Introduction

       The defining characteristics of the artistic works of Gazanfer Bayram are close to the ambient of the Med iterranean. In the first place, the intellectual reflection of the artist communicates with ideas that have been layered in the Mediterranean over millennia, but which are also present and active in the consciousness of the (international) intellectual and artistic elite of today. With lively respect, Bayram relates towards its multifaceted artistic (especially mosaic) shaping both from the past and the present epoch. He, like many before him, hedon istically absorbs the physical beauty of the Mediterra nean region. With such an approach to Mediterranean provocations, Bayram has created the modalities of his personal artistic expression as a creative project and thus, has harmonized with the art of other great mod ern/contemporary “artistic Mediterraneans” with their sensual pantheism, with the form-creating suggestions from their work (Monet, Matisse, Cross, Srbinovich, etc.). Thus, the pointillist technique which Henri-Ed mond Cross used in his Mediterranean landscapes is a unique lyrical analysis of light and in its visual-technical aspects, resembles the procedures applied in mosaics. The monumental works of the founder of the Vienna secession G. Klimt borrowed from Ravenna mosaics, and the mosaic procedures he applied to paintings shaped his refined neoimpressionist landscapes.

       Bayram’s art is related to other Macedonian artists (both of an earlier period and his contemporaries) for whom the Mediterranean was also a stimulus for mo saic works (cf. Boris Petkovski, Studii za sovremenata makedonskata umetnost, Skopje 2001). Thus, between 1940 and 1962, the painter Lazar Lichenoski created several mosaic murals with symbolic, historical, mythical and allegorical themes, constructed as rudimentary or stylized figurations. In the sixties of the last century, Borko Lazeski created (some have been destroyed) monumental mosaics, in which the historical and sym bolic themes were depicted with modernistic attempts present. After 1970, the painters Petar Mazev and Gligor Chemerski with their epic, dramatic expressionism, wo ven from past Mediterranean and from a contemporary artistic search, created numerous monumental mosaics, in which scenes connected with the fate of Macedonia were boldly and unconventionally realized (cf. Boris Petkovski, Sovermentoto makedonsko monumntalno slikarstovo na temi od NOB i Revolucijata, Skopje 1984; B. Petkovski, Studii za sovrementatat makedonskat umetnost). Before Bayram, Ana Temkova studied mosaic art in Ravenna for an extended period. Later artists in Macedonia created several mosaic murals with allegor ical and metaphorical themes which encompassed their Ravenna experience. It is true that other Macedonian artists studied in Italy, which had various effects on their work (cf. B. Petkovski, Makedonskite umetnici i Italija, catalog na izlozhba, Skopje 2001).

Gazanfer Bayram’s Mosaic Creations 

      Even before he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Gazanfer Bayram chose mosaic as the primary means of his artistic expression. He graduated in 1974 in the class of Professor Mladen Srbinovich, and earned his Master’s Degree (with a mosaic exhibition in 1976) in the department of monumental painting under the direction of Professor Bozha Prodanovich. Between 1975-1980 as a master-craftsman, he directed the in stallation of monumental mosaics (in several different locations and different public objects) of the painters Slobodanka Matich, Filip Filipovich-Filo, Mladen Srbi novich and Nedeljko Gvozdenovich. During this period, Bayram studied the classical mosaics in Macedonia (Stobi, Heraclea) and Serbia.

      Thus, Bayram acquired an enviable knowledge of mosaic even before he studied the Ravenna mosaic creations and techniques. Therefore, he established a complete creative relationship with them. Bayram arrived in Ra venna in 1980 for the first time on an academic grant from the Italian government in order to work at the Accademia di Belle Arte, specifically in the Department for Mosaic of Professor Paolo Racagni and in the De partment of Decoration or Decorative Arts. Given the fact that mainly classical Roman mosaics are found in Macedonia, Bayram studied these closely in the course of his later stays in Ravenna (1981, 1982, 1983).

       According to Manolis Katzidakis (cf. M. Katzidakis and A. Grabar, La peinture bysantine et du haut moyen age, Paris 1965), in Ravenna, the capital of the western Roman empire in the Vth century and the seat of the Byzantine Exarchate in Italy in the VI century, there were churches and palaces with particular mosaic decorations. Most often produced in local Italian at eliers, they were connected to those in the Christian east, with their well-known fundamental conceptions regarding the function of monumental painting in re spect to the two categories of the monuments. The unifying golden background and the immaterial light were a substitute for the heavenly firmament and for the picturesque landscape. The human figure came to occupy the dominant place in the composition– these always stand in frontal poses and are typified expressive, subjected to the rules of rhythmitized composition. Finally, the meaning of the space was destined to dis appear completely, although these figures preserve a strong plasticity. Bayram penetrated into the features of these “byzantinized” Ravenna mosaics and placed them intentionally into his own works along with the experience which he took from the Byzantine mosaic murals in the churches in Greece and in Turkey.

      Many modern and contemporary artists have been inspired by the Ravenna mosaics. I have already men tioned they are seen in the “Byzantine” period of Gustav Klimt (died 1918). The Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi placed mosaic surfaces throughout his buildings in Barcelona. Following WW I in both Ravenna (and the whole of Europe) the artistic tendency referred to as a “return to order” or “neoclassicism” (Picasso accepted it then) was expressed. Nonetheless, before 1945 Gino Severini produced mosaics in the futuristic or cubist style, which he applied while completing commissions from the fascist regime, thereby using art to evoke the heritage of the Roman epoch. Other Italian artists as well (M. Sironi, F. Kasorati, M. Kampilli, etc.) created (prior to 1945) wall and floor mosaics. In 1953 a large international retrospective exhibition of mosaics in small dimensions was held in Ravenna with high quality work by G. Matje, Sasinari, Afro and others. In general, following WWII many monumental mosaic works were created, from Mexico to Italy and Macedonia, thus such great artists as F. Léger (in Bio), M. Chagall (“Odysseus” in Nice, 1967), Sikeros, H. O’Gorman etc. which were often created by specialists in mosaic art (cf. Carlo Bertelli [sous la direction de], Les mosaiques, Bordas, Paris 1989). In Serbia, besides the painters with whom Bayram worked, M. Milunovich, A. Tomashevich, S. Chelich, etc. also created mosaics. The group of art ists “Ametist” (they also exhibited in Bitola) was active then, with aims related to those of Macedonian mosaic artists, they sought to create “harmony of the contem porary, the ancient and the early Byzantine mosaics,” also directed toward “classical art,” and toward the achievement of “absolute values” (Ljubica Miljkovich, Sazvuchje savremenog I antichkog. Povratak mozaika, Politika, Belgrade 1,2 Maj 2004).

      The Macedonian artists A.Temkova and G. Bayram, with their Ravenna schooling, mastered the mosaic tech niques which are nurtured here until today, have seen many exhibitions of contemporary mosaic, and them selves have participated in some of them. In Ravenna they created some of their own mosaics. Here Bayram‘s moveable Self-Portrait was created (mosaic, stone, Venetian glass, 1982). By a deliberated, cultivatedly produced, early-Ravenna approach, Bayram shaped his own appearance as a strict saintly image. Behind him in cheap indications are portrayed the silhouette of the Ravenna church Ava Maria and a row of birds, an allegory to travel and a “longing for the south.” Self-Portrait is also the earliest work in the present exhibition.

The Mosaics of Gazanfer Bayram

      Gazanfer Bayram has worked on various motifs in his works, by which he has varied unconventionally the artistic procedures “traditional” (expertly using arche typical models) and modern, all the way to some types of the abstraction.

      In a series of his work, Bayram has expressed certain aspects of space. Their structure resembles the cul tivatedly produced “stone fabric,” which are also often colored like traditional textile handicrafts from the Balkans. In some individual mosaic pictures (composed between 1996 and 2003) and a mosaic diptych (2000), Bayram announced his vision of the “cosmos,” different from other, figurative or abstract, stories of this phe nomenon. With the structures of his works composed of differently colored, differently produced mosaic material and ordinary natural stones, they suggest several of the possible “cosmic” situations. Thus, in the diptych Cosmos, Bayram, arranges amorphous and differently colored bands, both upper and lower, made from dark and light earthen-colored nuances, which are “separated” with differently colored snake-like “lanes.”

