw mat. I was growing on a bare stone and on a country muckheap located ten meters from our house". His father, Philip, came from a respectable family of builders where, apart from iconpainting and carving, the third Galichnik trade – building, was transferred from father onto son, on entire generations, who built a large number of churches, part of them in Romania, like Matej – Mote Velov Lichenoski, who "constructed the largest church spire." When his mother Magda "… slipped on ice, was deadly injured, and died young at the age of twenty two…" Lazar and his sister Stojana were raised and bred by his Aunt Rosa. The construction work took Philip to the area of Prizren, whereas Lazar remained in Galichnik, to live the day-labour life, and with his small hands of a child to toil in the service of the herdsmen and to obey their commands, so as "…not to eat bread for nothing." This primitive life of a day-labourer, not a little harder than the domestic life, at least warmed his soul with "that essential mountain silence, the limitless views from the peaks of Bistra, through the bases of Krcin and Stogovo, through all Albania, marvelous tinges and harmonies of blue and purple colours vanishing into the soft greyness of the Adriatic offing". All this triggered the desire to immortalise on canvas this unremitting love of the mountain scenery.

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