Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary

In 896 A.D., when the Magyars settled in a territory wedged between Latin, German and Byzantine culture, Saint István, the Magyars' first king, made his choice and sought religious and political support in the West. As a consequence, Western influences also asserted themselves in Hungary's art.

In the 11th century, a great program of building began in Pécs, Esztergom and Székesfehérvár, where cathedrals were erected following the Romanesque-Longobard style. Later, French influences, transmitted through Germany, were noticeable. The churches of Ják. Zsámbék and Lébény have survived the ravages of time to this very day and are regarded as supreme examples of the transitional period from the Romanesque to the Gothic style. The recently excavated remnants of the royal palace in Esztergom date from that period as well. Excavations also demonstrate that Romanesque statuary was very abundant in Hungary. The Museum in Pécs treasures 800 sculptured figures from the 11th and 12th centuries; those in Ják Abbey from the 13th century similarly bear the mark of German influence.

The general style adopted during the middle of 14th century was Gothic, but two different influences were noticeable. The towns dominated by the Germans favored German styles, while the Court of the Anjou kings patronized the French-Italian style.

The artistry of goldsmiths, the oldest Hungarian art, was highly appreciated; hermae burial masks were made by the hundreds, and not a few of them adorn museums abroad today. In Székesfehérvár alone there were 60 hermae in the 14-15th centuries; nowadays there are but two hermae left in Hungary, both of them depicting Saint László. Both were made in Nagyvárad, the King's favorite city. Some goldsmiths undertook work on a larger scale with great success. At a time when European artisans had been neglecting bronze statuary for centuries, Márton and György Kolozsvári revived this art. Their principal work, an equestrian statue of Saint László, was destroyed by the Turks, and only the equestrian statue of St. George (made in 1373) in the Hradsin of Prague survives, though a copy of the statue stands in the park near the Fisherman's Bastion in Buda. Its original stand was in St. George's Church in Pozsony, the ancient coronation town, which is now Bratislava in Slovakia. The lively and playful attitude, the troubadour-like slenderness of the saint's figure, is an excellent example of the style of the Anjou period.

By the 15th century, Buda and Pest boasted no fewer than 30 churches and 23 convents. Among the churches, however, only the Coronation Church has survived. It was built in the 13th century, but the picturesque tower was added in the 15th century and has been recently restored to its original aspect.

The 150-year Turkish occupation in Hungary destroyed nearly every building on the Great Plains. Only the North and East of Hungary were spared the ravages of war, and a number of Gothic buildings, statues and winged altars in these areas still stand. The famous cathedral in Kassa was built in 1400; its portal and St. Elizabeth's altar are fine examples of Hungarian art of the period.

During the reign of Matthias Corvinus, Hungary's great Renaissance king, his palace and castles, his library and collections of art, the music and letters at his court all reflected the best in Florentine style. Matthias' splendid buildings were richly decorated by such sculptors as Giovanni Dalmata; one fountain was designed by Verrochio. But most of the buildings and works of art of his time were destroyed by wars during the Turkish occupation. All that remains are a few red marble ornaments, now in the museums in Budapest, and a few reliefs excavated in Visegrád along with the walls of Matthias' Renaissance palace on a picturesque hill overlooking the Danube Bend.

The long period of the Turkish occupation was a barren one for the arts in Hungary. The Turks built a few mosques and many baths, but none of these, of course, could replace the loss of the buildings and works of art they had destroyed. When the Turks finally left Hungary in 1718, the demand for artistic work revived, but in the beginning - with the nations' spirit and artistic inclination exhausted for the time being - it was mostly foreign artists who produced the works of art, statues, cathedrals and castles in Hungary, working mostly in the current Baroque style.

A National Revival

Hungarian national spirit revived first in politics and letters and then, less than a generation later, in art as well. From 1820 on, the important artists in Hungary were exclusively Hungarians. This era was the dawn of classicism in European art, but for the time being the eminent Magyar portraitists, Barabás and Borsos, admired and followed the sentimental Viennese style known as the Biedermeyer.

The Viennese school of art, however, proved to be only a medium, not a source, for Hungarian art; the restless national spirit searched for a wider horizon. In the fifties and sixties, Székely, Benczur, Munkácsy, Szinyei-Merse and others studied in Munich. In the last 25 years of the 19th century all striving young disciples of art flocked to Paris.

