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Slovenian impressionists
– Matija Jama
NOVEMBER 12, 2005 by SONJA VADNJAL

and Vladimir Bartol and" his Maksim Gaspari. Artist for Lacemaking in Slovenia on Eusebius Sophronius Herman of Carinthia Boris Pahor
novel Alamut the People Unesco Heritage List Hieronymus Slovenian translator and polymath The writer of the oppressed This year
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in his novel Alamut in 1938. Set in painter and illustrator has been and of Intangible Cultural Heritage On… Sophronius Hieronymus (347 –… probably…
was northwestern Persia of 1092, it was continues to be immensely popular in
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t into of his own time, providing insight into legacy to Slovenian people, embedded
the rise of totalitarianism. principally in a huge postcard
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distinct style, and a pictorial and
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people of rural Slovenia in the 19th
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SLOVEN IAN L ANG UAG E

The pen in defence of the movement and

its aims
Matija Jama (1872-1947) came from a middle class family and of the four artists had the
most education, completing grammar school in Ljubljana and Zagreb and continuing his
studies in law. Perhaps it was this that made him the most dogmatic of the impressionists
and the only one to take up his pen to defend the reputation and truth of the movement

n Language courses in and its

CSF
Slovenia
terials Numerous courses for study of
Slovenian language, are provided by the
University of Ljubljana, at The Center
for Slovene as a Second/Foreign
Language, Faculty of Arts. Applicants
have a choice of short courses, a half-
year course, short winter and summer
school, personal tuition, and the annual
full year course.
aims. Outline Sample
Course
1 The summary of outcomes and
CSF Course Outline tables showing
objectives, outcomes and general
instructions to the course.
VCE outcomes, Unit 1-4 Stress, gender and number
As in English, stress in Slovenian can
assesment tasks fall on any syllable of a word :
máti(mother); govorìti (to speak);
zakaj (why). In the vocabularies the
stress is always marked. In diferent
forms of the same word, the stress
occurs quite on different syllables: forms for these relationships – which
nosìti – nósim, móž – možÃ¡,
č​lôvek – č​lovèka. A few words have
no stress whatsoever.
Declension Language functions
Slovenian expresses with its endings The following is an extensive, but not
not only number and gender, but also exhaustive, list of a variety of functions
relationships between the different which form a part of communication
words in the sentences (which in between people, and could be useful in
English are expressed by means of any teaching approach:
prepositions). There are a total of six
are called cases.

During his sojourn in Zagreb Jama decided to abandon his law studies in favour of
painting, attending private schools in Munich, and later the Academy. Influenced by
Millet, he dreamed of a Slovene genre, and did illustrations for the magazine ‘Dom in Svet’
(Home and World) all the while discussing the new painting with Jakopič​. But despite
sharing some common ground with his colleagues his experience of Impressionism was
different to theirs, being more doctrinaire and systematic to the point of scientific
analysis. ‘The main problem of realization,’ he was to declare, ‘lies in the right solution of
reciprocal tone relations. The ‘colour mood’ is something concrete, however exterior
technical form is given to this experience only by scientifically founded tone and light
painting. Artistic perception can only be subjective, but the expression and formation of
the means chosen should not be arbitrary since it is dependent on the existence of laws
of objective physical and natural reality.’

Jama was interested above all in the objective registration of natural phenomena: Nature
and its impression was his standard, but the painting was intended to make an impact on
the eye, not the intelligence. In this he differed diametrically from Jakopič​, who also
searched for the Slovene expression in art but whose work ultimately reflected his
experience of the object, rather than the object itself.

Jama considered that only by painting outdoors and in full daylight would he achieve his
goal, and remaining faithful to his personal ideal he succeeded in producing pictures that
are breathtakingly luminous, like ‘Stone Quarry’ 1907. Jama applied paint to canvas more
sparsely than did Jakopič​ or Grohar but this did not detract from the translucent effect.
Nor did the colour values of shadows and darknesses, which also had their place in the
overall scheme, as is seen in ‘Bridge on the Dobra’ 1907, and ‘Ljubljana Town Hall Square,’
1930.

Jama’s artistic evolution fell into three main periods. The first was Munich, when as early
as 1897 he declined the aesthetics of classicism and proclaimed nature the only true
teacher of artists. The second period was one of struggle as he sought to capture the
impressionist image of the world. The final period, from 1910 until his death in 1947, is one
of sovereign mastery of the method, like the delicate ‘Fruit Orchard in Snow’ 1940. His
interest was not only the landscape with its atmospheric light and variety of colour
effects, but at one with all it contains, as in the painting ‘Round Dance’ (Kolo) 1935. His
favoured themes were the Slovene and Croatian countrysides, and he was unsurpassed in
conveying their Arcadian character.

From 1940 until his death there was a gradation of this mood to forms in which
impressionist reality changed to a fantastic expressiveness. Nature viewed through the
artist’s temperament provided a new challenge, but was unrealizable in terms of pure
Impressionism.

In his time Jama defended the Impressionist movement against accusations of sterility,
comparing its achievements to the discovery of perspective; and while he admitted that
the group’s method could not be the final form of Impressionism, he held that what they
discovered about light and colour would be the foundation of modern painting.

Slovenian Impressionism

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SONJA VADNJAL
SONJA VADNJAL WAS BORN IN TRIESTE IN 1946, AND ARRIVED WITH HER PARENTS
IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA IN 1950. SHE GRADUATED WITH HONOURS IN
ITALIAN LITERATURE AT MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY, TRAVELLED EXTENSIVELY IN
EUROPE, LIVED SEVERAL YEARS IN MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA, WHERE SHE JOINED A
HUMANITARIAN AID GROUP, AND WROTE HUMAN-INTEREST ARTICLES FOR
MONTHLY MAGAZINES. SHE IS A PAINTER, MAINLY IN WATER COLOURS. HER
GREAT INTEREST IS ART, AND HAS WRITTEN A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON
SLOVENIAN IMPRESSIONISM.

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