The exterior north wall of the small parish church was once adorned with an iconographically interesting painting entitled Luxuria, alternately known as the Virgin and the Devil or the Killer of Infants. The painting had deteriorated beyond recognition decades ago; in 1992, the remaining coloured fragments were taken down and the original was replaced in situ with a reproduction based on Makuc’s gallery copy.
Depicted is a personification of one of the vices – impurity or lust – in the image of a beautiful naked young woman standing on top of a dead infant, holding her right hand to her head, a horrified expression on her face. Two snakes wrap themselves around her arms: one has bitten into the sinner’s breast, the other is about to pounce from the other side. In the bottom right corner is a Hellmouth in the form of a dragon’s head with open jaws; a long red tongue extends from it, twisting itself around the woman’s right leg, ready to pull her into its maw at any moment. At the top of the dragon’s upper jaw sits a green devil, which has wrapped a chain around the waist of the lascivious woman, a chain which he will presently pull to hasten the eternal damnation of the sinner. Older sources report that the year 1443 was inscribed at the upper edge of the painting.
All the paintings in the parish church in Visoko are the work of Johannes de Laybaco. The triumphal arch on the nave side is framed by a band with an inscription indicating that the painting was completed on the vigil of St Matthew (i.e. 20 September) 1443 by the hand of Johannes, a burgher of Ljubljana and son of Master Friedrich, a painter from Villach. The self-assured artist also depicted himself in the votive painting on the church façade: he can be recognised by the coat of arms of painters (three white shields emblazoned on a red field).
Johannes de Laybaco is one of the best documented figures of Medieval art in Slovenia; he developed his own distinctive, lyrical version of the International Soft Style.
Visoko below Kurešček, succursal Church of St Nicholas
Copy of a wall painting (Vladimir Makuc, 1956;
tempera, gouache / paper
on hardboard, 125.5 x 111.5 cm)