Mythology series

Systematic Overview of the “Mythology” Series (2007)

The entire series of canvases (all executed in a unified, deliberate 50×70 cm format) functions as a complete visual polyptych. Pristavec does not choose random ancient stories; his selection of motifs forms a carefully calibrated dramatic arc of human existence, suspended between the low (earthly/animalistic) and the high (spiritual/divine):

  • Primal Destruction and Conflict: The Battle of the Minotaurs (Boj minotavrov) – a clash with one’s own shadows and suppressed animal nature.

  • Passive Transformation and Erotic Mysticism: Danaë (Danaja) – the opening of the human body to an external, divine influence; the transformation of matter through light.

  • Escapism and Elevating the Spirit: The Rider of the Winged Horse (Jezdec krilatega konja) – Pegasus as a symbol of spiritual liberation, soaring above mundane reality and gravity.

  • Self-Reflection and the Demiurgic Space: The Studio (Atelje) – the bridge between the mythic world and the painter’s reality; the labyrinthine space where these myths actually come alive.

Together, these works form a closed system—a visual essay on the human condition.

Placement in the General and Spatial Context of European Culture

Pristavec’s work does not emerge in a vacuum; rather, it directly echoes European spiritual and art history.

General (Historical-Ideological) Context:

European culture has cyclically returned to antiquity since the Renaissance, but each epoch looks for something different in myth. In the early 21st century, Pristavec no longer uses myths romantically or neoclassically (as tales of external heroes). Instead, he approaches them through the lens of psychological archetypes (in the Jungian sense). For him, myth is a universal code for recurring internal human states—anxiety, passion, and the longing for the transcendental. This places him in line with great European modernists (like Pablo Picasso with his obsessive depictions of the Minotaur, or Francis Bacon), who saw in ancient allegories the cry of the modern, existentially fractured human.

Spatial (Geographical-Cultural) Context:

The Slovenian cultural space occupies a specific position at the crossroads of Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) and the Mediterranean. This duality is strongly felt in these canvases:

  • Central European Influence: Present through the dark, expressive drama, a sense of existential weight, anxiety (angst), and the fragmentation of the body. This is the heritage of Austrian and German Expressionism, where the canvas serves as a battlefield for the artist’s psyche.

  • Mediterranean Influence: Manifested in the choice of brighter, vital color accents and, of course, the themes themselves. Classical Greek myths introduce elements of light, vitalism, and fluidity that soften Central European rigidity.

Connecting this to European movements of the late 20th century, the Mythology series strongly echoes Italian Transavantgarde (Transavanguardia) and the German “New Wild Ones” (Neue Wilde). In the 1980s, these artists returned to figuration, myth, and wild, spontaneous brushwork as a rebellion against cold conceptualism. Pristavec replicates and builds upon this approach in 2007—structuring wild expressionism and keeping it in a tense equilibrium with pure abstraction.

Analysis of Motifs and Style

Motif Analysis: From Beast to Creator

The motifs in this series are defined by a continuous dualism between the physical and the spiritual:

  • The Body as a Battlefield: In both the Minotaur and Danaë, we encounter a radical physicality. The Minotaur’s body is trapped in destruction, while Danaë’s is caught in ecstasy. However, both states blur clear anatomical boundaries—the body becomes fluid.

  • The Spirit as Movement: The Winged Horse and The Studio represent a shift away from pure physics. The horse is a vector of upward movement (elevation), while the studio is a sacral space of creation where material objects transform into visual thoughts.

Stylistic Analysis: Controlled Chaos

Pristavec’s style in this phase is a masterclass in gestural expressionism balanced by a strong sense of structural order:

  • Brushstroke and Texture: The brushstrokes are fast, visible, and rhythmic. The painter does not smooth out the surface; the paint has a tactile, material presence (impasto), giving the works a raw, visceral energy. The surface feels alive, almost restless.

  • Color Palette: He utilizes a contrast between earthy, heavy tones (which anchor the figures in materiality) and flashes of pure, saturated light (the gold in Danaë, or the dynamic blue and red accents in the battles). Color does not describe the realistic state of objects but rather their energetic value.

  • Decomposition of Form: This is the key stylistic element. Figures are not confined by clear outlines (contours). The edges of bodies blend into the background. Pristavec uses a technique where space penetrates the figure and vice versa—ensuring the background is no longer just a backdrop but an active participant in the drama, transforming form into pure rhythm.

Through this methodology, we can see that the Mythology series is not merely an illustration of Greek fables, but a deeply considered cultural artifact. In it, Pristavec uses a synthesis of Central European expressionism and Mediterranean myth to explore the boundaries of human nature.

Works made during the creation of Mythology series

Analyzing this concurrent group of canvases from 2007 reveals a profound thematic expansion. While maintaining the same raw, expressive style and format, Janez Pristavec shifts his focus from classical Greco-Roman mythology to Judeo-Christian iconography, hagiography, and eschatology.

Remarkably, these works are not a departure from his mythological cycle; instead, they act as its spiritual and psychological mirror.