The eminent Hungarian painters abroad loved to treat historical national subjects; the tragic moments depicted were in harmony with the general depression at home, at a time when, under the terror of Austrian suppression, patriots were executed or imprisoned for years and protesters persecuted. Mihály Zichy in Russia, and Madarász, Lotz, Székely and Benczur in Germany and Paris, distinguished themselves with their broad conception of historical compositions. Admirable works by these painters include Viktor Madarász's Zrínyi and Frangepán, showing these two patriots of the 17th century in their death cell, and two by Sándor Wagner: his affecting painting of the mother and betrothed of the unjustly executed László Hunyadi, mourning over his corpse in a dimly lit vault; and the Death-plunge of Titus Dugovics, recording the moment the hero used his own body to hurl down a battery of assaulting Turks from atop the besieged bastion.

Bertalan Székely also produced a magnificent series of historical pictures; Gyula Benczur's masterpieces are the Christening of Vajk (the pagan name of Saint István), and Buda Reconquered from the Turks. Lietzenmayer's graceful St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Wartburg is justly admired.

Another painter of significance was Árpád Feszty, who concentrated on great historic and biblical themes, often on a grand scale. In fact, the large, life-sized panoramic painting, Árpád Occupies Hungary in 896, which he worked on together with other artists, became one of the frequently visited sights of Budapest between the wars. Although it suffered damage during World War II, it has since been restored. The brush of the eminent landscape painter, László Mednyánszky, also added a particular charm to this epic work.

The artistic creations of these masters are marked by intentional stage effects and dazzling detail. Their color sketches are often valued more highly than their finished works, being more spontaneous expressions of their genius.

Bertalan Székely (1835-1910) was the first Hungarian painter who, abandoning the sentimental coloring of his predecessors and responding to French influences, recognized the beauty of color in differentiated values.

Székely was fourteen years old when the War of Independence ended in defeat and his boyhood memories were filled with the horrors of the cruel retribution of the Haynau-Bach era, symbolized by the execution of thirteen Hungarian generals in Arad. It was an era when, in Kossuth's words, "The orphans and widows wept in secret, the citizens cursed the regime in secret, behind closed doors and windows. Otherwise there was stillness, like in the grave." Székely spent five years as a fledgling painter studying art in Vienna, then he settled down in Munich, at this time one of the famous art centers of Europe. It was there that he produced his best known works, including The Corpse of Lajos II found after the Battle of Mohács, Dobozi, and the Court of László V, which illustrate the new direction he took in Munich. His Self-Portrait is one of his best paintings, also created in Munich. All his compositions reflect sadness and not a single smiling face can be detected in his paintings. In 1871, he returned to Hungary and painted Zrínyi's Final Sally Against the Turks. Thereafter, he undertook the systematic development of an ornamental fresco style. This endeavor was the true criterion of a great genius determined to keep clear of misleading influences. He devoted considerable research to the various styles and techniques connected with his art, drawing myriads of sketches from which he finally developed his own style. Known as the "most scientific" of all Hungarian painters, he was regarded an artist-philosopher whose works did not enjoy the popularity he deserved.

Mihály Munkácsy (1844-1900) was the most famous Hungarian painter of all time, a man whose childhood, like Székely's, also left deep imprints on his creations. Munkácsy was orphaned at the age of seven and in his tender youth he was given to the care of a carpenter who abused his young apprentice in every conceivable way. All the while he kept drawing sketches for himself. Years later his talent was discovered by the Hungarian painter Elek Szamossy with whose help Munkácsy went to study painting first to Budapest, then to Vienna, Munich, Düsseldorf and finally to Paris where he spent practically the rest of his life.

Munkácsy did not belong to any school; he created a style of his own. He had no idols and no followers. His profound knowledge of the relation between strength and color gave the master's touch to his greatest as well as to his smallest canvasses. The deep soft tones of browns and grays, the smooth transition of the values are quite his own. The dramatic use of white was one of his specialties. In contrast to Székely's subjects of historical background, Munkácsy recorded the everyday life of the people. In his Düsseldorf days, he was influenced by his reminiscences of Hungarian peasant life. In later years he would express the pessimistic aspects of social life in reflection of the tragic turn of his spirit. Nevertheless it was during his youth - he was 26 - that he painted Death Cell, the work which brought him world-wide fame. He not only dazzled the critics in Düsseldorf where the picture was exhibited the first time (and promptly bought by an American collector, Willstack, for 2000 talers), but Death Cell also won the grand prize in a Paris exhibition in 1870, making Munkácsi the most famous painter in Paris. In 1872, he transferred his workshop to Paris and there he married the young widow of his good friend, Baron de Marches.

