A Group of Gallant Soldiers Around a Fire

This painting depicts one of the adventures of Janosik, the medieval hero of the Slovak national epic. Filla had been interned at Buchenwald concentration camp, and when he returned to painting after World War II, he turned to themes of resistance. He regarded Janosik and his followers as the predecessors of the partisans who fought the Nazis and the puppet Slovak fascist regime which had allied the country with Germany. From 1949-1951 Filla painted approximately fifty paintings on the Janosik theme. The text on the lower left side of the present painting is from the Janosik epic: "On the King's ridge a bright bonfire is burning, around this fire twelve knights are standing."
We thank Dr. Pavlov Ivanyi for his kind assistance in cataloguing this painting.