Banski Square in Sofia

Nikola Petrov painted this square in 1912, in the part of Sofia that grew up around its hot mineral springs. The grand new Central Baths were rising there just then, in brick and pale tile, and would open the following year. Sofia had been the Bulgarian capital only about 30 years and was still trading its Ottoman streets for a European look, and Petrov worked outdoors in the middle of that change. He used gouache, a fast opaque paint that let him fix an hour of grey city light on the spot. That same year, in October 1912, Bulgaria went to war with the Ottoman Empire, the start of the First Balkan War, so this quiet crossing of ordinary people on an ordinary day dates from the very edge of it. The bath building he shows still stands, and now houses the museum of Sofia's own history.