National Gallery on a Visit

Do you see me? Do you see how the pearls shine around my neck, how my brooches glitter? Do you know how I was decorated? Do not pass by without wondering about the beauty I was meant to wear. Do not look away without thinking about what I am saying with my adorned look.

In our hectic everyday life, we who put on plastic necklaces and colourful trinkets have forgotten meaningful words written in ancient times. In a series of stories, the words connected the magic of gold with precious stones, they painted dreamy truth about palaces made of diamonds and rubies, rooms of emeralds and tourmaline, statues of pure gold, crowns on kings' heads and high-born beauties. In this tangible shining ornament of physical splendour, jewels were given magical properties; with many voices they speak of thousands of years of hopes that their magical power will overcome pestilence, eradicate disease and forever lock death in a chamber with unbreakable door. This is more than a wish for the iridescent play of light on a glittering object.

How jewellery wears a person and not vice versa is a special story, completely intimate. The jewellery shows the character, not the position. Hence the lowered eyes or arrogant presentation, hence the embarrassment because one has to show the excellence of one's status and the convincing calm of those outstanding individuals whose personality shines brighter than the golden ornament.

Nataša Golob, PhD

National Gallery on a Visit is a collaborative project of the National Gallery of Slovenia and the Faculty of Arts. Two institutions, connected by the creativity and the humanities, invite us to enter a world where art, aesthetic superlatives and meaningful content intertwine.

Thematically rounded exhibitions in the entrance hall of the Faculty of Arts present groupings of selected works of art from the National Gallery of Slovenia. Without alluding to the stylistic, historic or content features, the works of art invite us to share a moment with this or that detail, to think about the meaning, hidden behind first glance and to sigh, "How pretty!"

"Why do I fade so soon, O Zeus?" ask'd Beauty the high god.
"Only things that fade," said the god, "I had made beautiful."
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, »Summer«

Author of the Exhibition
Nataša Golob, PhD, Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana

Project Leaders
Tina Buh, Ivan Pirnovar, Alenka Simončič

Poster Design
Matic Svažič

The exhibition was in every respect supported by the National Gallery of Slovenia and the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana