Janko Alexy — Woman of Kozárovce

Janko Alexy was a painter, writer, publicist and cultural life enthusiast. He is one of the founding fathers of Slovak Modernism. He was very active at both the cultural and the social scenes. For example, after the Second World War, he played an important role in the preservation and restoration of Bratislava Castle. Besides art, he was also active in literature as a critical glossarist of the fine art scene and essayist of Slovak artists’ life stories. He published over 20 books (short stories and novels) which often contain autobiographic and memoir features.

Janko Alexy’s oeuvre contains around 1300 oils, pastels, temperas and drawings. His creative program was not homogenous, different techniques and themes can be associated with different periods of his life. In his early days, he experimented with “various Secession-decorative, late-impressionist and exppressive forms.” [1] At that time, he was mostly inspired by folk art, legends, Slovak landscape and also the Slovak national folk hero Juraj Jánošík. “The 1930s are considered his peak creative period when his pastels were dominated by asymmetrical and loose composition principles, drama, colour and shape reduction and blending tendencies.” [2]

After settling down in Bratislava in 1937, his work starts featuring many urban themes – paintings of historical architecture, heritage sites, vistas, secluded urban areas, cafes and portraits of known people. In the 1950s, he designed monumental decorative tapestries and created stained glass windows for architecture (e.g. Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav Theatre in Bratislava). At the end of his life, he returned to rural themes, folk poetics and lyrical landscape.

Alexy’s work is considered a cornerstone of Slovak modern art and is generally accepted not just in professional cultural circles, but also by laymen and art enthusiasts. However, in this regard, Ján Abelovský says “…this might call for asking a sceptical question whether this unopposed acceptation is rooted in a true understanding of Alexy’s art or whether it is just a response to its accessibility, straightforwardness, general likeability of the mediocre part of his work, which, unfortunately, is the case of a majority of his portfolio.” [3] Furthermore, he says his “modernism”, just like every other Slovak painter’s in the first half of the 20th century when compared to foreign artists, is just a cherished local art history “myth”. But he also claims, “…nevertheless (or because of that?), Alexy is a truly unique, perhaps even iconic painter of our interwar period.” [4]

The painting titled Woman of Kozárovce from the Nitra Gallery’s collection is painted on paper in dry pastel. It is a simple profile portrait of a woman wearing a folk dress and a bonnet typical for the Tekov region which is located in the northern part of the Levice county where the village of Kozárovce is situated. The painting dates back to the peak period of the artist’s creative life when he, together with his colleagues Miloš Alexander Bazovský and Zolo Palugyay, travelled across Slovakia and recorded the landscapes and people they encountered. Therefore, it is an authentic image portraying a moment from the life of ordinary folk. However, in comparison with a purely documentary depiction, it contains a substantial amount of stylisation and monumentality. The shape modellation is simple and soft with rich but not too vivid colours, the background is vague and all these elements create a balladic mood of the image. Alexy’s typical loose handwriting incorporates soft “curls” that are in contrast with rather sharp contours of the face and the dress.

I have found a fitting description of Alexy’s painting technique on the website of the Nedbalka Gallery which I will quote here in full: “Some of its characteristic features include reduced colour palettes, simple shapes, even and rather static compositions and soft, but important usage of contours. The most characteristic factors of the artist’s work are its ballad-like properties, lack of narrative and details, emphasis on lyricism and leaving the theme open to the viewer’s own interpretation. The artist was able to achieve the smoothness and softness of his drawings thanks to the dry pastel that had become his most preferred technique. Alexy’s works are clearly based on reality, but the individual images are fictionalwith idealised and artificially constructed compositions. The paintings’ individual blots melt and blend with larger elements, creating more unified shapes on larger surfaces. The suppressed colour palate emphasises the soft, poetic tone of his paintings which is in line with the motives of contemplative, inactive characters depicted in a passive mood that resembles still lives.” [5]