Matej Sternen (Verd, 1870 – Ljubljana, 1949) was of an extraordinary lively
mind and was creatively curious, which certainly gave rise to the fact that he
expressed himself in different painting media. He was the only one of the
Slovenian impressionists to have completed academy studies and he kept to a
high level of technical performance in his work all his life. In his own words,
in addition to attractive motifs he always looked for technical problems. Besides
oil painting he also mastered drawing and watercolour, he experimented in
printmaking, was engaged in photography, and was particularly enthusiastic
about wall painting.
Sternen's excellent technological skill and his desire to explore are
closely related to his engagement as a restorer, to which copying also belongs
somehow. Sternen was completely dedicated to restoration activity which he held
as a profession, long before Professor Mirko Šubic formally declared it as such.
He tackled the restoration task from a research-painting starting point, and at
the same time he was able to curb his creative authorial charge. Through his
perfect painting manner he managed to approach intuitively older works of art and
create an authentic impression of painted surfaces. He strived for the least
possible reconstruction interventions which, on the one hand, can be read as a
historical document and, on the other hand, do not diminish the overall
aesthetic perception of the monument. Substantially contributing to Sternen developing
such an extremely modern restoration approach was Professor France Stelè
(1886‒1972), the two of whom became an inseparable conservation-restoration duo
after 1910.
Sternen acquired his first experiences in restoration practice with
Alojzij Šubic when the two painters successfully renovated frescoes in the
church at Skaručna in 1898. In the following years, he restored for the K.K. Zentralkommission für Denkmalpflegeof Vienna and after the First World War for the Office (later: Institute) for
Monument Protection in Ljubljana. Together
with Stelè, he was active
as a restorer on the entire Slovenian territory from Carniola to Prekmurje
(Over-Mur). Being highly experienced in restoration of both frescoes and
easel paintings, it is no wonder that he was immediately employed as a restorer
and conservator in the newly-founded National Gallery in Ljubljana and actively
participated in the staging of its first permanent collection. In this role, he dealt with the issue
of copying several times, mainly in the 1920s. Hence, the National Gallery of
Slovenia keeps several of his copies of relevant works from Slovenian as well
as European art treasury from different historical periods, carried out in
different techniques.
As early as 1921, Sternen made his
first copies of medieval frescoes for the later Gallery’s collection of medieval
copies. It gradually increased in the following few decades and was meant to
present Gothic wall paintings in the exhibition rooms as completely as possible.
Sternen copied two Passion motifs from the old parish Church of St. Oswald at
Zgornje Jezersko: Ecce homo and The Death of Judas (also Hanged Judas). He decided to execute
them as authentically as possible, so he copied on a plaster ground in a true
fresco technique. The original scenes are painted on the chancel arch. At that
time, Sternen was also engaged in the restoration of the frescoes in the stated
church. It follows from Stelè’s conservation report that only the heads of
Christ and Judas in the Kiss of Judas scene are worth mentioning among the reconstructed parts. This might have been
the reason why Sternen, most likely in agreement with Stelè, chose for copying the
scenes of Ecce homo (only the group
with Christ) and the Death of Judas, since
he focused on the faces of the central characters in the main reconstruction of
the frescoes in the church. Hence, the copies made for the Gallery could have
served him as a special preparatory work for the restoration process carried
out in the field.
At the time when Sternen was finishing his most extensive fresco
commission – the ceiling paintings on the vaults of the nave and the
presbytery in the Franciscan church in Ljubljana – he painted two more notable
copies, this time in the technique of tempera on panel. In 1936, Izidor Cankar (1886−1958) commissioned two copies from him for
his diplomatic residence in Argentina: of the side wings of St. Sebastian Altarpiece
painted in 1516 by Hans Holbein the Elder (1465−1524). The images of the female saints, St.
Elisabeth and St. Barbara, are
another manifestation of Sternen’s homage to painting tradition and of his
experimental attitude to painting technique. We are impressed by charming,
brilliant colour handling of details and emphasized contours, so that the
copies first seem to be genuine northern Renaissance works of art. It takes
another closer look to realize that it is a matter of Sternen’s painting
dexterity in using modern approaches to achieve the effects of traditional
procedures and techniques.