      Visually, this work is closely related to examples from his “earth landscapes.” In fact, the closest related to Cosmos are several richly coloristic separated works, fantastically created (abstract, informal) entitled Amazon and Amazon II (2002, 2003). Bayram “translated” the exotic attractiveness of the South American area in his “weaving” in which he boldly used unprocessed natural stones. On the other hand, the works Landscape (1995), Morning, the diptych Day and Night, Summer Afternoon, etc., Bayram executed with clearer, unequally large and variously formed “bands,” parcels and accented details, thus in Summer Afternoon the dark red, smashed “sun” is placed on top of the highest crimson belt, whose structure suggests rays, while in the lower ones, green, dark blue, whitish materials, etc. alternate. 

      Other works are composed in a different manner. Thus, with an accent to stylized elements are composed: Fields – Oro Dancers (2002) and Fields (2004). In Explosion (2002) the collision of different “informal” parcels is highlighted; in Strange Quarrel (2003) two round and two smaller ghostlike portrayals dominate; in Untitled (2003) a dark “snake-like” form is placed on top of a lighter part. In ancient cultures, from Greece to the pre-Columbian Central American, the ball is a solar symbol. From here, in several works (created between 1997/98 and 2004), Bayram too presents space through ball-like or different objects, these are hidden, entirely or partially, with mosaics and are placed on flat surfaces, onto which are “scattered” pieces or parcels of different material. Bayram alludes to the astrological signs, the elements of water and fire with interventions (deepened, relief) on top of the middle mass (e.g. In Space 1988).

       Earlier procedures were applied by Bayram in the mosa ics entitled In Honor of Vivaldi, (2001-2003). The Four Seasons by the Italian baroque composer A. Vivaldi is one type of program music, in this work, “the given” themes are evoked suggestively by music. Bayram seeks to visually harmonize with this exalted musical impulse, with differentiated coloristic and physical configurations of various mosaic elements, by the imposition of sug gestive details in it (means in accordance with “lyrical” abstraction), in order to induce the changeability of the seasons. In the mosaics, Bayram also expressed his aesthetic obsession with the romantic poetic works of Charles Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal (In Honor of Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal, etc. 1994-2004), these are examples for the mutual impulses of poetry and art. Painstakingly differentiated mosaic elements – by composition, by dimensions, order, coloristic features of details (allusion of flowerlike, “blossomed” forms, of plants, “gardens,” and the similar), by which Bayram transfers Baudelaire’s poetic language and “induces” “tamed” tension and agitation.

      In individual mosaics, whose intellectual intention and stylistic physiognomy are close to the symbolism and symbolist expressionism, Bayram is carried away by portrayals and images from the sacred area, which express special spiritual engagement. For their artistic transfers, the artist sought explanation in the Bible and in other well-known literary and artistic works. All of these are imbedded in Bayram’s conscience with equally semantic and emotive meaning and are transferred by differentiated mosaic means to “non-discursive” (non-figurative) elements, when, according to the art ist, these were the most appropriate for some of his creative reflections.

       Thus, in the work Mystic (1993), on top of a lighter, middle mosaic weaving on the base, are profiled darker, “non-precise” verticals (made from earthen-shaded materials) with a intrusively “disordered” contours. In the Enlightener (1994) on top of a light background, once again a darker, compact mass is placed, made from uneven edges and other details, in this way, Bay ram sought to allude to an enlightening individual. In Christianity, bodiless angels are god’s “messengers”, connect the earth and heaven, and embody all doers of good, are the protectors of god’s kingdom and of people from the fallen, rebellious angels, “Satan’s army” (the angle of evil, of death). These are the greatest en emies of many, beginning from their “participation” in the original sin. Bayram was influenced by the work of Anatole France Le revolte des anges in his creation of two variants of Fallen Angels (2001-2003), but he could also have learned of the revolt of the heavenly angels against God from the Bible. Before Bayram, this theme was depicted by James Ensore in the painting The Fall of the Revolting Angels (1888). In Belgian symbolism, the medieval conception of man floating between good and evil, between the battles of God and Satan/the Devil was present. According to Ensore’s modern pro duction, the fall of the angles is “garish” in color and a dynamic “disordered” image, by which (like for Bayram i n Mystic) nothing “recognizable” is depicted. Bayram’s two portrayals of the fall of the angels, full of under lined, dramatic tension of the expressionistic “broken” forms, is in principal in accordance with Ensore’s, but is woven with a different solution. Bayram produced his two mosaics with “fallen angels” in different ways, but in both the first (lighter colored, with “torn” impre cise forms and in the second (with dark red, compact and rising figure with “snipped” wings, “angelic” (or “demonic”) attributes are induced. But in both Bayram harmonizes them with the medieval Byzantine artistic idiom, and by his drawing cartography is found the “pleasureful” nuances of the expertly coloristic scale which is primary for him–he has studied nature in the Byzantine mosaic and frescoes. Thus, he also came close to the manuscript of G. Chemerski, scattered about in his portrayal of Saint George and the Dragon and in some monumental mosaics. Bayram’s third Fallen Angel (1997) is light, strongly crooked mass, with an elementary, schematically given contours, created on the base of different and differently “darkened” parcels.

