Stecak - Medieval Bosnian tombstone

Stecak ( stechak ) is a great simbol of Bosnian historical, cultural and indentity heritage. It is widely considered a high artistic product and testimony of medieval Bosnian civilisation called Bogumils. Nobody knows a lot about those people, their history and life is almost unknown but they left fabulous artistic thesaurus,not only with these tombstones but also with a enormously reach collection of jewelry, both gold and silver, some bronce also, coins... I think the most beautiful traces they left are some poetry written on tombstone, real pearls of Bosnian, Balkan, European and World literature , most of us never heard about. Bosnian poet Mak Dizdar passed a lot of his time working on them, translating, meditating and most of the things or facts we know now are because of his deep dedication and love and curiosity about this misterious culture. Mak Dizdar wrote a book titled "Kameni spavac" ( Stone sleaper ) that had a great impact on me and my inner being.
Here I start this interesting journey, I have collected a lot of material, a lot of photos and interesting documents I will public here little by little. These are my first photos are stechci that are in front of Zemaljski muzej ( National Museum ) in Sarajevo, Marindvor from where all this has started..... Let's see where we will go and where this dream will bring us. Stay with me my friends !

Ravenna 3

Ravenna 2

Ravenna - a bridge between Est and West

Ravenna, a wonderful and charming town in Emila Romagna, Italy is famous for its mosaicsdated from Roman and Bysantine period. This is a real jewel in Italian art heritage so different from any other Italian place. Here even today you can smell and experience days gone by so many centuries ago. I really have
travelled a lot and seen a lot but a place like Ravenna I have never seen. Here are just a few photos to let you make an idea of how precious this church is, these are  real masterpieces, a few of those you can see on the walls but there are also wonderful mosaics on the floors.... In my next posts I will show you some of them as well. Enjoy my photos, I hope you like them and if you ever come to visit Italy don't forget Ravenna a pearl of Emilia Romagna.

Bysantine icons

 Art of Bysantine icons is very old. Nobody knows well the exact period when they appeared in ortodox monasteries and it is possible that first iconographers were nuns. While praying and singing sacred songs as deep prayers they got inspired to paint. Most of the great valuable icons are just in monasteries. Icons were made to show life from the Bible, stories of Jesus, at that time only few people were able to read and write, great masses where widely illiterate. Some of the most beautiful icons are made in Russia and Middle East like Jesus Sina that is a pride of monastery on Sinai. Icons are very popular in our days too. Many new and gifted iconographers work in Greece, Serbia and all around Ortodox church domain. Icon brings joy and happiness in your home and family, people pray in front of icon, there are small icons you can bring with you wherever you go. They are of great inspitation for a short prayer and a deep meditation.
Today handmade icons are painted on wood, best quality wood with egg tempera and on 24 karat gold leaves. There are many techiques and styles but each of them talks a word of God and give us opportunity to get a great inspiration. Icons are not heritage only of Ortodox chursh, all Crisianity like them and use them in many important occasions.
I will return back to icons and introduce you to an extraordinary artist, my friend and great person who dedicate her life to iconography.

Paris, mon amour !

Granada, my favorite place

Here are some photos taken by me just to start and say welcome to all ! Wonderful and magic Granada, one of my favorite place.

Hello to all my future blog readers, my future, present and old friends. I am Zana, female and till the moment consider myself a simple and normal human being. Was born in ex Yugoslavia , wonderful and magic country that doesn't exist anymore but still in my memory. For more than 27 years I have been living in Italy so consider myself already italian but with all possible mixture of Balcanic heritage, slavonic deamy soul, extroverse character, sometimes loud and noisy sometimes silent. I love nature, all that is romantic, children, olders, music, all kind of expressive arts. Actually I am attending lessons of oil and watercolour painting, play sax and enjoy photography. There are thousands of other interests that are buzzing in my head but those I listed here are enough... the rest will be to discover day by day in my blogging.
I have choosed English as the main language for my blog but some croatian, serbian and italian can ne find here in the future, Wish me happy blogging and happy blogging to all of you !