page_title: Albanians
section_title: Painting
hierarchical_section_title: Albanians / Culture / Visual arts / Painting
caption_attribution_description: Български: Св. Седмочисленици и св. Йоан Кукузел. Стенопис от 1744 г. от главния храм на манастира в Арденица (днешна Албания), изграден върху основите на черквата "Св. Троица", строена с ктиторството на св. цар Борис Покръстител. Изписан от братята Константин и Анастас Зограф от Корча.
context_page_description: The Albanians are an ethnic group native to the Balkan Peninsula and are identified by a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia as well as in Croatia, Greece, Italy and Turkey. They also constitute a diaspora with several communities established across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.
  The ethnogenesis of the Albanians and their language is a matter of controversy among historians and ethnologists. They are mentioned for the first time in historical records from the 11th century as a tribe living across the mountainous region of the Mat and Drin rivers in the Western Balkans. The Albanian diaspora has its roots in migration from the Middle Ages initially across Southern Europe and eventually across wider Europe and the New World. Between the 13th and 18th centuries, sizeable numbers migrated to escape various social, economic or political difficulties. One population, the Arvanites, settled Southern Greece between the 13th and 16th centuries assimilating into and now self-identifying as Greeks.
context_section_description: The earliest preserved relics of visual arts of the Albanian people are sacred in nature and represented by numerous frescoes, murals and icons which has been created with an admirable use of color and gold. They reveal a wealth of various influences and traditions that converged in the historical lands of the Albanian people throughout the course of the centuries. 
  The rise of the Byzantines and Ottomans during the Middle Ages was accompanied by a corresponding growth in Christian and Islamic art often apparent in examples of architecture and mosaics throughout Albania. The Albanian Renaissance proved crucial to the emancipation of the modern Albanian culture and saw unprecedented developments in all fields of literature and arts whereas artists sought to return to the ideals of Impressionism and Romanticism.
  Onufri, founder of the Berat School, Kolë Idromeno, David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku and the Zografi Brothers are the most eminent representatives of Albanian art. Albanians in Italy and Croatia have been also active among others the Renaissance influenced artists such as Marco Basaiti, Viktor Karpaçi and Andrea Nikollë Aleksi. In Greece, Eleni Boukouras is noted as being the first great female painter of post independence Greece.
  In 1856, Pjetër Marubi arrived in Shkodër and established the first photography museum in Albania and probably the entire Balkans, the Marubi Museum. The collection of 150,000 photographs, captured by the Albanian-Italian Marubi dynasty, offers an ensemble of photographs depicting social rituals, traditional costumes, portraits of Albanian history.
  The Kulla, a traditional Albanian dwelling constructed completely from natural materials, is a cultural relic from the medieval period particularly widespread in the southwestern region of Kosovo and northern region of Albania. The rectangular shape of a Kulla is produced with irregular stone ashlars, river pebbles and chestnut woods, however, the size and number of floors depends on the size of the family and their financial resources.
caption: Medieval icon by Kostandin and Athanas Zografi in the Monastery of Ardenica. It illustrates the seven saints Clement, Naum, Sava, Angelar, Gorazd, Cyril, Method and the Albanian Jan Kukuzeli.
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