Православно изкуство във Видинско. Предварителни наблюдения
Orthodox Art in the Region of Vidin. Preliminary Observations

Summary/Abstract: The monuments of Christian art in the region of Vidin are understudied. Most of the extant churches in that region have been built in the nineteenth century. In the second half of the eighteenth century, high-class icons by anonymous Athonite icon-painters appeared meant in all likelihood for two iconostases in Vidin, a seat of a metropolitanate. Other icons from Jerusalem-based workshops were donated by worshipers. Late Russian icons piq​ue researchers’ interest with some replicas of venerated wonderworking icons of the most Holy Mother of God kept at churches and museum collections across the region. A great deal of the icons and part of church murals in the region of Vidin have been painted by masters of the Art School of Triavna with some of them signed by Georgi Dimitrov and Nikola Genkov and his sons Nikolay and Georgi. The Wallachians living in the local villages used to commission painters from Craiova to decorate their churches. There are extant icons signed by Constantin, Petre and Costache Petrescu from Craiova. Painters of the Art School of Samokov would work in the region of Vidin rather episodically: famous icon-painter Dimitar Hristov made an iconostasis for the Metropolitan Church of St Demetrios in the 1850s. It was painters of the Art School of Debar that have more often than not worked in the area since the 1860s: Dičo Krstev from the village of Tresonče, later his son Avram and grandson Krsta; Petre Debranec from the same village; Evgenij Pop Kuzmanov from Galičnik, Danail Nestorov from the same village among others. Master builders from the region of Debar were commissioned for the construction of some of the churches. As the region of Vidin failed to form a local school of painting in its own right, it became a venue for painters from across the Balkans.

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