It was in this period that Munkácsy produced his other great works: Pawnshop, Vagabonds and Night and the Churning Woman, to name only a few. Later his religious pictures, Christ before Pilate, Golgotha, Ecce Homo, were weaker in composition, yet success and fame were his steady companions through life. His restless soul, however, could not be soothed by admiration, and he never could adapt himself entirely to the life in Paris. He was tortured by doubt and anguish and perhaps it was this

mental attitude, more than physical disease, that drove him to attempted suicide. He died in a sanatorium in Bonn in 1900. One of his last masterpieces was The Conquest (Honfoglalás), Munkácsy's only work that depicts a historical event from Hungary's past.

Pál Szinyei-Merse (1845-1920) may have lacked Munkácsy's inner power, but he was the only Hungarian painter whose inner tranquility of spirit enabled him to reach those clear artistic spheres known only to the French. Szinyei, however, studied not in Paris, but in Munich. At first he was influenced by Böcklin's mythological paintings, but soon turned away from them and adopted only Böcklin's application of bright modern pigment. Romantic theatrical design in painting did not attract him, and he soon started a coloristic style in open air painting. A pulsating line and well-sensed tones of pigment distinguish his masterpieces. The first of that kind painted in Hungary. The chief components of his art were sunshine, youth, serenity and the freshness of nature. He brought poetry into his art which had a secret he himself had revealed in a letter to his father: "I have decided to follow one teacher only as my guiding star: Nature."

A few fresh painting - among them the Loving Couple which played on a dazzling gamut of colors - heralded his main canvas, Picnic in May, on which he worked for three years. Although it reflects radiant joy, this painting caused Szinyei-Merse only bitterness at first. Plein-air not being the favorite trend in Europe, Picnic went unnoticed in a Munich exhibition, while in contemporary Hungary critics branded his freshness as "lack of taste." They failed to understand Szinyei-Merse, who was the precursor of impressionism. Embittered by criticism, he practically gave up painting for twenty years to become a gentleman-farmer. Among the few works Szinyei-Merse completed during this artistically dormant period of his life were the stunning Woman in Violet (A lilaruhás n), a portrait of his wife, and the Nightingale. It was only in 1896 that the greatness and originality of his art was finally recognized and he received one award after another both at home and abroad. In the same year he joined the famous painters' group at Nagybánya (the Hungarian Barbizon) where he was received with all the reverence due a great master.

Szinyei's new impressionistic trend marked the path for younger Hungarian artists, who no longer stopped in Munich but went to Paris to soak up the sunshine and color of impressionism and to apply these qualities to their own landscapes.

Landscapes have, in fact, been a favorite subject for Hungarian painters ever since the 1870's. László Mednyánszky (1852-1919) followed lines of his own and loved to paint gloomy, mysterious, and misty landscapes. He was preceded by László Paál, Munkácsy's closest friend in Paris, who painted the groves and lanes of the woods of Fountainebleau. Paál died at the early age of 33, after suffering mental derangement, as Munkácsy did.

Of all Hungarian painters, József Rippl-Rónai (1861 -1927) was the one most closely related to French art. He was a prolific artist who left behind 2400 paintings and pastel works covering a great variety of themes, excluding history and religion.

Other Hungarian painters such as Deák-Ébner, Sándor Bihari, Simon Hollósy (1857-1918) and later Károly Ferenczy were influenced by Bastien Lepage in the 1880's, particularly in their choice of a lighter pigment. Of these four, Hollósy was the most significant, not so much for his paintings, but rather for his influence as a teacher. His best known canvas, the Corn Husking (Tengerihántás), was painted in Munich where he opened a private school for Hungarian student-painters.

The absence of a truly artistic atmosphere in Hungary, which had obliged so many Hungarian artists to study and work abroad, began to be corrected at the end of the 19th century. It was then that Hollósy founded an artists' settlement in Nagybánya in Transylvania (now called Baia Mare) with the cooperation of Thorma, Iványi-Grünwald, Réthy, Glatz and Ferenczy. Although it was Hollósy who had recruited the young painters, it was Ferenczy who became their spiritual leader.

Károly Ferenczy (1862-1917) is considered even today the most sympathetic and highly revered apostle of modern Hungarian painting. His deeply contemplative nature was a great asset; he worked like a missionary in the development of the common style of the Nagybánya school. Landscape painting became his chief focus. In retrospect, Nagybánya may be called the Magyar Barbizon, its effects on Hungarian painting being comparable to those of the Barbizon and all that it implies for French art. Nagybánya actually produced Hungarian plein-air painting, achieving an independent and individual system of forms which was in no sense an imitation of the French school, and went far beyond the means of Bastien Lepage. There are wider horizons, broader perspectives. sharper contrasts of light and shade in the plein-air painting of Nagybánya than in that of French impressionism. The value of the art of the Nagybánya school is that it was the first to present the Hungarian countryside in all its beauty, bringing about the first complete encounter of the Hungarian soil with Hungarian genius.

