When the Slovenian University of Ljubljana was established in 1919 - a most meaningful culturally-political gesture within the newly founded Kingdom of Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians - Izidor Cankar, by then already a well known personality in Slovenian cultural life, accepted the task to establish its department of art history. Cankar was therefore the first professor of art history, the founder of art-historical discipline in Slovenia, not only in terms of the organisation of studies but also - just as importantly, if not even more - in terms of their theoretical and methodological foundations. In 1926 his Uvod v umevanje likovne umetnosti. Sistematika stila (Introduction into Comprehending of the Visual Art. The Systematics of Style)2 and in 1927 the first instalment of the first volume of the concomitant survey of European art, Zgodovina likovne umetnosti v Zahodni Evropi. Razvoj stila (The History of Visual Art in Western Europe. The Evolution of Style),3 were published, originating of course in the very immediate, local needs for the professional terminology in Slovenian language,4 but also in Cankars own much wider, more global ambition, regarding the international art-historical context.