K. Palágyi Sylvia szerk.: Balácai Közlemények 2008/10. (Veszprém, 2008)

KIRCHHOF, ANITA: The decorative system and reconstruction of the red dining room at Baláca - A balácai vörös ebédlő dekorációs rendszere és rekonstrukciója

representations, we have a good reason to suppose the existence of a similar system for the arrangement of the medallions as well. Because of the system of these relations it might have been confusing if a different order or painting method had ben applied at the main field and on the stucco decoration. Though we have no medallions with identical motifs, we suppose their repeated existence on the opposite walls, perhaps with minimum differences, with the slight differences as regards the hues or the presence or absence of some supplementary motifs - for example the representation of other kinds of mushrooms or birds (as it an be seen in the instance of the candelabrums where somewhat different objects were created by using a common stock of motifs). Similarly, the rhythm of the triple alteration of the red panels (narrow-wide-narrow field) is repeated on the picture strips of the stucco decoration. During the study of the fragments we realized representations of still life scenes within all of the medallions, meals prepared for cooking are depicted. The medallions have identical dimensions and their arcs had been previously scratched into the mortar by compasses. The outer arc was the guideline to paint the astragalus pattern, the pattern was painted over it or outside it with white colour.

185 At a 1,2 cm distance (above) and at a 2 cm distance (below) inwards from the outer circle another circle was scratched into the mortar, it was the place of the picture field. The surface between the two circles was painted by black. By a horizontal bottom-line the picture field was divided into two parts, more or less in a proportion 2/3 and 1/3. With this division the artists made the impression as if the scenes represented in the upper, larger field, the birds, the basket with the mushrooms, and the egg, had been put in a background and as if they had been placed on some sort of a counter, see e.g. the bread to the right from the birds. However, on the basis of the perspectival representations of the upper field, the meals displayed there are seen not only sideways but also as if from above. Thus it seems to the spectator that he looks at the picture slightly from above and not sideways. Within the lower 1/3 of all the fields there are the representations of meals which belong to the upper field, though as if had fallen from or rolled down from them. And therefore it seems as if the lower 1/3 part of the picture is nearer to the spectator than the upper part. This perspectival effect was only intensified by the application of different background-colours to paint the upper and lower fields. The background colour of the upper field is a compact pink, covering completely the red painting below it while the background of the lower field was painted with light, looser touches, so the lower red paint shows through the pink over it. By choosing the background colours of the two fields they increased the impression that the representation of the upper and lower fields were not in the same plane. On the basis of the painting of the background we know that the ham supposed to be in the first medallion, was in the lower part of the field. With the treatment of colours the painter was able to reproduce completely ther dissectioned uneven surfaces of the bread or of the ham, different types of wicker-work on baskets as well as the way of interlacing the three handles of the basket, by turning the picture slightly to the left from frontal view. The colours of the fibres of the thin, woven net used as a container for eggs or of its fastening are identical with that of the undulating string fastening the feet or the birds, painted with light touches. The painting of the medallions was a precise, careful work of high standard. We find several similarities between the elaboration of the painting of the Baláca medallions at the still life scenes found within the medallions of the paintings of the towns around the Vesuvius. E. g. the margin of a picture field from Pompeii

186 has the same astragalus pattern border and within that there is a similar