Izvorni znanstveni članak
SLOVENIAN SCULPTOR MATIJA GALLO IN CROATIA
Doris Baričević
; Zagreb
Sažetak
Matija Gallo (Mathias Gallo), born in Celje in 1762., is one of the last Styrian sculptors active in northern Croatia at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries. The year of the sculptor’s death is unknown. The Slovenian history of art tracks him up till 1793, but there is no documented or known work ascribed to him for the period he spent in Slovenia (in Ptuj and Ormož). Only data found in northern Croatian parishes describe his artistic range and sculptor’s profile. The main guidelines for Matija Gallo’s personal style development were the late baroque tradition of his father Ferdinand in Celje, and the classicism of the Ptuj-based master Ivan Juraj Potočnik. Those styles intertwine in his early period works, but do not interfere with the predominance of classicism prevailing in the last years of his life.
Matija Gallo lived in times of great social and artistic developments – in times when luxuriant and exuberant baroque forms were abandoned under the influence of classic antique statues and new stylistic trends, and replaced with strict, straight lines and reduced classicism décor. Those new artistic trends spread throughout Europe and reached the province milieu where Gallo lived and worked. The traditional requests for monumental and decorative altars and pulpits continued in northern Croatia, as well as those for public monuments sculptured in stone. Matija Gallo had lived in his native Styria, far away from more influential artistic milieu from which he could have drawn new impulses. Nevertheless, the spirit of the new age made a great impact on his work as a sculptor, and some motifs he first introduced in his works carried out in northern Croatia confirm that he was acquainted with, and knew how to apply some significant classicistic sculpture motifs from more populated milieu, such as large glorioles that replaced the usual upper parts of altars. One of the most significant characteristics of Gallo’s work is the tendency to always repeat the once adopted sculpture form, with minor modifications in posture and movements.
Although he was supressed by unfavourable geographic milieu and his own limited potential as a sculptor, Gallo refined the interiors of numerous churches in northern Croatia (Bednja, Goričan, Peteranec, Mursko Središće, Meljan, Mali Bukovec,Vratišinec, Nadkrižovljan, Kamenica, Sveta Marija na Muri, Štrigova, Kloštar Podravski, Vratišinec, Vinica, Mala Subotica, Nedelišće, Donji Mihaljevec,Čakovec, Legrad, Kotoriba…) by following a new style in making his altars and pulpits. Among Gallo’s preserved works, the main altar of the parish church of St. Mary in Bednja is his most beautiful work for Croatia, made as far back as the end of the 18th century, in 1792.
Ključne riječi
sculptor Matija Gallo; end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries; Styria, northern Croatian church altars and pulpits; late baroque; classicistic sculpture motifs, glorioles; wood and stone sculptures
Hrčak ID:
156768
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.12.2015.
Posjeta: 1.494 *