Introduction to Hungarian Painting [antikvár]

WITH THEIR COUNTRY situated on the borders between East and West, life for the Hungarian nation lias unceasingly alternated bet\veen destruction and construction. Small villages and large cities have grown up and flourished for a time, only to disappear again and leave no trace behind them, victims of the successive iii\-asions and occupations by Tartar, Turk and German hordes. Hungarian mediaeval art, in consequence, is merely fragmentary, hut in a few frontier towns and in the yellowing pages of official archives sufficient evidence does remain to show how immense has been the loss and to indicate that in itself tlie beginnings of Hungarian painting- already foreshadowed the richness and fulness of later centuries. liven in the X\'Hth and X^'IIIth centuries conditions -were not much easier for painters since this was one of the most difficult periods in Hnn-garj^'s history. The Habsburg:s were at the height of their absolute power and not onlv drained the country of lier material wealtli, but kept a careful watch to see that the spiritual rebirth of the exhausted nation should neither take place nor even be made possible. It was A'ienna that was the centre of culture. It was from A^ienna that came the civil ser\-ants. the architects, sculptors and painters, alien artists whom the high dignitaries of Church and State employed to build and decorate churches, palaces and mansions for them. These were the men wlio introduced into Hnngary Baroque. Rococo and neo-classical styles and atitempted, not very successfully, to expand their influence throughout Hungary, for these styles never really grew deep roots there. Nevertheless, although the fervour of this Hapsburg R^enaissance was .never very warmly kindled among Hun.garian artists, by the end of tlie XVIIIth century there were already hopeful signs tliat, after a long period of total exhaustion, they were beginning to "come round" spiritually. More and more did building contracts, for example, bear the names of Hungarian craftsmen and carvers in wood and stone, painters, artisans rejoiced in working for well-known foreign artists, for not only did they thus gain a livelihood but it was the only means for acquiring skilled tuition. Such was the position of Hungarian Fine Arts at the turn of the XlXtli centurj^ when certain writers, enthusiastic over the ideas loosed by the French Revolution, worked hard for the greater enliglitenment of their countrymen, a rebirth of national life and a general raising of standards. Now the battle really had been joined. Daily papers and periodicals urged the public to appreciate things Hungarian, to hack native artists by subscribing to various appeal funds, to foster wherever they could the tiniest flickerings of the "divine spark". But since the country lacked art schools, it was to Vienna that young artists had to be sent, where the receding waves