Magyar Hírek, 1987 (40. évfolyam, 1-23. szám)
1987-10-02 / 19. szám
Sights of Ormánság A small village of Ormánság: Adorjás THE KLOSZ BEQUEST The native house of Ignác Semmelweis, the famous doctor who struggled against the puerperal sepsis (Photo by György Klösz) A low range of Hills border Ormánság in Southern Hungary to the North, and the River Dráva does so to the South. The villages nestle in clearings of marshy oak forests. The waters of the river frequently inundated the district before flood control on the Dráva and the strengthening of the embankments. In the old days people used boats for transport in the marshy, swampy parts. The natural environment determined the mode of life, but it also offered protection. In the 16th —17th centuries, under Turkish rule, there was relatively less destruction here than in other parts of the country. Afterwards the homogenous ethnic composition of the population was not changed by new settlers. The region turned Calvinist at the time of the Reformation or shortly after. After Joseph II’s Edict of Tolerance the Calvinist Church was reorganized in the Ormánság and new churches were built. Puritanism banned carved and painted images from churches and tolerated only whitewashed walls. Nevertheless, pictures and painted decorations returned to the Calvinist churches of Transylvania, the Nyírség and the Ormánság in an extraordinary way. People took to painting the timber ceilings and the choir railing of the choir as well as the pulpits. In some churches the ornaments were later overpainted as imitation marble, but in a number of places the original paintings was maintained in all its beauty. The painting was done at the end of the 18th century, or in the early 19th century by local or itinerary painter-joiners, members of a guild. They worked from patternbooks, butjthey added their individual style, imagination and skills. The ceiling of some churches were boasted onehundred or more coffers. The pattern of each of the coffers differs. Diagonally running basic colours lend order to variety. Most of the decorations are stylized flower and leaf motives. Tulips, carnations and roses were often painted. Some scholars identify Eastern of Turkish elements in the painted motives, others attribute them to the Baroque, indeed, to the Renaissance. Whatever they are, they are master-pieces of Hungarian rural decoration. Since the makers placed the date and their name on some of the coffers, a few data are available about the origin of these painted wooden ceilings. Jakab Szaitz’s name is signed at Adorjás. János Gyarmati, a Vajszló master-joiner worked at Kémes, Korsós and Kovácshida around 1890. The painted decorations of the Kórós and Drávaivány churches survived in the best condition and were recently restored. The coffers of the Kórós church were made in two phases: the earlier ones date from 1795; and the others were painted in 1835, when the church was enlarged. All in all there are 114 coffers. Even more, a total of 164 coffers decorate the ceiling of the Drávaivány church (built in 1792), and one of them deserves particular attention. It shows a female figure with a half fish, half human body, a crown on her head and sword in her hand, a fish beside her and a bird bringing a green bough in his beak on the left. A picture recalls the story of the Flood. A symbol of punishment for sins and renewal, and the hope of remission. The image the composition of the population of Ormánság, undervent a thorough change in recent decades. The old houses were demolished, and only a few of the porticoed tumbledown brick homes are left. Surviving objects were moved to the Sellye museum. An old house was also reerected there. The depopulation, migration and restratification of the population accelerated particularly after the Second World War. The population of these tiny villages, linked to the outside world by muddy roads, is continuously diminishing. The able-bodied young leave for towns. The country is now visited mainly by tourist, and enthusiasts of the old folk-ways. Only Sellye, Vajszló, Beremend and Kémes, larger, privileged villages, are flourising still. TIBOR TÜSKÉS In the subway under the left-bank bridgehead of Elizabeth Bridge in Budapest, large photograps show inner city scenes from around the turn of the century. Most of them were taken by György Klösz. György Klösz opened his studio in 1867 in the very heart of the inner city at No. 1 Hatvani (today Kossuth Lajos) utca. Later he joined a printing office to it. The twostorey small building abutting on the Francisan church was the headquarters of activities that proved of tremendous rinterest to future topographich istoians. Those were exciting time in the urban progress of Budapest. György Klösz and his assistants went everywhere toting huge cameras, photographing old and new buildings and street scenes either on commission or on their own initiative. The bulk of the work was done in the late eighties, commissioned by Gerlóczi, the Mayor of the city who loved his town, had photos taken of construction and demolition of everything that might interest posterity. The valuable Klösz bequest is now housed in the Kiscell Museum in Óbuda. The largest part of the Klösz archives came into the possession of the museum through the Offset Printery, who took over Klösz’s firm, the rest was donated by the Gerlóczi heirs. The photographic collection requires real expertise in handling since most of the pictures were taken using on 26x36 cm glass plates. The writer of these lines had the good fortune of studying the material of the collection. The old, mostly sepia, photographs give every journalist and photographer a real thrill. The old Hal tér (Fish Square), the row of houses abutting on the Piarist church, the Louis Seize building of Athenaeum Publishers have all gone, demolished long ago, few of the very oldest inhabitants may possibly remember them. TAMÁS FÉNYES György KlösPs studio in Hatvani utca 30
