Albanian art

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Albanian art (Albanian: arti shqiptar [aɾˈti ʃcipˈtaɾ]) refers to all artistic expressions and artworks in Albania or produced by Albanians. The country's art is either work of arts produced by its people and influenced by its culture and traditions. It has preserved its original elements and traditions despite its long and eventful history around the time when Albania was populated to Illyrians and Ancient Greeks and subsequently conquered by Romans, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottomans.

At different times, Illyrian, Ancient Greek and Roman art developed in Albania and survived in a number of media inclusive of architecture, sculpture, pottery, and mosaic. The rock inscriptions in Grama Bay and mosaic in Durrës can be traced back to the 4th century BC and there are nonetheless ancient remains of extraordinary quality available at Apollonia, Byllis, Shkodër, Butrint and elsewhere across the country.

The centerpiece of medieval Albanian art started with the successor of the Roman Empire, namely the Byzantine Empire that ruled the great majority of Albania and the Balkan Peninsula.^[1] It comprised gradually of frescoes, murals, and icons painted with an admirable use of color and gold. Onufri, David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku and the Zografi Brothers are the most eminent representatives of medieval Albanian art. The Epitaph of Gllavenica, an epitaph written on a shroud, is one of the best artifacts of this genre in the Balkans.

During the Ottoman invasion of Albania, many Albanians migrated out of the area to escape either various socio-political and economic difficulties. Among them, the medieval painters Marco Basaiti and Viktor Karpaçi, sculptor and architect Andrea Nikollë Aleksi and art collector Alessandro Albani.^[2][3] Those who resided in the Venetian Empire established the Scuola degli Albanesi that served as a cultural and social center for Albanians.^[4]

The Albanian Renaissance, in the field of arts, developed for the first time since the Middle Ages in rather different directions especially toward the occident and was initially dominated by the central figure of Kolë Idromeno. Painters were searching for meaning, traditions and identity, leading initially to realism and later with impressionism.