Matija Jama in the context of Rihard Jakopič

Anton Ažbe (30 May 1862 – 5 or 6 August 1905) was a Slovene realist painter and teacher of painting. Ažbe, crippled since birth and orphaned at the age of eight, learned painting as an apprentice to Janez Wolf and at the Academies in Vienna and Munich. At the age of 30, Ažbe founded his own school of painting in Munich that became a popular attraction for Eastern European students. Ažbe trained the "big four" Slovenian impressionists (Rihard Jakopič, Ivan Grohar, Matej Sternen, Matija Jama), a whole generation of Russian painters (Ivan Bilibin, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Igor Grabar, Wassily Kandinsky, Dmitry Kardovsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, to name a few), Serbian painters Nadežda Petrović, Beta Vukanović, Ljubomir Ivanović, Borivoje Stevanović, Kosta Miličević, and Milan Milovanović, the Hungarian painter Sándor Ziffer or a Czech painter Ludvik Kuba.

Ažbe's training methods were adopted by Beta and Rista Vukanović when they took over Kiril Kutlik's atelier and school and by Russian artists both at home (Grabar, Kardovsky) and in emigration (Bilibin, Dobuzhinsky).

Ivan Grohar (15 June 1867 – 19 April 1911) was a Slovene Impressionist painter. Together with Rihard Jakopič, Matej Sternen, and Matija Jama, he is considered one of the leading figures of Slovene impressionism in the fin de siecle period. He is known by his landscapes and portraits. He was also an established guitarist and singer.