Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 28. (Budapest, 2012)

Balázs SEMSEY: Architecture and Museology at the End of the 19th Century

The constant presence of the furniture pieces put the organizers of any exhibition to a museological challenge, but their preservation and presentation has a significance beyond the objects: even in their presentday, historically questionable form of reconstruction they are not merely artworks but also monuments of museum history as requisites of museological thinking at the turn of the 19—20th centuries. NOTES 1 Perhaps the only possible analogy of the painted church furniture to be discussed below is the plaster cast collection of the Museum of Fine Arts some pieces of which are built into the walls of the Roman Hall not open to the public at present. A profound analysis would certainly illumine the kinship between the museological conception of installing painted furniture and plaster casts, but the fundamental difference is that the status of the copies as artworks has been re-interpreted several times in the past decades. On the plaster casts collection and its art theoretical problems, see, among others, Bacher, Béla: 'A Szépművészeti Múzeum története' [History of the Museum of Fine Arts]. In: Pogány, O. Gábor - Bacher, Béla (eds.): A Szépművészeti Múzeum 1906-1956, Budapest, 1956, 31-34; Szentesi, Edit: 'Szobrászattörténeti másolatgyűjtemények a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeumban a 19. század utolsó harmadában. I. Pulszky Ferenc görög szobrászattörténeti másolatgyűjteménye' [Sculpture historical copies collection in the Hungarian National Museum in the last third of the 19th c. I. Ferenc Pulszky's collection of copies of Greek sculpture]. Művészettörténeti Értesítő LV, 2006, 1-94; and more recently: Andó, Géza - Szentesi, Edit: 'Az egykor volt budapesti gipsz szobormásolatok gyűjteménye' [The former collection of plaster casts of sculptures in Budapest]. MúzeumCafé 2009, October/November, vol. 3., no. 13, 32-36. 2 Other aspects of the theme partly overlapping the present study are examined in my paper: Semsey, Balázs: 'Kulturális örökség és/vagy muzeológiai probléma? Beépített templomi berendezések az Iparművészeti Múzeumban' [Cultural heritage and/ or a museological problem? Built-in church furnishings in the Museum of Applied Arts]. In: Tüskés, Anna (ed.): Ars perennis. Fiatal Művészettörténészek II. Konferenciája, Budapest, 2009. Budapest, 2010 (hereinafter Semsey 2010), 115-120. 3 "It is my conviction that when the old painted ceiling, similarly to the stove, the pot, the cloth, embroidery, jewellery, book-boards and honey-cake moulds, in short, to all the relics of the old crafts in our country receive a common shelter they deserve, it will be impossible to deny that they are permeated by a distinct and unmistakable original spirit." (Radisics, Jenő: 'Az Orsz. Magy. Iparművészeti Múzeum' [The Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts]. Magyar Iparművészet I, 1897, 27.) See also Lackner, Mónika: 'Bevezető' [Introduction]. In: Fejős, Zoltán (ed.): Legendás lények, varázslatos virágok - a közkedvelt reneszánsz. (Exhibition catalogue, Ethnographic Museum), Budapest, 2008,10. 4 [anon.] 'Az Iparművészeti Múzeum megnyitása' [The opening of the Museum of Applied Arts]. Vasárnapi Újság, 28 November 1897, 805. 5 This solution of interior design - as will be seen later - already appeared in the interior of the Millennial Exhibition in 1896. 6 Ideiglenes kalauz az Országos Magyar Iparművészeti Múzeum gyűjteményeiben [Temporary guide to the collections of the Hungarian Museum of Applied Arts]. Budapest, 17