Prominent Personalities - Marko Pernhart

Prominent Personalities

Marko Pernhart, Bled, 1854, National Gallery

A view of Lake Bled with its little island and church, the castle perched on its cliff behind, and the mighty backdrop of the Alps with Mount Stol at the centre – this is undoubtedly the most iconic image of Slovenia. Marko Pernhart, an extremely prolific Slovene painter from Austrian Carinthia, painted Bled several times precisely in the period in which it was becoming an important tourist resort. Not only that, but Pernhart lived at a time of spiritual rebirth from under the shackles of the Austrian Empire, a time of the confirmation and consolidation of national identity, when the magnificent Alpine landscape with Mount Triglav was becoming a symbol of the Slovene nation. The poet France Prešeren had already set his epic poem Baptism at the Savica Falls by Lake Bohinj and Lake Bled, below Triglav, likewise hymned by Valentin Vodnik, who says: “Here below the great God…” The cover of Vodnik’s poetry collection Poems to Sample is decorated with an image of the Savica Falls, a symbol of the pure origin of poets and the source of their poetry. From Pernhart’s time onwards, the Alpine landscape symbolised by Bled has been a constant presence in the arts.

The painting is done in Pernhart’s characteristic style – executed with great precision in a subdued, cool palette, with the paint applied in thin layers and with the shining surface of the calm lake waters. Enchanted with the beauty of the landscape, Pernhart did not delve too deeply into the problems of artistic representation. His world is always calm and dignified, detached and introspective. He was a traveller and a mountaineer who frequently climbed Triglav, the Grossglockner and other summits. He left behind a gallery of landscape paintings depicting enchantingly beautiful corners of a world of high mountains and unspoilt nature that was still little known at the time.

Alenka Simončič, National Gallery