The works of Ivan Milev are the highest manifestation of European Secessionism, intertwined with Symbolism and Expressionism in Bulgarian art. At the same time it is rightly claimed that Milev's artistic achievements enrich modern European culture with the tragic intonations and visions of a great Bulgarian painter.

We must admit that there is hardly an artist in Bulgarian painting that is more "our own" than Ivan Milev. He is ours in spirit, in his links with the distant past, in his kinship with the creative soul of our people.

A boyar passed through our land - rich, self-confident and brave. Large were the riches he was carrying with him - the patrimony from distant, forgotten forefathers. Nine chests bound in wrought iron and full of rainments embroidered with sun and golden threads, nine boxwood baskets full of necklaces dipped in days of yore in the colours of the first rainbow, an arm made of wrought gold and a thirsty soul that once lived at the bottom of the Coral Sea. - That is how the story of Ivan Milev should begin if someone happened to start writting a fairy tale about him.