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Art in Slovenia

19th and Early 20th Century Sculpture

Miltiades
(1927), plaster, 57 x 28 x 33 cm

NG P 916, National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana
An essential component of all collections of plaster casts of ancient statues were portraits of figures, both mythical and real, who embodied various desirable qualities such as generosity, loyalty, honour, justice, bravery or the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the common good. 
One such figure was the Athenian strategos or general Miltiades (554–489 BC), who was responsible for the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC). The Persian army was very successful at besieging cities, so Miltiades, who had the most experience of fighting the Persians, proposed a plan of battle that would instead see the opposing armies engage each other outside the city, in open country. The numerically superior Persians were defeated for the first time in decades and the Greek victory took its place in world history. 
This plaster cast is based on a Roman copy from the second century AD, which was itself based on a Greek original from the 5th–4th century BC. Several portraits of Miltiades from Roman times survive, all of them based on Greek originals. One of the best known originals was created by the sculptor Phidias (480–430 BC) as part of a group of thirteen sculptures which, between 465 and 460 BC, the citizens of Athens dedicated at Delphi in thanks for the victory over the Persians at Marathon. The group was one of Phidias’s earliest works. As well as Miltiades, whom Phidias placed between the deities Athena and Apollo, the protectors of Athens and Delphi respectively, the group included depictions of ten other Attic heroes. 
The bronze group was an embodied hymn to the divine protectors, the city of Athens, fraternal heroism, victory, wisdom and prudence. 
The decoration on Miltiades’s helmet is clearly visible in the plaster cast, with depictions of griffins on either side and a bull on the neck guard. Miltiades is said to have donated his helmet to the temple of Zeus in thanks for his victory. Today it is kept in the museum at Olympia.


Plaster cast; Roman copy

The Third Renaissance in Slovenia
The twentieth century was the third period in history that elevated Ljubljana to an active art centre on the Slovenian ethnic territory. This era is marked by artistic trends that originated in the world art centres, while only rarely symptoms of local tradition and continuity can be traced. Although the Expressionists are usually ranked as belonging to the historical avant-garde, it is necessary to distinguish within their group between continuity and radicalism. The long shadow of Art Nouveau – particularly in the expressionist oeuvres of the brothers Kralj, France and Tone, and some other representatives of this generation who studied in Prague – extends via the expressive pre-WW1 paintings by Fran Tratnik all the way from its hard core with Gustav Klimt and the Wiener Werkstätte of the turn of the century. The artists’ updated formal methods frequently carry on the patterns of allegorical interpretation. Not even Stane Kregar is completely free from it in his Surrealist manner which he adopted in Prague. The dominant line is paralleled by a more promising colour intimism of the older generation with the relationship between the Flowers, Fruit and Jug by Alexey Jawlensky and The Sava by Jakopič. 

Colour realism of the 1930s prevailed in the generation or two that came from the Zagreb academy (France Mihelič, Maksim Sedej, early Zoran Mušič, and Gabriel Stupica), and their counterpart Gojmir Anton Kos is an outstanding representative of pure painting which likewise drew on the orthodox premises of Courbet’s and Manet’s realism. Among the sculptors, Frančišek Smerdu belongs to this generation. These representatives, who with authority and teaching zeal settled in the core of the newly established Ljubljana academy, helped to spread modernist trends in the second half of the century, which were all to the end of the 1970s still influenced by the authority of Paris as the principal art centre. Younger artists, such as Marij Pregelj among painters and Jakob Savinšek, Drago Tršar and Stojan Batič among sculptors, belong to this eminent company. Representatives of Italian painting of the 1930s, such as Gino Severini, Giorgio Morandi and Filippo de Pisis, demonstrate that Slovenian art in this century surpassed the limits of regional ambitions as well as achievements.
OwnerBirth - death
Anonymous -
Stojan Batič (Trbovlje, 1925 − Ljubljana, 2015)
Mirsad Begić (*Glamoč, 1953)
Gvidon Birolla (Trieste, 1881 − Ljubljana, 1963)
Renato Birolli (Verona, 1907 – Milan, 1959)
Massimo Campigli (Berlin, 1895 – Saint-Tropez, 1971)
Filippo De Pisis (Ferrara, 1896 – Milan, 1956)
Lojze Dolinar (Ljubljana, 1893 − Ičići, Opatija, 1970)
France Gorše (Zamostec, Sodražica, 1897 − Golnik, 1986)
Rihard Jakopič (Ljubljana, 1869–1943)
Matija Jama (Ljubljana, 1872–1947)
Zdenko Kalin (Solkan, Gorizia, 1911 − Ljubljana, 1990)
Fran Klemenčič (Ljubljana, 1880−1961)
Ivana Kobilca (Ljubljana, 1861–1926)
Gojmir Anton Kos (Gorizia, 1896 − Ljubljana, 1970)
Tone Kralj (Zagorica, Dobrepolje, 1900 − Ljubljana, 1975)
France Kralj (Zagorica, Dobrepolje, 1895 – Ljubljana, 1960)
Stane Kregar (Zapuže, 1905 − Ljubljana, 1973)
Peter Loboda (Domžale, 1894 − Ljubljana, 1952)
Filip Andreievich Maliavine (Orenburg, 1869 – Nice, 1940)
France Mihelič (Virmaše, Škofja Loka, 1907 − Ljubljana, 1998)
Giorgio Morandi (Bologna, 1890–1964)
Zoran Mušič (Bukovica near Gorizia, 1909 – Venice, 2005)
Ivan Napotnik (Zavodnje, Šoštanj, 1888 − Šoštanj, 1960)
Cipriano Efisio Oppo (Rome, 1891–1962)
Veno Pilon (Ajdovščina, 1896−1970)
Marij Pregelj (Kranj, 1913 − Ljubljana, 1967)
Alojzij Repič (Vrhpolje, 1866 – Ljubljana, 1941)
Janko Samsa (Žirje, Sežana)
Jakob Savinšek (Kamnik, 1922 − Kirchheim, 1961)
Maksim Sedej (Dobračeva, Žiri, 1909 − Ljubljana, 1974)
Gino Severini (Cortona, 1883 – Paris, 1966)
Frančišek Smerdu (Postojna, 1908 − Ljubljana, 1964)
Matej Sternen (Verd, 1870 – Ljubljana, 1949)
Gabrijel Stupica (Dražgoše, 1913 – Ljubljana, 1990)
Saša Šantel (Gorizia, 1883 − Ljubljana, 1945)
Fran Tratnik (Potok, Nazarje, 1881 − Ljubljana, 1957)
Drago Tršar (*Planina, Rakek, 1927 – Ljubljana, 2023)
Ivan Vavpotič (Kamnik, 1877 – Ljubljana, 1943)
Alexej von Jawlensky (Torzhok, 1864 – Wiesbaden, 1941)