English
translation
F
ew artists have faithfully conserved over such a
long creative period - almost seven decades - a chosen
thematic mode such as the one that we can follow in
the rich artistic legacy of Lojze Spacal. Although he is
already permanently inscribed in the treasury of
world art of the twentieth century, andwhile his role
in the art of Italy, where he lived his entire life, and
his importance for the development of Slovene paint-
ing in the second half of the twentieth century have
likewise been recognised, every encounter with his
works brings new experiences. For this printmaker,
painter, drawer, sculptor, illustrator, set designer, dec-
orator of luxury liners and - as has recently been dis-
covered - photographer, creating was a modus viven-
di: despite a difficult youth and unpleasant experi-
ences in the interwar period and during the Second
World War, the strong will of the true 'man of the
Karst' enabledhim toovercomeobstacles on the road
to education and artistic training, with the result that
after a tenacious explorationof art he began toobtain
significant critical recognition in the first years follow-
ing the SecondWorldWar. And yet this artist-trouba-
dour of the Karst - a name given to him decades ago
- remained very independent despite receiving the
most important international prizes and accolades:
modest and solitary, disciplined anddedicatedonly to
art, always closely tied to his own people and the
place where he was born and where he lived. This
rootedness in the specific local atmosphere of the
Primorska region, particularly Trieste, the Karst and
Istria - this landscapewith its very specific cultural fea-
tures, its past, its multiethnic nature: characteristics
that cannot be compared to the characteristics of
other places and which are therefore so much the
more challenging for the sensitive artist - was in fact
the internal creative trigger that constantly, for
decades, called forth his distinctive contemporary
artistic language.
The influence of his artistic expression on the estab-
lishing of modern and fresh currents in Slovene art,
particularly after 1955, following his first presentation
at theModerna Galerija (Museum of Modern Art) in
Ljubljana, is indisputable and has already been
demonstrated. Already an established printmaker and
painter with an international reputation, Spacal had
experience of various artistic genres. Judging from the
information available, and from surviving works, it
was in the 1950s that he first beganworking inmural
art techniques that were far from common at that
time: mosaic and tapestry. At the commemorative
exhibition marking the centenary of his birth, a sur-
prising number of newly discoveredmosaics and tap-
estries are exhibited for the first time - and indeed
manyof themwere unknown even to art experts. The
list of all of Spacal's mosaics and tapestries proves
that heworkedwithout interruption in these two gen-
res for more than four decades. In collaborationwith
master mosaicists and numerous weavers he created
works that are monumental in scale in comparison
with his other works. Most of them resulted from
commissions. In his own way, then, he revitalised
these two artistic genres - known since antiquity and
extremely popular in certain periods of history - and
restored to them the possibility of traditional func-
tionality. Be that as it may, these two techniques rep-
resented for Spacal a special creative stimulus in the
objectificationof ideas,motifs and themes that he had
previously realised in other genres, most often in
small printmaking formats, particularly woodcut, and
drawings and paintings in various techniques. At first
glance ascetic, yet very powerful in expressive terms,
his 'poetics of the image' remains, on themajestic sur-
faces, a reinterpretation of something already said,
already recorded, but despite the repetition of already
familiar motifs it nevertheless amazes the observer.
In the multifaceted oeuvre of Lojze Spacal the 1950s
were a crucial period that brought a revolutionary
developmental change inhis painting - corresponding,
of course, to the progress of his long exploration of
his chosen medium, different techniques and materi-
als, and his growing reputation in art circles world-
wide. Decades of accolades and honours followed,
but this did not lessen his perseverance in the further
explorationof different genres of the paintingmedium
and the thematic challenges of his chosen environ-
ment in all its different layers. His permanent home
was inTrieste, although in the first years following the
war he lived and worked for several months in a
16
Lojze Spacal
Nives Marvin
Spacal’smosaicsand tapestries
The intimacy of Spacal's poetics onmonumental surfaces
