STAVRI KALINOV
THRACE
cold ceramics
Stavri Kalinov is one of the few living witnesses of Thracian Mythology, as the royal insignia and toreutics emerged from Bulgarian soil through the years of archeological excavations. Hence his fascination with Spartacus, Orpheus, the Iliad and Alexander the Great. Heracles and Auge... His cold ceramic series have included various mythological scenes on immortal glory, war as agon, the zoometaphors of the hero-warrior, the deity of the female warrior. So, forget the treasures of Tutankhamun, the Bactrian Hoard and Mir Zakah and immerse yourself into the secrets of Thracian Mythology. Centaurs, Magic spears, Winged horses, Flying chariots and even Bellerophon riding Pegasus battling Chimaera will all come to life!
ABOUT THRACE
The first historical record of the Thracians is found in the Iliad, where they are described as allies of the Trojans in the Trojan War against the Ancient Greeks. Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. The word Thrace was first used by the Greeks when referring to the Thracian tribes from ancient Greek Thrake. In Turkey, it is commonly referred to as Rumeli. Ancient Greek mythology provides the Thracians with a mythical ancestor Thrax, the son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace.
Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus).
Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance in the Iliad. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king.
THRACian warrior
or mythopoesis
The Thracian craftsmen created matrices, their own pictorial formulae comprising a number of elements of the actual material world. The genre reality gave way to mythological thinking. The revision was not to render the contemporary way of life, but to bring the present NOW to the prototype of the original myth. Since the Thracians did not have paradigms preserving the memory of earlier historical times through which to encode the mythological beginning,
they reversed the task... As if the original time was happening NOW.
And the realism lay in the ideological sphere...
Action is not the principal means of expression for describing the nature of the hero in the art of the Thracians, as well as in the heroic tradition. The actional code in Thracian royal insignia and toreutics gives way to the code of objects and attributes, while the biographic episodes were built on the actional code. The central role is played
by the dynamic characteristics of the plot - agonal confrontation. The use of the actional code
in the art of Thrace possesses its own specificity in that the goals of the rendered image
was for conveying the mythical essence of the action presented.
The incredible bravery of the Thracians was universally recognized. Paradoxically, though, the warrior theme is almost entirely missing in the wealth of anthropomorphic images of the Thracians. We can't see battles, victories, defeats, or captured enemies... Everything that makes up the glory of the ruler of the East is missing!
Written sources are obviously insufficient in trying to decode and resolve any issue of Thracian reality. It is necessary
to turn to the only sources that have preserved the authenticity of the Thracians - the images on the monuments, insignia and toreutics of their art. The images and scenes should not be perceived as illustrations of the mythical
or epic narrative, but as parallel mytho-epic texts written in another pictorial language.