2023Christmas - Slovak Folk Woodcarving - First Day Cover

Sacral Folk Woodcarving in today’s Slovakia was at the height of their popularity during the 18th and 19th centuries. Wooden sculptures played an important role in the life of people through their belief in their magical-symbolic function. Štefan Siváň the elder (1906-1995) also based his work on traditional folk carving, but the authenticity of his artistic expression set him apart from the anonymity of this artistic discipline. Siváň‘s artistic beginnings are linked to the carving of figures for mobile nativity scenes, which, in his youth, he took with him when he went carolling in Slovakia, Moravia and Silesia over the Christmas and New Year period. Otherwise, he spent his whole life in the Upper Moravian village of Babín, where he gradually created an extensive body of carving works, diverse in both subject and expression. Siváň was a peasant and a wheelwright, as a child he was already working with wood. In addition to motifs associated with Orava folk tradition, he depicted religious, especially Christological and Marian scenes.