Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HUNGARY'S GREAT PAINTERS
They were two of Hungary's finest painters, living in the same age, yet the lives they led
could not have been more different. While
Mihály Munkácsy
(1844-1900) was fêted for
his work and buried like a national hero, his funeral attended by government ministers and
hisbodylyinginstateinHősöktere,
TivadarKosztkaCsontváry
(1853-1919)diedalone
and unrecognized.
Munkácsy spent much of his life in Paris, but always declared himself Hungarian. He
painted large dusty landscapes and pictures of peasants and outlaws as well as grand por-
trayals of Christ before Pilate. His realist style sold very well, but that financial success
was his downfall, and he died of syphilis at the age of 56. Time has not been kind to his
work, either: many canvases have suffered from his use of bitumen in mixing paint, which
has caused them to darken and crack.
Trained as a pharmacist, Csontváry was 27 when a voice told him: “You will be the
world's greatest
plein-air
painter, greater than Raphael.” When he began to study painting
at the age of 41, he did not belong to any school, and his canvases, simple yet expressive,
display anextraordinary useofcolourandlight. Mostofhisworkwascompleted injust six
years - he painted his last work in 1909, overwhelmed by lack of recognition and schizo-
phrenia. When Picasso saw an exhibition of his works in the 1940s he remarked: “And I
thought I was the only great painter of our century.”
Second floor
The
second floor
covers
twentieth-century Hungarian art up to 1945
, starting with the
vibrant
Art Nouveau
movement off to the right of the atrium. Pictures by
János Vaszary
(Golden Age) and
Aladár Körösfői Kriesch
(founder of the
Gödöllő
artists' colony) are set
in richly hand-carved frames, an integral part of their composition.
József Rippl-Rónai
was
a pupil of Munkácsy whose portraits such as
Woman in a White-dotted Dress
went mostly
unrecognized in his lifetime - they're now regarded as Art Nouveau classics. Here you'll
also find Csontváry's magically lit
Coaching in Athens at the Full Moon
, and more works by
Hollósy (
Rákóczi March
) and Ferenczy (
Morning Sunshine
).
Across the atrium,
IstvánSzónyi
's wintry
Burial at Zebegény
, and
JózsefEgry
's watery
St
John the Baptist
have simple lines and muddy colours in common. Both belonged to a gener-
ation of artists whose sympathies were on the left in largely right-wing times: Constructivists
such as
Béla Uitz
, Cubists
János Kmetty
and
Gyula Derkovits
, the Expressionist
Vilmos
Aba-Novák
and the “Hungarian Chagall”,
Imre Ámos
(who died in a Nazi death camp) are
all represented in Wing C off the stairs.
