This is one I like. Here was a small poor country that was constantly fighting it’s neighbors and yet through all that an artist arises that is both part of some of the big international movements going on without losing his sense of where he came from and the simple beauty all around if you take time to look. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
I have been doing a lot of these 1960s and up art stamps lately where improvements in printing finally allow an art image to be appreciated on a stamp. I think it becomes more meaningful when the art is from the country issuing the stamp. A stamp is a way for a country to present itself to the wider world and where the collector can spot both what we have in common and also where a country like Bulgaria maybe does some things a little differently. The Bulgarian peasant maiden girl is presented a little differently here then a French Fauvist artist would have presented a French one.
Todays stamp is issue A1079, a 30 Stotinki stamp issued by Bulgaria on March 8th, 1982. It was a six stamp and one souvenir sheet issue remembering the birth century of artist Vladimir Dimitrov. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
As the stamp reminds, Dimitrov was born in 1882 in a small town in western Bulgaria. As a young adult, he was working as a clerk in Sophia when he decided to enroll in drawing classes. Though he at first was drawing in realistic style it was obvious to the art community what a talent had been discovered. He was employed by the government as an official war artist both for the Balkan wars and World War I. Post war he was able to travel throughout Europe exposing himself to the new Fauvist style coming out of France that emphasized bright colors and less comitment to realism. He also made contacts through which he was able to sell many of his paintings for a lot of money.
Here is where the story changes from what you might expect. Dimitrov by his nature was a hippy. He gave away vast amounts of the money he was making and returned to his home village to live almost as a chaste monk and paint Fauvist landscapes. He didn’t shave or cut his hair, did not smoke or drink, and practiced veganism.
Dimitrov was a follower of the Tolstoyan movement named after Russian author Leo Tolstoy. They didn’t believe in participating in any government or church as they were considered hopelessly corrupt. They were also pacifists that followed the simple teachings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. The movement saw several communes pop up around the world that did not do well. The rich, educated, followers may have desired to get back to nature, but had no skills in agriculture.
The change to a communist government in Bulgaria in 1946 made Dimitrov back away from some of his idealism. He even went so far as to join the communist party and recast one of his most famous earlier paintings of Madonna as a girl from the village of Shishkovzi. His accommodation allowed the regime to celebrate Bulgaria’s most famous artist in his last years.
Well my drink is empty and Dimitrov would not want me to have another. Come again on Monday when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.