DECORATIVE PICTURE EXPRESSIONS IN YOVKOV AND THE CONTEXT OF JOURNAL. "KHUDOZHNIK"

Abstract

The article traces parallels between the decorative painterly ekphrasis, as I find in Yordan Yovkov's early prose, and the Secession painting published in the issues of the magazine "Khudozhnik". In specifically examined works, such as Mermaid's Night, After Spring, White Roses, various variants of pictorial ekphrasis, as well as the semantics of vision/gaze, are analyzed; the dynamics of the transfiguration under the influence of the painting "Jesus in the Fields" in the story "The Reaper" is examined in an interpretive analogy with The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Thus, Yovkov becomes one of the vivid examples of intellectualism and aestheticism during the Bulgarian Belle Époque with his vivid narrative.