Systematic Overview of the Sacred and Sacrificial Works (2007)

If the previous series explored human nature through ancient archetypes, this group anchors the human condition within the ultimate European narratives of sacrifice, salvation, and cosmic catastrophe. The works can be clustered into three core thematic pillars, synthesized by a singular master-sketch canvas:

  • The Christological Cycle (Crucifixion and Pietà Variants): Seen in [source: 1, 4, 5, 7]. Pristavec obsesses over the Crucifixion (Križanje), producing multiple variants. He focuses entirely on the raw physical and existential trauma of the event, capturing the exact moment of Christ’s ultimate cry of abandonment: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) [source: 1, 4, 5].

  • The Chivalric/Hagiographical Myth (St. George / Šentjur): Seen in [source: 2, 3, 8]. The battle between Saint George (Šentjur) and the dragon represents the classic psychological battle between light and darkness, order and chaos.

  • The Eschatological Vision (The Four Horsemen): Seen in [source: 9]. Štirje apokaliptični jezdeci depicts the biblical agents of the end times—Conquest (Zmaga), War (Vojna), Famine (Lakota), and Pestilence/Death (Kuga Smrt).

  • The Syncretic Blueprint: [Source: 6] is perhaps the most conceptually vital canvas. It acts as an explicit bridge, mapping Helios’ Chariot, Danaë, St. George, and the Crucifixion onto a single surface. This proves that to Pristavec, Christ, Helios, and St. George are all manifestations of the same archetypal solar/spiritual energy fighting against the dark weight of the world.

Placement in the General and Spatial Context of European Culture

General (Historical-Ideological) Context:

By reinterpreting the Crucifixion and the Apocalypse in 2007, Pristavec participates in a long European tradition of utilizing sacred art to express contemporary existential crises. He strips these motifs of traditional, sterile ecclesiastical dogma. Instead, he treats the Crucifixion as the ultimate metaphor for human isolation and bodily fragmentation.

The most striking feature here is the incorporation of text and graphemes written directly onto the canvas [source: 1, 4, 5, 6]. This production method simultaneously looks backward and forward:

  1. It recalls Medieval illuminated manuscripts, where text and image were inextricably bound, and margins were filled with commentary.

  2. It aligns with Postmodern Neo-Expressionism (such as Jean-Michel Basquiat or Cy Twombly), where text is utilized as a raw, graphic visual element that disrupts the illusion of the pictorial plane.

Spatial (Geographical-Cultural) Context:

The tension between Central Europe and the Mediterranean is even more pronounced here:

  • The Central European Danse Macabre: The fixation on the suffering Christ, the raw wounds, and the skeletal imagery of the Apocalypse [source: 9] is deeply rooted in Northern and Central European Gothic art (echoing the agonizing realism of Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece). The weight of existential dread (Angst) dominates the thematic choices.

  • Mediterranean Light and Italian Transavanguardia: Despite the heavy, tragic subject matter, the backgrounds remain dominated by an electric, luminous Mediterranean blue [source: 1, 2, 5, 8]. The brushwork is rapid, vital, and fluid. The artist explicitly writes the word “transvant” (a shorthand nod to Transavanguardia) directly on the canvas in [source: 1], proving his conscious alignment with the Italian movement’s philosophy of freely borrowing from historical, religious, and mythic vocabularies without ironclad stylistic restrictions.

Analysis of Motifs and Style

Motif Analysis: Sacrificial Vulnerability vs. Combative Triumph

The dualism shifts from “Beast vs. Spirit” to Submission vs. Action:

  • The Passive Sacrifice: In the Crucifixion scenes, the human body is stretched to its absolute breaking point, nailed to heavy, blocky yellow crosses that anchor the cosmic tragedy to a brutal geometric reality [source: 1, 5]. The addition of the “Eye of Providence” in a triangle [source: 1, 6] adds a surrealist, watchful cosmic eye overseeing the suffering.

  • The Active Warrior: In the St. George canvases [source: 2, 3, 8], the human form is a vector of pure action. The thrusting spear forms a sharp diagonal that cuts through the composition, piercing the jaws of a green, fire-breathing beast. It is a vitalist celebration of human agency conquering primal terror.

Stylistic Analysis: The Grid and Controlled Expression

Pristavec evolves his style here by introducing a fascinating dialectic between loose, gestural paint application and rigid linear structures:

  • The Geometric Overlay (The Blue Grid): Look closely at the torsos of Christ in [source: 1, 4, 5]. Superimposed over the raw, fleshy pinks and oranges of the suffering bodies are bright blue, neon-like geometric coordinate lines. This is a masterful stylistic choice: it suggests an underlying spiritual skeleton, an architectural or mathematical order hidden within the chaotic trauma of physical destruction.

  • Color Palette as Emotional Temperature: Pristavec relies on a powerful triad: the cold, infinite depth of the background blue; the hot, mortal reds and pinks of human flesh; and the heavy, earthbound ochre/yellow of the crosses and environments.

  • Text as Form: The handwriting is not neatly typeset; it is erratic, urgent, and gestural. The words “eloi eloi lama sabaktani” curve and flow like smoke or energy waves emanating from the figures, transforming language into a purely visual rhythm.