Király Erzsébet - Jávor Anna szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 1997-2001, Művészettörténeti tanulmányok Sinkó Katalin köszöntésére (MNG Budapest, 2002)

TANULMÁNYOK / STUDIES - ZWICKL András: A kép határain kívül. Kép és keret a nagybányai mestereknél

ANDRÁS ZVVICKL Beyond the Boundary of the Picture PICTURE AND FRAME IN THE WORK OF THE NAGYBÁNYA MASTERS The first part of the paper is devoted to the role of the frame in Hungarian art at the turn of the 19th 20th centuries. In addition to that-time theoretical and critical writings, it appeals to the pictorial representations on the frames (paintings, caricatures) to outline the opinions and expectations concerning the function of the frame. It takes a look at the works of the first generation of the Nagybánya (Baia Mare) school founded in 1896, especially the paintings in the Hungarian National Gallery. It enumerates the most frequent frame types and discusses the frequency of each of them in exhibitions of the early Nagybánya paintings, concentrating on the works of Károly Ferenczy. The second part discussing reframing presents two case studies that exemplify that the reconstruction of the original framing influences not only the work's esthetic reception but also its interpretation. These are the Rákóczi march (1899) and Joseph sold by his brothers (1900), chefs d'oeuvre by the two greatest masters of the Nagybánya colony, Simon Hollósy and Károly Ferenczy, on permanent display in the Hungarian National Gallery. The one went into a public collection in 1946, the other in 1913, and they haven't been exhibited in their original frames for over half a century. Hollósy was engrossed in the Rákóczi theme from the mid-1890s to his death, but the only extant sketch that shows the entire composition is the one from 1899. Though the title refers to the early 18th century Hungarian freedom fights, the motifs of the scenes and the reference to the melody also arranged by Berlioz and banned for a long time allude to the Hungarian revolution and war of independence of 1848/49. This connotation was reinforced by the original frame which, as contemporary press reviews reveal, showed a medalion with two lions tearing a chain apart. In that-time Hungarian literature, and more importantly in sculptural monument the motif was the symbol of the suppressed national war of liberation. It is also noteworthy that the application of symbolic meanings on the frame returned around that time, especially in works of symbolist painters. Contemporary visual sources provide enough information to precisely reconstruct the original frame of Károly Ferenczy's large Biblical composition, Joseph sold by his brothers. The photos reveal that until 1913 the picture exhibited in the Palace of Art (Műcsarnok) in 1900 had an acdicular frame until the artist sold it to the Municipal Gallery. The frame type of renaissance origin which became popular in the second half of the 19th century mostly enclosed pictures of sacral or historical themes; frames compiled of ancient architectural elements - often in stylized form - were often used by secessionists and symbolists, too. Not only international but also Hungarian examples can be cited from the turn of the century, and a thorough study of Ferenczy's oeuvre reveals that several of his works on Biblical themes had similar frames, of which only one survives. The examination of the original framing of the two works makes it clear that the frames of the representatives of the Nagybánya school seen earlier as pioneers with their plein air interests and confronted with other tendencies and artists of the age did not deviate much from the frames of the other exhibited works, and at the same time, the reconstruction of the original frames corroborates the symbolical connotations of both paintings.