Icons from Melnik and the Melnic Region, Bulgaria

The monograph Icons from Melnik and the Melnik Region deals with icon painting in one of the regions of Bulgaria that is among the richest in Eastern Orthodox art monuments. Included in the book are 39 works of art from the period between the 15th and the 19th century. In their entirety, these outline a certain evolution, illustrating at the same time the thematic variety and the abundance of style trends in a five-year period. Every icon-painting work of art in the monograph is accompanied by a detailed description, including all captions - Slavic and Greek. Geographically, the town of Melnik is a crossroads; its population was multiethnic. This circumstance is very important from a cultural point of view and predetermines the specificity of the development of art in the whole region. Icon painting is represented in the book with the historical development of Melnik in the background through the centuries, as this is the only way in which those reasons that led to the emergence and the development of such a marked artistic phenomenon as Melnik art would become really manifest.