      According to Christian teaching, every man is in the state of the first or original sin, and is a product of a “sinful race.” Later this idea encompassed Adam’s sin, the first “father” of mankind. The doctrine of original sin gradually became an integral part in the philosophical or religious doctrines which are described as the gen esis of evil. It seems that this is the internal impulse also for Bayram’s mosaic triptych First Sin (1997). The temptation and original sin was depicted in various ways in painting up to the Renaissance. A composition of three parts was the most common means applied: Adam is usually placed on the left side, in the center is the “tree of knowledge” with (usually) a serpent with a woman’s head wrapped around it, the personification of the demon/tempter; Eva is usually on the right side with the forbidden fruit/apple. Bayram too accepted this scheme. While the Renaissance masters (Paolo Uccello, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, etc.) depicted the theme of the original sin with the vision of Renais sance men, it was Michelangelo who most brilliantly depicted it with the naked bodies of Adam and Eve in the masterly fresco The Temptation and Expulsion from Paradise (Sistine Chapel, Vatican, 1512). Bayram, however, “clothed” man’s “ancestor parents” and in their compact, elementarily presented (in “ancient” poses) f igures, but composed with richly colored and intricate mosaic details, in the curled-up snake with an apple in its mouth, a modern sense relayed with the inspirations of Byzantine (mosaic, foremost) painting.

       In the mosaic triptych The Temptation of St. Jerome, Bayram presents this erudite early Christian saint, who left Rome for Jerusalem and there translated the Bible from Greek into Latin. Distinguished as a preacher, hermit and full of repentance, he is most impressively known in west European art in the unfinished Saint Je rome (disheveled old man, with a rock in his hand, end of the XVth century) by Leonardo de Vinci. According to Eastern Orthodox iconography, this saint is most often presented as an old man, or hermit, sometimes accompanied by a lion or with other symbolic attributes, with a rock and crucifix in his hand, and with a scull and an owl. P.M. Andreevski (in “Avtentichno likovno pismo,” 2001) called him “the temptation…” of Bayram, “Jerome’s dream” revealed his fear of the unknown, speaks of the chaotic, exoteric phobia. Bayram depicts the figure of Jerome in three “states”-allegories: his spiritual engagement of the earth, in the sky, and in the spaces of the spirit without the well-known “stories,” with differentiated beading (in three parcels) of finely worked and expertly colored mosaic material.

       One of Bayram’s characteristic portrayals is also the mosaic Zulu with a condensed “portrait” depiction of only an induced, dark-colored face. In some other mosaics (created between 2001-2004) Bayram (with restrained irony) depicts Suki, his linguistic game with the Turkish word “surat” (‘face,’ ‘person’). It is once Suki’s Salty Doughnut (the suggestive symbolic details are constructed by a ill-formed circular shape) then it is The World of Suki (in the upper lighter band, encircled with three concentric rings, the symbolic-heraldic eight-pointed star is depicted), next the Pigeons of Suki (lofty bird-like forms floating in space, perhaps as symbols of the human soul), etc.

Thoughts on Gazanfer Bayram’s Monumental Mosaics 

      The well-planned, highly nuanced synthesis of older approaches (ancient, Byzantine, oriental) with the logic of contemporary expressionistic and abstract (neo-in formal) painting, has allowed Bayram to completely develop his monumental works in Macedonia. Earlier, Bayram participated in the creation (in 1982) of a group monumental mosaic in Orfor (Canada).