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka (1853-1919) is one-of-a kind solitary artist among Hungarian painters. A pharmacist who started painting at the age of 44, he was basically self-taught, albeit he had done preliminary study of art in Munich. Having developed a unique style of his own using stunning subjects and colors, Csontváry's life ambition was to become a painter on Raphael's scale. Spectacular scenery excited and inspired him. Obsessed with a pathological desire to find a "grand motif" he traveled throughout Europe for many years, and worked in, Syria, Mezopotamia, Palestine and the Balkans.

Although Csontváry never found what he was looking for, during his peregrinations he succeeded in creating such masterpieces as Solitary White Cedar and Pilgrimage to the Cedar of Lebanon, both of which were acclaimed at an exhibit in Paris in 1907. Csontváry's largest composition was the Temple of Sun in Baalbek, a canvas radiating mystic colors. His last painting, Ride on the Seashore, finished in Naples, headed the list of masterpieces at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958 - long after the artist's death.

Despite such later acclaim, Csontváry's visionary, expressionistic style found little understanding during his

lifetime. A loner by nature, the master's mental balance was upset by his "failure," impairing his creative power. Little did he know that some years after his death, an entire museum in Pécs, Hungary, would be devoted to his paintings, and that worldwide appreciation of his works would be in constant ascendancy.

István Csók (1865-1961) was one artist who used Nagybánya as his starting point. Full of initiative and spurred on by new ideas, he went to Paris where he was influenced by Renoir and Matisse, His best known works are Godfather's Breakfast, Orphans, Do This in Remembrance of Me. Erzsébet Báthory, Nirvana and Eating Honey. Partly due to his longevity,. Csók received more awards than any other Hungarian painter, his fame abroad ranking second only to that of Munkácsy.

Vilmos Aba-Novák (1894-1942) was another individualistic Hungarian painter of the 20th century. A powerful artist with an affinity to the Roman school, he brought new élan and fresh colors into monumental fresco painting. From the early thirties on, he became a religious artist much in demand. He also used tempera to create colorful pieces that won international recognition, including the Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibit in 1936.

Architecture

The great national revival that swept Hungary after 1825 resulted in the conscious decision to appropriately adorn Pest (later Budapest) as the capital of Hungary. The great flood of 1838, which destroyed the major part of the city, actually made the rebuilding of Pest imperative. A period of strong building activity in the classic style followed, maintaining the trend which had been introduced in 1802 by Mihály Pollák (1773-1855). Pollák had built the prime minister's palace in 1806 after another architect's plans, but in the thirties the Lutheran church on Deák Square, the Károlyi palace and the National Museum were all of his own conception. The portico and hall of the latter are the best examples of Hungarian architecture of that time.

Another outstanding architect of that era was József Hild (1789-1867), who contributed greatly to the rebuilding of Pest after the great flood. His main work was the erection of the Cathedral of Eger, with a highly impressive frontal view, its portico resting on Corinthian pillars.

Afterward Hild finished the building of the Cathedral of Esztergom and in 1851 began work on the Basilica of Saint István in Budapest, a work which was finished by Miklós Ybl, the most outstanding Hungarian architect of the second part of the 19th century.

Ybl was the leading spirit of artistic development in Budapest. especially after the Compromise of 1867, when the arts received new impetus. He planned and supervised the building of the Opera House and made plans for the modernization of the Royal Palace, both in the modern Renaissance style which dominated architecture in Budapest until the 1890's.

The merging of Pest and Buda into one city in 1873 was the signal for new building activities: the banks of the Danube were paved with stones, plans were drawn to circle the city with three rings of avenues, and Andrássy út,. an impressive boulevard leading from the inner city to the City Park (Városliget), was established.

While Ybl utilized the later Italian forms of the Renaissance, one of his younger contemporaries, Frigyes Schulek (1841 - 1919), preferred to return to Hungarian historical tradition. After restoring the Coronation Church, he built the Fisherman's Bastion (Halászbástya) on the slope beneath that church in Romanesque style, where the statue of Saint István by Alajos Strobl finds a dignified background.

The greatest creation of late 19th century Hungarian architecture is the stately Parliament Building on the left bank of the Danube facing the hills of Buda. Its builder-designer, Imre Steindl, liberated himself from any restrictions of style: he designed the base structure in the Gothic style, crowned it with a Baroque dome and applied Byzantine ornamentation to its interior. This blend of styles offers a unique - and magnificent - sight.

Ödön Lechner used a particularly individual - but still Hungarian - style in his designs. It is reflected in the General Post Office Building, the Museum of Industrial Art and in the city halls of Szeged and Kecskemét on the Hungarian Plain.

