Seite - 199 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

State and National Representation in the Case of Ljubljana’s Town Hall 199 View over Ljubljana from Golovec by Ivan Vavpotič (1877–1943). When and how the replacement occurred and how the change influenced the representational image of the council chamber is still unknown. Germ’s artistic presentation and Kobilca’s allegory, inspired by the theme of glori- fication, could seem at first glimpse ideologically absolutely diverse. When examined from the context of political history and Hribar’s ideology, however, they both clearly show the same red thread of the Pan-Slavic ideology smouldering under the German- speaking reign. On one side, there is Germ’s Visit of the Emperor which narrates the event in the form of chronicles where the Emperor alone represents the whole reign- ing Austro-Hungarian family, dressed in a uniform and not in imperial clothes as could be expected in a representative portrait. On the other side, we have Kobilca’s allegorical image where Slovenia is making a bow to Ljubljana as a representation of belief in the existence of national unity, not so much as a general Slavic union and independence which could be noted with Czechs and Croatians, but more as an idea of the unity of Slavic nations within the Austro-Hungarian empire as a whole and un- der the throne of the ‘capital’ of Ljubljana for the Slovene nation (as its language and cultural centre). Germ’s painting was a complete opposite to all that one could expect on the walls of a town hall. The Emperor is found in a somehow inferior position, and even though the painting was made in his honour, it was at the same time more commemorative of the recent horrendous occurrences in Ljubljana and the expecta- tions towards the ruling Emperor and his responsibility for his subjects. The case of Kobilca’s painting was completely different. In total lack of any govern- ing symbols, the painter dedicated her focus solely to the presentation of all Slovene counties which are bowing to a young woman, the personification of Ljubljana “as the centre of their souls, the source of their education that spreads across the whole homeland”.46 There is no evidence, apart from Kobilca’s personal photographs of a number of ethnographic scenes, about the iconographic sources which influenced her in the composition of a painting with a large number of people, due to the inexis- tence of any other such works in her opus. It seems probable that her formal compo- sition came from her knowledge of realistic painting and of already existing examples of such allegorical paintings as Fritz von Uhde’s Let the children come to me (1883), whose works Kobilca encountered when studying in Munich and Paris. However, the theme of her painting fully follows the commissioner’s desire: Hribar’s programme of uniting the Slovene counties, which found partial reminiscence in the concept of the Czech idea of Pan-Slavism and which found its reflection in an artistic medium, too. Even though Kobilca’s painting was made relatively earlier than other historical paintings for the gigantic composition of The Slave Epic by Alfons Mucha for the Obecní dům (Municipal Building) in Prague, Kobilca had already gained knowledge