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
The representations of the picture fields with alternating background colours on the stuccodecoration of the Red Dining Room display favourite decorative elements of Roman fine arts. All over the Roman Empire hunting, water-side and marine scenes were very popular not only on wall-paintings, but also on stucco-decorations, mosaics, on glass or bronze vessels, stone carvings as well. The representation of hunting scenes on tombs, between the picture field and the field with inscription became widespread in Pannónia first of all in the Antoninus period. 306 On mosaics it was a popular motif from the 2 nd century A.D. (e. g. in the villa in Cisterna 307 ), till the 4 th century A.D. (e.g. in Piazza Armerina 308 ). Picture strips displaying mythological or genre scenes, and sometimes also narrative ones, depicted often without interruption, but divided by plants or some other elements, are also characteristic of the Fourth Pompeian Style (e.g.in Pompeii in the House of Menander or in the House of Vettii. 309 ). Series of water-side scenes similar to the one on the Baláca stucco are frequent on the pedestals of contemporary wall-paintings, e.g. in Virunum, 310 Vienne 3 " or Poetovio. 3n Marine 313 and water-side 314 scenes were the favourite representations of baths. Several decorative elements of the Red Dining Room we find, though separately, on wallpaintings in Campania, belonging already to the Third Pompeian Style 315 and on the ones belonging to the Fourth Style, 316 though together, forming an unit, they can be observed in the northern, western provinces, in the provinces along the Danube, and in eastern provinces 317 on wall-paintings. 318 On the basis of archeological observations and stylistical characteristics the wall-painting of the Red Dining Room is dating from the second half of the 1 st century A.D., from the turn of the 1 st- 2 nd centuries A.D. Elements of the Fourth Pompeian Style can be recognized on it, though on the basis of the the stock of its motifs it can be connected much rather to the contemporaneous wall-painting of the northern and western provinces. Summary Among the early wall-paintings excavated at Baláca it is that of the Red Dining Room which, regarding both its stock of motifs and its colour treatment, is the most splendid, complex and the most carefully elaborated even in its details. The room decorated by the painting had got its name after the meals represented in the medallions of the main zone and after the colours of the major panels. On the painting the larger homogeneous red surfaces, impressing the sense of impermeability are interrupted by other, richly decorated, fields, with a darker shade. With its red and black background colours the Red Dining Room follows a painting stereotype widespread in the second half of the 1 st century A.D. and at the beginning of the 2 nd century A.D. in the western and northern provinces. The rhythm of the wall-painting is given by the alternation of the red and black fields of the main zone. On the basis of the fragments the construction of a whole lateral wall surface became possible on which the middle panel of the main zone was wider, while the other two panels, beside it at each side, seem to be narrower. The alternate of the short-long-short fields of the main zone is repeated both in the picture band of the stucco-decoration and on the pedestal. The old reconstruction made by E. B. Thomas, which was removed in the seventies by now requires modification both as regards its details and its proportions. The adjustment of the new reconstruction is still in progress, though on the basis of the main characteristics and of its
