A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 20. (1981)
HOKKYNÉ SALLAI Marianne: A szalonnai református templom középkori falképei
60 HOKKYNÉ SALLAY MARIANNE THE MIDDLE-AGED WALL-PAINTINGS OF THE SZALONNA CALVINIST CHURCH Wall paintings from different ages can be found in the Szalonna Calvinist Church. The earliest ones are the consecration crosses, painted immediately on the first plaster without any grounding. The level preserved in the eastern foil and on the southern wall of the round church was made nearly in the same time. The remains found in the apsidiol are so few that iconography cannot reconstruct them. The picture on the southern wall, however, though not fully remained, can be reconstructed: it shows the legend of St Margaret of Antiochy. The third painting period is represented by but a minor fragment found by the restorators in 1966. The traces of paintings both in level and in colour are different from all the other paintings. The age of the fourth painted level is disclosed in the inscription on the northern side of the arch: the apostle series of the small apsis, preserved in details, and the prophets in the orders of arches were made by painter András Szepesi in 1426. The latest period is represented by the simple ornamental painting of the orders of arches in the hole cut later in the northern wall of the round church. The technical literature could not agree on the dating of St Margaret's legend. According to the archeological investigations before 1976, the reconstruction of the architectural unit, the observations of the restorators and also the review of the historical data, together with a critical examination of the style of the wall painting, we think that the legend was created at the beginning of the 13th c, just after the building of the round church. The picture of the Szalonna church has its analogues, both in view and compositional characteristics, in the scenes depicted in the Dejte (Dechtice, Czechoslovakia) round shrine, illustrating Christ's birth. The wall paintings made in 1426 can be compared to the wall paintings of the Rudabánya and Szentsimon churches, made about 1420 and in 1423. All three of them, on the basis of their style, show affinity to the works of a painting school in Buda (Budapest, City Church). Marianne Hokky —Sallay
