Seite - 196 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

196 Sektion II: Herrscher, Staat, Nation The painting in its core remains contradictory. The real event, depicted in a re- alistic style, is filled with the imaginary presence of the painter and his friend Mira Dev, who are witnessing the happening from an imaginary stone balcony (in reality, Krisper’s House in front of the town hall, from where both follow the event, does not have a balcony). The presence of an artist in a group portrait with a sovereign is not really rare or unusual – when one considers the history of artistic motives. What strikes one as unusual, however, is the glorification of the painter through his physical size in the foreground, in our case present as a spectator, and at the same time as the means by which the artist has introduced the painting’s observer into the represented event. The study developed the moment even further, as Germ can be seen in a warm embrace with his friend, which makes the event even more intimate as it is presented through the painter’s feelings, remembering and reading through all the published notices and stories told about the Emperor’s visit. Even though the first impressions of the painting are fully realistic and it is seen as a true depiction of the historical moment, the artist took its content and directed it into the glorification of the com- missioner and the Municipal Council and not of the Emperor as could be expected from an official group portrait for state purposes. When analysing Germ’s painting one could almost sense the air of the individual’s, the artist’s or the commissioner’s intimate remembrance. The most politically debated Slovene painting from the beginning of the twenti- eth century31, Ivana Kobilca’s Slovenia Bows to Ljubljana (Fig. 5), hung on the wall opposite to Germ’s painting. Following Hribar’s precise political programme, the painter embraced the motif of Slovenians from all the provinces bowing to the town of Ljubljana “as their spiritual centre from which spreads enlightenment all over the homeland”.32 Due to Kobilca’s international reputation33 which followed her educa- tion in Vienna, Munich and Paris, where she was one of only a few Slovene painters to exhibit at the Salon and where, because of a painting entitled The Summer, she later even became a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts34, Bishop Strossmayer agreed to finance the painting without hesitation. The first preparatory steps were taken in 1898.35 One year later, the daily newspaper Laibacher Zeitung published the first news of the commission, stating that the painter was preparing a painting for Strossmayer with a motif of Slovenians bowing to Ljubljana.36 A beautiful young, “blonde virgin wearing a white frock” who personifies Ljubljana, is seated on a raised throne under a stout branchy lime tree, waving her right hand in a warm gesture, welcoming all her fellow Slovenians.37 The painter symbolically leaned the coat-of- arms of Carniola against the throne. To the feet of Ljubljana a girl is holding a laurel wreath and a young farmer holds a harvest basket, both kneeling respectfully before Ljubljana. Behind the farmer is a Carniolan woman, traditionally dressed with a coif