Marij Pregelj is one of the most important representatives of existentialism in Slovenia. He is
best known as a painter, although he was also involved in graphics, drawing, illustration, and
to a lesser extent sculpture. He has been involved in illustration since his student years, the
most famous illustrations being the Iliad and the Odyssey for Homer's epics. He became
better known, when he exhibited his paintings at the first exhibition of the Club of
Independent Slovenian Artists in Ljubljana in 1937. He was an epic writer who recorded
drama of the people. With his paintings, he mainly pointed out what is wrong with the
world, when we all close our eyes and do not want to see the truth, which we still know. In
the last years of his life, he painted mainly his hardships from the time he was imprisoned in
military camps, which greatly influenced him. One of these images is also The Unknown
Hero. During this period, the color red was extremely important for Pregelj. With it he
painted the drama of his paintings, and with contrasting green-blue colors to red he painted
rotting. The painting The Unknown Hero is supposed to dictate the secular theme of the
crucifixion, when the painter judges himself as the crucified Saint Peter. He was greatly
inspired by Francis Bacon, after whom he sometimes followed.
Although The Unknown Hero is one of Pregelj's larger paintings, it is not described in detail
anywhere. The moment I entered the third room of the Modern Gallery Ljubljana, I was
attracted by its colorfulness. After that, it also stood out in the hall where it is exhibited, so I
decided to analyze this very image. For the basic data with which I began my research with, I
focused on formal analysis. I researched the color, the composition, the space of the
painting. With iconographic analysis, I examined the motif and use of red, which is important
to Pregelj. In contextual analysis, I studied the cultural-social background, the artist’s social
and economic social position at the time of the creation of this painting.
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