51 Birds Flying Over (Diptych)

51 Birds Flying Over is a 1996 color lithograph executed as a diptych, with the count specified in the title functioning as both inventory and compositional armature — the birds distributed across the two adjoining sheets so that the flight reads as a continuous passage interrupted by, and resolved across, the central seam. The diptych format extends the horizontal sweep beyond what a single stone would permit, suiting a subject defined by lateral motion. Bozhkov's lithographic technique in this period favors sparse silhouetted forms set against tonal grounds built up from successive stones or plates, with the birds typically reduced to economical brush marks that register weight and direction rather than species detail. The work belongs to the avian series that recurs through his graphic practice from the early 1990s onward and that has circulated extensively through the Lessedra biennial system in Sofia. The numbered title — characteristic of his approach — converts an atmospheric subject into a stated quantity, locating the print within a body of work that treats counting and accumulation as compositional concerns.