Photograph: Mirjana Repanić-BraunPhotograph: Mirjana Repanić-Braun


Name of Monument:

Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

Also known as:

Kapela sv. Jurja u Purgi Lepoglavskoj

Location:

Purga Lepoglavska, North-West Croatia, Croatia

Contact DetailsChurch of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska
RC Parish Office
Trg 1
hrvatskog sveučilišta 3
42250 Lepoglava
T : +385 42 792 566
RC Parish Office  (Responsible Institution)

Date:

1750

Artists:

Painter: Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Denomination / Type of monument:

Religious, church ceiling paintings

History:

The Church of St. George was built at the behest of the prior of the Pauline Monastery in Lepoglava, Karlo Lorel. The modest architectural frame of the chapel was complete by 1749, and soon after in 1750, Ivan Krstitelj Ranger accomplished the illusionist paintings.

Description:

The ceiling paintings in the Church of St. George are Ivan Krstitelj Ranger's most mature work. The carefully designed quadratura give the illusion that the modest architectural space of the church is larger and lighter than it really is. The iconographical framework of the chapel is the Life and Death of St. George, one of north Croatia's most popular patron saints. Other saints furnish the painted side altars in illusionistic niches: on the left that dedicated to Saint Mary of the Sorrows and, on the right, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Barbara, St. Apollonia and Judas Maccabeus. On the walls are emblems and other symbols and an allegory of spring beneath showing a church chorus; angels in concert – everything speaks in favour of a more complex meaning to be seen in the entirety.
The famous scene of the furious fight between St. George and the dragon plays out on a painted stage on the wall of the apse. While they are placed in the interior, the princess in distress is waiting and praying in the landscape “outside” the church, which we can seen behind the baluster fence painted in the middle of the wall. The theatrical illusion is upheld by the presence of a Pauline monk and a middle-aged man in a theatre box on the upper left-hand side of the presbytery. The most important “audience” is, however, the one painted on the ceiling vault: God the Father, Christ and angels holding symbols of heavenly glory and martyrdom. The quadratura of the church culminates in the illusionist dome painted above the only nave.

View Short Description

There are few churches as small as this one dedicated to St. George in Purga Lepoglavska, not far from the Pauline monastery in Lepoglava where the extraordinarily talented illusionistic painter, Ivan Krstitelj Ranger, was a lay-brother painter. Ranger was born in north Tyrol but left no works in his home country. Instead, he arrived in Lepoglava and settled in the Pauline monastery. All Ranger's known works, with the exception of the ceiling paintings in Olimlje in nearby Slovenia, were commissions in north Croatia. The ceiling paintings in the Church of St. George are Ranger's most mature work with carefully designed quadratura thatgive the illusion extend the modest architectural space of the church.

How Monument was dated:

Archival sources

Special features

St. George Slaying the Dragon

Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

1750

Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Pauline Monk and a Man (Confession?)

Presbytery (left, north, wall), Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

1750

Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Altar of St. Anton of Padua

Nave (south wall), Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

1750

Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Illusionistic dome

Nave ceiling, Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

1750

Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Cabinet

Sacristy, Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska

1750

Pauline carpenter; painter: Ivan Krstitelj (Johann Baptist) Ranger (1700–1753)

Selected bibliography:

Mirković, M., “Ivan Krstitelj Ranger i pavlinsko slikarstvo”, in Kultura pavlina, katalog izložbe, Muzej za umjetnost i obrt, Zagreb, 1989.
 Mirković, M., “Iluzionističko zidno slikarstvo”, in Sveti trag – Devetsto godina Zagrebačke nadbiskupije, exhibition catalogue, Zagreb, 1994, pp. 273–300.
Milošević, S., “The Chapel of St. George, Purga Lepoglavska Photomonographie” in Ivan Krstitelj Ranger, Hrvatska, 2004, pp. 196–202.

Citation of this web page:

Mirjana Repanić-Braun "Church of St. George in Purga Lepoglavska" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=monument;BAR;hr;Mon11;12;en

Prepared by: Mirjana Repanić-BraunMirjana Repanić-Braun

SURNAME: Repanić-Braun
NAME: Mirjana

AFFILIATION: Institute of Art History, Zagreb

TITLE: PhD, Scientific Consultant

CV:
From 1981 to 1982 Mirjana Repanić-Braun was a curator of the Academy’s collection of sculpture in the Gliptoteque of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences; from 1983 to 1998 she worked in the Croatian Academy’s Archives for Visual Arts. Mirjana has been employed as a researcher at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb since 1998: from 2001, as head of the scientific project Baroque Painting, Sculpture and Crafts of Continental Croatia, and since 2006, as head of the scientific project Baroque, Classicism and Historicism in the Arts of North Croatia. Mirjana teaches Art History at the universities of Rijeka and Split. At the University of Zagreb, she participates at doctoral level in the Faculty of Croatian Studies and the Faculty of Philosophy.

Translation by: Mirjana Repanić-BraunMirjana Repanić-Braun

SURNAME: Repanić-Braun
NAME: Mirjana

AFFILIATION: Institute of Art History, Zagreb

TITLE: PhD, Scientific Consultant

CV:
From 1981 to 1982 Mirjana Repanić-Braun was a curator of the Academy’s collection of sculpture in the Gliptoteque of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences; from 1983 to 1998 she worked in the Croatian Academy’s Archives for Visual Arts. Mirjana has been employed as a researcher at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb since 1998: from 2001, as head of the scientific project Baroque Painting, Sculpture and Crafts of Continental Croatia, and since 2006, as head of the scientific project Baroque, Classicism and Historicism in the Arts of North Croatia. Mirjana teaches Art History at the universities of Rijeka and Split. At the University of Zagreb, she participates at doctoral level in the Faculty of Croatian Studies and the Faculty of Philosophy.

Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: HR 14

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