RECEPTION OF EXPRESSIONISM IN SLOVENE ART HISTORY: TRANSFORMATIONS 1979–2018

Abstract

The article deals with the art historical reception of expressionism in Slovenia in three canonical art history publications: Slovensko ekspresionistično slikarstvo in grafika: Duhovno usmerjena umetnost dvajsetih let dvajsetega stoletja (Slovene Expressionist Painting and Graphic Arts: The Spiritually-oriented Art of the 1920s) (1979) by Milček Komelj, PhD, Ekspresionizem in nova stvarnost na Slovenskem 1920–1930 (Expressionism and Social Realism in Slovenia 1920–1930) (1986) published by the Museum of Modern Art and written by a group of Slovene researchers and Obrazi ekspresionizma / odtisi duha (Faces of Expressionism / Footprints of the Spirit) (2018) published by Galerija Božidar Jakac and written by an international group of researchers. The idea, what, when, how, why, and even where, Slovene expressionism occurs, is quite diverse in the three key monographs on Slovene expressionism. The abstraction, selection and construction procedures, which are the method for the creation of each individual art historical text, turn out to be are dependent on many extrinsic and intrinsic circumstances. The article concludes that expressionism in 1979 was viewed through the researcher’s personal view of the world, in 1986 it served as a subbase of national art, and in 2018 it is placed in the fragile network of international connections, which is fused on the outskirts of the centres of the world of art.