CHRISTMAS 2019

This is an image of peace, absolute peace. The throng of the most beautiful Christmas market in Europe seems to have died down at a late (or an early) hour. Is this a picture of Christmas coming and the world preparing in silence, or has it just passed and is now sinking into oblivion only a day later? Nowadays, everything is fighting against memory – thousands of swift images, waterfalls of data, the relentless competing of events. In the trinity of time, the past lost its status a long time ago, the present is fighting for its own reality and the future has greedily taken hold of every heartbeat. But this image shows the silent testimony of witnesses denying the decay of time. The bottom part of the image displays the restored front of the thousand-year old cathedral, introducing numerous background stories and characters. Their motionlessness is enlivened by the movement of light. Intertwined with the history of Zagreb and Croatia, the cathedral is a chest of memories and a guardian of identity. Historicism, which has become history, protects its enormous medieval chambers and carries its roots to great heights. In front of the cathedral, on a column erected by Hermann Bollé, the restorer of the cathedral who saved it from collapsing, stands an angel, in profile, gazing into a Christmas tree. The large tree stands here as a representative of nature in the face of art. It is a beautiful symmetrical tree, one that corresponds to God’s design, to which people added their illuminated ornaments. In front of the tree, in the forefront, two Advent candles can be seen. It is hard to tell whether only two candles have been lit or the Advent has already passed. One can say that in this image, Christmas has transformed the world into a home. It has ventured out of the warmth of people’s homes to create a warm home outdoors as well. This is an image of Christmas waiting – everything is ready for man to enter the scene. Academician Željka Čorak