Nagy Ildikó szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 1989-1991 (MNG Budapest, 1993)

Bakó, Zsuzsanna: SOME DATA ON RESEARCHES AND EFFORTS AIMED AT CONSERVING THE MUNKÁCSY PICTURES

ZSUZSANNA BAKÓ SOME DATA ON RESEARCHES AND EFFORTS AIMED AT CONSERVING THE MUNKÁCSY PICTURES The Hungarian National Gallery possesses and preserves invaluable national treasures. A particularly precious part of this wealth is Mihály Munkácsy's lifework, but most regrettably, a painting technique used in the last century has been jeopardizing some of the pictures almost from the very beginning. The palpable deterioration of their condition poses a problem so far unsettled in national and international restoration practices alike. Mihály Munkácsy (1844-1900) was the first outstanding exponent of 19th-century realism in Hungarian painting. His arresting representations of the life of simple people built on the effects of contrast earned him fame throughout Europe. His oeuvre unfolding from the latter half of the 1870s is most diverse. He was attracted to all genres of painting including the portrait, landscape, still-life as well as a subcategory of multifigure conversation pieces called salon pictures: documents of upper middle class life, and religious compositions: three paintings known as the Christ trilogy. Consummating his oeuvre are two monumental works: the ceiling fresco of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Conquest in the Hungarian Parliament. In terms of artistic merit, his whole lifework is homogeneous, all periods and all genres being represented by masterpieces. When painting the realistic genre pictures of simple people, which were to establish his international renown, he arrived at a painting technique that causes more and more concern as the time passes and threatens with the complete demise of — so far only one or two — pictures. The painting technique built on contrasts required a dark ground ; as the painters put it, a picture had to develop from dark to light. Light colours, especially the white patches of highlights applied on the dark background produced a dramatic effect. From the mid-19th century several well-known painters resorted to a certain ground called bitumen or asphalt by contemporaries and the special literature to produce a darker background. So as to enhance the intensity of artistic expression, many painters used this material including Courbet and Makart, just to mention the most famous. In the period at issue artists' colourmen sold the supports for paintings — canvases and wooden panels — already pre-primed, while earlier grounds had been applied in the artist's studio. The ground consisted of a solution of glue diluted with water and mixed with some linseed oil, zink white, white lead and chalk. This ground had a light hue, so painters needing a darker ground bought a special material called bitumen also sold by artists' suppliers. As is attested by his own statements and the testimony of his contemporaries, Munkácsy liked this material very much and was wont to use it —much too often —to posterity's dismay. His working style and technique were most suggestively described by Walter Ilges in his book published in 1899, before Munkácsy's death. He quoted an eyewitness as reporting: "Bei der Untermalung schwelgte er geradezu in seinem 'bitumen' (Asphalt) —manchmal sah er aus, wie ein Anstreicher, die Hemdärmel aufgeschürzt, immer größere Pinsel wurden genommen, es ging so schnell, daß man kaum folgen konnte, bis ihn endlich die Ungeduld packt, und er mit voller Faust in den Farbtopf greift und, bespritzt bis zum Ellenbogen, mit —der Hand weitermalt!"

1 Dezső Malonyay wrote in the same vein in his book of 1907: "At first Munkácsy smeared the canvas with some thick mixture of bitumen and ochre and then worked in that ground. He indicated the outlines either with the handle of the brush or with his thumb; again at other times he drew rapid lines with the tip of his palette in his left hand, moving his whole arm."

2 The descriptions reveal that Munkácsy's working zeal was coupled with a passionate attachment to the ground called bitumen the harmful effects of whose application were quick to appear shortly after his death. Dezső Malonyay described the diagnosis in the following way: "On some paintings, like this Condemned Cell and some later ones up around to the end of the '80s, he worked too much in bitumen, to the utmost prejudice of posterity, for this paint embedding marvellous warm tones is as treacherous and wicked when aged as it is inspiring at the beginning. When applied in larger quantities, it will not dry, it won't die so