Magyar News, 1999. szeptember-2000. augusztus (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2000-06-01 / 10. szám
The Museum of the American Hungarian Foundation commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of the great 19th century painter, Mihály Munkácsy, with an exhibition of some works from collectors in America, where this celebrated Realist enjoyed great popularity. Munkácsy was born in 1844 in Munkács, Hungary, to a lower middle class family, who then moved to Miskolc. Orphaned by the age of seven, young Munkácsy was taken by his guardian, an uncle, to live in Békéscsaba, where he studied to be a cabinetmaker. There he found that, while he did not enjoy carpentry, he liked drawing. He amused himself by copying the etchings hanging on the walls of his uncle's home. He received some art instruction from Elek Szamossy, an itinerant painter of country houses. In 1863, with a letter of introduction from Szamossy, he went to Antal Ligeti at the Hungarian National Museum. In Budapest, Munkácsy began to work as a painter under the direction of Ligeti. His early works include portraits and scenes of village life that he remembered from his childhood home. These themes were the source of his "genre paintings". After studying briefly in Vienna in 1865 and in Munich and Düsseldorf in 1869, he settled in Paris in 1871. By then, he was only twenty-six years old and his painting of a prisoner in his final hours - The Condemned Cell had ' won the 1870 gold medal of the Paris Salon. His life underwent a complete transformation as a result of his newly acquired fame. He eagerly embraced his new success, married a wealthy French widow, and built a luxurious home. His success in Paris was due in part to a change in the subject matter of his paintings - a change from genre paintings to drawing room or salon paintings which represented the life that Munkácsy was living This was the life of the nouveau riche clients who were buying his art. An aggressive art dealer, Charles Sedelmeyer, who was now marketing Munkacsy's art, encouraged him to continue in this vein and thus he produced many variations of some of these salon pieces. He is said to have painted more than fifty of them and they were immediately sold to Sedelmeyer on a contract basis, once they were completed. Characterized by their rich, crowded compositions and deep, vivid color, they were marked by a use of light that can be compared to the Dutch Masters. Some of the Dutch influence may have come from Munkacsy's friend, László Paal, who was painting in Holland. These drawing room scenes have Flowers in a Blue Vase. 1882 also been criticized as being superficial, and lacking the pathos of Munkacsy's earlier genre paintings. While art critics, connoisseurs, and even the public were divided on their opinion of Munkácsy, his meteoric rise to fame is nearly unparalleled in the art world. By 1878, he had taken on the task of depicting 17th century English poet John Milton and his three daughters. In this deeptoned dramatic scene he recaptures some of the feeling of his earlier genre paintings, but this time revealing the pain and uncertainty of the life of a creative individual. This painting now hangs in the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The studies for this and some his other figure paintings were often some of his most successful and expressive portraits. One such example is the study for the head of the figure in The Yawning Apprentice painted in Düsseldorf in 1869. Here the fluid movement of the bmshwork on the young boy's face and clothing, and the lack of distractions from other elements allows this study to surpass Munkacsy's larger composition. Rembrandt was said to be his inspiration in this area. Munkacsy's portraits, with the help of Sedelmeyer, became popular with wealthy To the left: The Condemned Cell, 1869. Below: Woman Churning, 1873 M u fn k a iC S i The Hungarian Museum in New Brunswick has exhibits throughout the year. The present time they are showing paintings by the famous painter Mihály Munkácsy. Page 3
