9. Old houses in Plovdiv [1970s]

Dimitar Kirov - DiKiro was born on May 20, 1935 in Constantinople, Turkey. In 1959, he completed monumental and decorative painting under Prof. Georgi Bogdanov at the Art Academy. In the 1960s, Dimitar Kirov together with artists such as Encho Pironkov, Georgi Bozhilov - Slona, ​​Hristo Stefanov, Ivan Kirkov, Lyuben Dimanov and Ioan Leviev was part of a group of Plovdiv artists who were perceived as mediators of Western artistic influences in art. They are distinguished not only by their eccentricity and provocativeness, but also by experimental innovation, being a kind of counterpoint to the established artistic and painting practices of the period. We can see exactly such ideas in Kirov's oil painting from the 1980s "The Kiss of Old Houses". The complex composition presented with a rich palette of colors and shapes shows the impressionist and expressionist influences on the artist, as well as the abstract architectural motifs that are characteristic of his work of the period. The combination of bright colors such as green and red on the black background create the feeling of depth, and the blue accents emphasize the shape of the old Plovdiv houses in the background. Compositionally, the artist directs the viewer's gaze through thick lines that start from the bottom of the canvas to the center of the painting, which creates the feeling of a monumental urban landscape, with a street that takes us to the heart of the Old Town of Plovdiv. A similar oil and large-format landscape of old Plovdiv from the same period is "Plovdiv Rhythms", in which DiKiro again depicts his ideas about the city, rather than literally recreating reality. However, in that artwork there are clearly defined architectural forms of the old houses, the spaces between them and the road to them. The idea of ​​monumentality of an idealized idea of ​​the artist's beloved Plovdiv remains the same as it is in "The Kiss of Old Houses" - the dark blue plan combined with red, yellow and green accents creates an image of a fantastic and spectacular place that can only exist in the dreamy cityscapes of Dimitar Kirov. (M.Z.)

References

Marazov, Ivan. "Dimitar Kirov". 2015, ed. Contemporary Bulgarian art. Names.

Dimensions

width 97 cm, height 130 cm, custom 130 × 97 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom left, in grey, "DiKiro“

Dating

1970s

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