One of the leading researchers in the field of Medieval and Renaissance art – Assoc. Prof. Emanuel Mutafov, released a critical publication on the website of the Institute for the Study of Arts of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, after the Ministry of Culture solemnly announced last year that the third Bulgarian exhibition "Art and Culture in Bulgaria of the 16th – 18th Centuries" will be displayed in the Louvre.
Assoc. Prof. Mutafov expresses his dissatisfaction with the incorrect attitude of Charlotte Maury, designated by the Louvre as the curator of the exhibition. She is a specialist in Ottoman art and, according to Mutafov, the exhibition featuring Bulgarian artifacts will be displayed in the Islamic Art Department, in one of the Louvre basements.
Maury's idea is that the exhibition is dedicated to the "interaction" between Islamic and Christian art in the Bulgarian lands, so the chosen artifacts are intended to prove that in some elements Bulgarian icons and sacred vessels from the 16th – 18th centuries were influenced by Islamic art at the time.
According to Assoc. Prof. Mutafov, who had the opportunity to meet Charlotte Maury during her visit to Sofia in the summer of 2019, her selection is definitely biased.
Maury wants to prove that Muslims living on Bulgarian lands in the period of XV – XVIII centuries influenced through their art the religious life of Orthodox Christians.
“That's why Maury wants to draw parallels in the decoration of the Qur'an and the non-throne gospels, which, apart from sacrilege, is profoundly wrong from a scientific point of view, because Islam is an aniconic (non-image) religion, which, during the period under consideration, was aggressive towards Christians in the Ottoman Empire, “the scientist points out.
He also noted that "a similar exhibition concept representing Bulgaria in the Louvre could not be a cause of the modern Bulgarian state with its cultural and scientific institutions, which are tolerant and pluralistic, but within the framework of historical objectivity and scientific deontology ".
In his comment Assoc. Prof. Emanuel Mutafov points out that Charlotte Maury’s idea to seek "interactions" between Islamic and Christian art in the period XVI – XVIII century is not innovative and that the Bulgarian researcher Lilyana Stankova has a dissertation on this very topic. Stankova, however, explicitly demonstrates that the Ottoman influence on the Bulgarian Christian Art is severely limited and occasional especially with regard to liturgical books, their decoration and iconographic solutions.