Hungarian Sculpture

Sculpture in Hungary had a relatively late start, beginning with the works of István Ferenczy (1792-1856), who is known as "the first Hungarian sculptor," and who learned the art abroad. Ferenczy at first followed in his father's footsteps and learned the craft of locksmith, but with the support of the writer, Ferenc Kazinczy, he went to Vienna to study sculpture. From there, he moved to Rome where he first worked in Thorwaldsen's studio, then under the tutelage of Canova. Ferenczy's chief work was the Shepherdess (Pásztorlányka).

Ferenczy's return to Hungary had fruitful effects on the new generation of sculptors. His young friend, the stone-cutter Miklós Izsó, continued Ferenczy's work in the second half of the 19th century, devoting his life to the foundation of Hungarian sculpture. Izsó, inspired by his native land, took his models from Hungarian life. His best known work, the Sad Shepherd (Búsuló juhász) was a new and bold descent from the heights of classicism to the world of the Hungarian village and its folklore. The Hungarian spirit is even more apparent in his small works of terracotta which mirror scenes from peasant life.

While Ferenczy worked on a small scale with familiar subjects, others were erecting great monuments in Budapest. Huszár created statues of Eötvös, Petfi and Deák, but his conventional style was soon outdone by Alajos Strobl (1856-1926) whose works, the statues of Saint István, János Arany, Ferenc Liszt and Ferenc Erkel, still adorn the Hungarian capital. But the greatest Hungarian sculptor at the turn of the century was János Fadrusz (1838-1903).

The son of a simple gardener in Pozsony, Fadrusz started his career as an apprentice in a local woodcarver's shop. There his talent attracted the attention of the shop's customers, who helped him go to Vienna for further study. One of Fadrusz' earliest successes was a simple sculpture showing a part of the Crucifix, a work which earned him instant recognition. It was not long before the town fathers of Pozsony asked him to erect a magnificent monument to the memory of Queen Maria Theresa for the occasion of the millennium of Hungary.

Fadrusz' most important creation, however. was the monumental statue of King Matthias Corvinus which stands in Kolozsvár, a city that became part of Rumania after the Treaty of Trianon, as has Zilah, the home of Fadrusz' famous statue of Baron Wesselényi. Fadrusz died at the early age of 45, leaving behind not more than a dozen creations. These, however, have won lasting fame.

The most spectacular monument within present day Hungary is the Millennium Memorial in Heroes' Square in Budapest, whose centerpiece is a statue of Prince Árpád surrounded by his chieftains. In a half-circle behind this group, stand statues of great Hungarians complemented by a chariot and figures symbolizing Peace and War. Overlooking this elaborate scene is the statue of an angel set atop a high column. In creating this Memorial, its sculptor, György Zala, succeeded in evoking the spirit of Hungary not only for his contemporaries, but also for generations to come.

Ferenc Medgyessy (1881-1958) is regarded as the one of the greatest, and certainly the "most Hungarian." sculptor of the twentieth century. Although his patron had sent him to Paris to study painting at the Julian School. Medgyessy's interest soon turned to the sculpture. He was impressed by the Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek sculptures displayed in the Louvre, and became fascinated with the robust figures of Michelangelo during his stay in Florence. He also learned much from contemporaries such as Meillol, Gaugin and Rodin.

Still, Medgyessy succeeded in developing a unique style of his own, a symbiosis of the ancient and the modern. His creations are artistically meaningful in a simple way, free of frills, like the masterpieces of Antiquity. Many of Medgyessy's works reflect the pristine force and simplicity of his own people of the Hungarian Plain where he was born. Beyond that, in the words of another famous artist, "Medgyessy was the first Hungarian sculptor whose creations have a universal appeal." They are drawn from centuries of tradition, and yet appear modern.

At the Paris World Exhibit in 1937 Medgyessy won the Grand Prix with four sculptures representing Science, Ethnology (male figures), Arts, and Archeology (female figures).

One of Medgyessy's greatest sculptures, the Magvet (the Sower) reflects the epitome of the Magyar manhood: the figure's erect posture, dignity, the expansive force of his muscles all radiate quiet self-confidence.

Medgyessy's Magyar women similarly exude health, strength and simple beauty; their nudity comes natural as it conjures a woman's eternal destiny: motherhood.

Medgyessy was a prolific artist who worked to his dying day. He left behind 4000 drawings and 300 reliefs and sculptures. Some sculptures are monumental in size. One of the best known is "the Venus of Debrecen." Debrecen being the artist's birthplace.

Stephen Sisa : The Spirit of Hungary