The church of St. Lucia

The construction began in 1584, it was consecrated in 1612. Restoration of the church of St. Lucia, which was utterly demolished during the 1st World War, was on account of several interruptions, completed in 1940. The restoration plans were made by a painter, sculptor and an architect Tone Kralj. Between the years 1927-29 monumental altar icons were created and only a decade later the artist and his St. Lucia compatriots managed to achieve the set aim. The scenes from the Way of the Cross and the Apostles Gathering were wonderfully painted below the arches of picturesque partitioned nave. The architectonic simpler presbytery features pictorial tale of martyrdom of the church’s patroness and the ceiling unfolds the apotheosis of the color and the light – The Glorification of St. Lucia.

Before the 2nd World War Tone Kralj joined the representatives of the New Realism (the oil paintings of St. Lucia were created during his stay in Venice), whose elements are usually subject committed theme, intimism, color symbolism, mastering the monumental form and references to traditional themes. The latter during the period of Kralj’s artistic expressions in the Primorska region was not only a choice of aesthetics but also a moral pose and historically dependant ethical standpoint.

dr. Igor Kranjc