Art in Slovenia

19th and Early 20th Century Sculpture

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Gojmir Anton Kos

(Gorizia, 1896 − Ljubljana, 1970)

The Battle of Krško of 5 February 157
1940, oil, canvas, 200 x 728 cm
sign. in dat. d. sp.: G. A. Kos 40

NG S 2757

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The Battle of Krško of 5 February 1573 has a similar rhythm to the Enthronement. The noble army moves from the left towards the central group and cuts the peasant line. In the centre of the painting, a soldier of the noble army has mortally wounded a peasant in blue with a spear. On the right, the peasants can be seen retreating in panic.

The Battle depicts the first clash between the peasants and the noble army during the Croatian–Slovenian Peasant Revolt led by Matija Gubec. Near Krško, the rebellious peasants were intercepted by the Uskok captain Jobst Joseph von Thurn and defeated. Those who were not killed or drowned in the Sava fled back to Krško, which was then sacked by Thurn’s troops. Not even the women and children were spared.

The battle scene is one of seven images painted by Gojmir Anton Kos in the competition to design decorations for the grand corridor of the governor’s palace in Ljubljana (today’s Presidential Palace). The competition aimed to encourage the artistic historicisation of Slovenia’s past and was to some extent inspired by achievements in Croatian, Polish and Czech painting. Although the principal models for the compositions came from the (German) centres of academicism, artists such as the Polish painter Jan Matejko (1838–1893), the Czech painter Alfons Maria Mucha (1860–1939), the Serbian painter Paja Jovanović (1859–1957) and the Croatian painters Oton Iveković (1860–1939), Vlaho Bukovac (1855–1922) and others represented, with their monumental paintings and cycles, pan-Slavist examples of how to unite, through technical skill and ambition, the spheres of art, history, national identity and politics.

Exhibited at Puharjeva 9

ABOUT THE PERIOD

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.

ARTISTS

Owner	Birth - 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)