In December
2025, 200 years passed from the birth of Janez Wolf (Leskovec pri Krškem, 26
December, 1825 – Ljubljana, 12 December, 1884), one of the principal
representatives of 19th painting in Slovenia, and the pioneer of the
late-Nazarene style in our country. The Nazarene movement emerged in the early
19th century in the German countries as a conscious reaction against
academic classicism and decorative painting. Painters strived for spiritually
elevated art, inspired by Christian ideals and models of medieval and
early-Renaissance art. In the Slovene lands, Nazarene painting marked the
breach with the Baroque tradition and evolved into the prevailing style of
church art in the second half of the 19th century, also thanks to
Janez Wolf.
Wolf was initially
trained with house painters in Novo mesto (Rudolfswert), Ljubljana, and Linz. Between
1845 and 1854, he was employed as a soldier in various places of the Habsburg
Monarchy and Italy. It was exactly his years in the army⸻in the outposts on the Italian territory
in particular⸻that enabled him to come into direct contact with art centres and to
become aware of the difference between craftsmen’s imitation and artistic
creativity. Hence, after leaving the army, he decided to take up study at the
Academy in Venice (1854–1857), where he got acquainted with the heritage of Venetian
Renaissance, particularly the works by Titian and Veronese. This experience
exerted a decisive impact on his upcoming artistic production in which he
managed to surpass the craftsmen’s level of church painting, which still
prevailed in the Slovene cultural climate of the time.
After his
return to Ljubljana, Wolf almost exclusively dedicated his activity to church
art. His oeuvre includes numerous wall paintings and altarpieces which excel in
monumental design, placid narrative and emotionally engaged figures. His most
important painted ensemble is held to be in the parish church in Vipava (1876–1877).
These frescoes combine Nazarene ideals⸻spiritual concentration, idealized figures, and
uncomplicated composition⸻with Venetian colour tradition, plasticity and harmonious space arrangement.
Here, Wolf created an original style of his own which differs from both German
Nazarene movement and the preceding Baroque tradition.
The
National Gallery of Slovenia keeps three drafts for the frescoes in the Vipava
presbytery, featuring the scenes from the life of St. Stephen, the patron saint
of the church. Individual scenes are placed under arcade arches, on the example
of Veronese’s composition in the painting The
Feast in the House of Levi (1573), so that each scene is a clearly rounded
content-related whole which is also connected in a natural way to the rest of
the scenes. The greatest change between the drafts and the realized work is
obvious on the altar backdrop: the draft shows St. Stephen preaching, whereas
the fresco presents his apotheosis. It harmoniously links Wolf’s painting with
the earlier vault frescoes by Franc Jelovšek. The surviving drafts are fairly
rare examples of their kind, because the master usually destroyed them on a
regular basis.
A valuable
document of Wolf’s work also proves to be a study for his fresco Baptism in the Jordan on the northern
façade of Ljubljana cathedral, where he restored the fresco by Giulio Quaglio
that had lost colour. Identical details, and the squaring demonstrate that it
was a sketch that was employed during the progress of the work. Besides this
drawing, an oil study has also been preserved in the Gallery’s holdings.
The two
triptychs of neo-Gothic design, that have recently been restored, were acquired
by the National Gallery of Slovenia from the chapel of the Fužine Castle
(Kaltenbrunn) by way of purchase in 1939. Wolf painted the triptych with the Virgin
and Jesus already during his study period in Venice⸻both the form of the triptych and
the motif of music-making angels below Mary’s throne and full-length saints that
flank her figure demonstrate they are modelled on 15th century
Venetian painting. The names and portrait features of the lateral figures
allude to Wolf’s marriage to Nežica Sernec in May 1958. The triptych of St.
Joseph was executed in Wolf’s late period. If compared to the first triptych,
the rendering is here no longer as linear, the colours are warmer, the figures appear
more plastic and dynamic, the faces are more idealized. The Ite ad Ioseph (“Go
to St. Joseph”) inscription, carried by the sitting angel in the foreground, points
to Joseph’s intermediary role, since he is regarded to be the intercessor of
the dying and the protector of families. This framework message is complemented
on each side by a full-length figure of Mary’s parents.
In addition
to Wolf’s role in the development of church art in Slovenia, his pedagogical
contribution is also highly important. As teacher and mentor, he trained a
number of Slovene painters, such as the Šubic brothers, Janez and Jurij, and
Anton Ažbe. It was not merely the painting skills that he taught them, but he
also instilled a high ethical understanding of art as responsible and noble
mission into them, thus decisively contributing to the shift of social
understanding of artists as craftsmen to regarding them as independent creators,
and he also marked the transition of Slovene painting towards realism and the
Modern.