Janko Alexy (25 January 1894 in

Liptovský Mikuláš Liptovský Mikuláš (; until 1952 ''Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš'', ; ) is a town in northern Slovakia, on the Váh River, about from Bratislava. It lies in the Liptov region, in Podtatranská kotlina, Liptov Basin near the Low Tatra and Tat ...

– 22 September 1970 in

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

) was a famous painter, writer, and publicist of Slovak origin. He is generally recognized (together with Martin Benka and

Ľudovít Fulla Ľudovít Fulla (27 February 1902, Ružomberok – 21 April 1980, Bratislava) was a Slovak painter, graphic artist, illustrator, stage designer and art teacher. He is considered one of the most important figures of Slovak creative art in the 20th ...

) as one of key personalities in the beginning of Modern Slovak Art.

Life

He studied at the Akademie Výtvarných Umění (Academy of Visual Arts) in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Vlaho Bukovac Vlaho Bukovac (; ; 4 July 1855 – 23 April 1922) was a Croatian painting, painter and academic. His life and work were eclecticism, eclectic, for the artist pursued his career in a variety of locales and his style changed greatly over the course ...

, Maximilian Pirner and

Max Švabinský Max Švabinský (17 September 1873 – 10 February 1962) was a Czech painter, draughtsman, graphic artist, and professor in Academy of Graphic Arts in Prague. Švabinský is considered one of the more notable artists in the history of Czech pa ...

. He lived in

Martin Martin may refer to: Places Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Europe * Martin, Croatia, a village * Martin, Slovakia, a city * Martín del Río, Aragón, Spain * M ...

and from 1937 in

. He began his creative artistic career with socially motivated expressive works from the environment of the urban periphery, as he called it. He developed genre painting in an original way, inspired by

ballads A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

folk songs Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has be ...

and legends (''Hôrni chlapci'' – Mountain Robbers). He also devoted attention to stained glass and tapestries.

Pastel A pastel () is an art medium that consists of powdered pigment and a binder (material), binder. It can exist in a variety of forms, including a stick, a square, a pebble, and a pan of color, among other forms. The pigments used in pastels are ...

was his most characteristic artistic technique. Alexy's decorative genre of pastels is prevalent throughout his rural pieces (''Kúria Baanovcov v Trstenom'' – Curia of the Baans in Trstené). Alexy was especially adept at painting cityscapes, though peculiarly, for usually an air of

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

resided in the works. He also created several models for architectural projects, e.g. the window-pane at the P. O. Hviezdoslav Theatre in Bratislava. In his literary works J. Alexy preferred themes from the life of Slovak bohemia and autobiographical topics: ''Život nie je majáles'' (1956, Life is Not a May Festival), ''Osudy slovenských výtvarníkov'' (1948, Destinies of Slovak Graphic and Plastic Artists).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexy, Janko 1894 births 1970 deaths Writers from Liptovský Mikuláš 20th-century Slovak painters