Visual Propaganda of Stadler’s Ecumenic Project in Frescoes by Ivana Kobilca

Abstract

The article deals with the artistic contribution of the Slovene painter Ivana Kobilca in the Sarajevo seminary Church of Sts Cyril and Methodius. The painting of part of the church was among the first commissions that the artist obtained in Sarajevo, and in terms of the scope also her largest work. The artist painted part of the dome, the northern walls of the transept and four tondi, two on the organ loft and two on the side galleries. The iconographic program for the frescoes, which combine Jesuit and ecumenical iconography, was designed by the first archbishop of Sarajevo, Dr. Josip Stadler. The frescoes attest to his unrealized ecclesiastical and political ambitions of unifying the Eastern and Western Churches.