      Together with his professor from Ravenna, the Italian artist Paolo Racagni, Bayram created the work Bridge (400 x 120 cm, 1997) in the Macedonian National Theater. The elongated surface of this mosaic with a slightly curved upper edge, is completed (on the left side by Racagni, by Bayram on the right) with unforced depic tions of (possible) details from bridge structures, they are woven with freely created mosaic details.

       As he discussed the expressions of mosaic art through the centuries, the Macedonian writer P.M. Andreevski (in Chetiri mozaichni pojasi na Gazanfer Bayram, Utrinski vesnik, 2001), presented in glowing terms the mon umental mosaics produced for the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia (December 1999 – February 2000). Each of the four arch-like segments/bands placed in the Parliament of Macedonian contains details from different regions. In the first band, Circles of Civiliza tion, the artistic works of the past are presented, the faces of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, the angel Gabriel, of “Christ’s first Parliamentarian Paul.” In the second band, Bayram evokes the tortuous history of the Macedonian state. Here such details as the Mac edonian anthem, the river Vardar and Skopje’s Stone Bridge, towers, the monastery St. Prochor Pchinksi are shown. In the third band, the wedding as one of the key events in man’s life is celebrated. He presents details of materials, customs and rituals characteristic for the “Macedonian” wedding. In the ghost-like por trayals are also present “has St. George set off to slay the dragon or King Marko” (Andreevski). In the fourth band – Macedonian Orpheus – the myth of Orpheus is glorified and he is shown “taming” the wild beasts with the melodies from his flute, with other Macedonian fauna found with characteristic Macedonian flora. Underneath the figure of Orpheus (also found in the third band) is a strong, stooped figure of a man with a cane in his hand. Andreevski has asked if this is Alexander the Great, one of Tsar Samoil’s soldiers, or St. Clement of Ohrid. The figures of King Marko and of Samoil’s soldier are symbolically evoked by two rosettes. These mosaics, with their exalted experience and artistic culture, are made from Italian colored glass and stones from all parts of Macedonia.

       According to Greek mythology, the master craftsman/ artist Daedalus built the Labyrinth, protected by the evil beast Minotaur, for King Minos on the island of Crete. Just as he had been banished for the murder of his young Athenian apprentice, Minos condemned Daedalus too and imprisoned him and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. Daedalus crafted wings from bird feathers with which the two of them would “fly away” from the Labyrinth, but the sun melted the wax holding Icarus’s wings together and he fell to the sea to his death. From ancient times, many artists have depicted certain aspects of this legend, among them were P. Brueghel (in the painting The Fall of Icarus, XVIth century) and much later Picasso (in The Fall of Icarus, an unconventional, “post-cubism” painted piece 100 m2 in the Palace of UNESCO in Paris, 1958), the Macedonian D. Popovski Dada (the sculpture Icarus), etc. Bayram has chosen an “optimistic” phase of the myth for his mosaics mural The Flight of Icarus (2000, 500 x 200 cm in the VIP Lounge at the Petrovec Airport near Skopje), while Icarus was excitedly preparing to fly to the sun. He is insinuated in the middle of the mural with a spread-out, dark earthen mass, from which the induced wings are shown from above. In the left corner, another ghost-like figure presents the allegory for all mythical defenders of flight, personified also in aviary form (of the pigeon). With several mosaic parcels, the Cretan palace and the labyrinth are induced. While the entire space of this work suggests nature, life-affirm ing, Mediterranean region. Bayram achieves this with carefully built surfaces from numerous, well-selected mosaic materials, “Italian,” and “Macedonian.” Such a artistic construction is in commune with the philoso phy of creation of some works by Monet (in his large “pre-abstract” delicate water lilies The Nymphs, 1914 1926); in several paintings from the first Fauvre period of Matisse, in which his coloristic hedonism is depicted by an analytic procedure which resembles mosaic. It should also be mentioned that Bayram has produced very rich scenography and costume design activities for Macedonian and other theaters and television shows for Macedonian state television (MTV) (1983-1990).

       I believe, finally, that by his works completed thus far,  Gazanfer Bayram has assumed a lofty place in con temporary Macedonian painting, “chamber” and sep arately, monumental works. Boldly and engagingly, he has worked on exceedingly complicated themes, belonging to all of civilization–he is truly one of those artists who have helped Macedonia to realize her place in international artistic currents.

Skopje, 2004

 Boris Petkovski