Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)
NEW ACQUISITIONS, NEW RESULTS - Monika BINCSIK: On the Two New Mednyánszky Drawings in the National Gallery
MONIKA BINCSIK On the Two New Mednyánszky Drawings in the National Gallery LÁSZLÓ MEDNYÁNSZKY: MONK (SCHOLAR), ca. 1895 (111. 1) On the verso: Sketch for Death of an Old Man, ca. 1895 (111. 2) Pencil on paper, 630x570 mm Inv. no.: F. 2005.11 LÁSZLÓ MEDNYÁNSZKY: DREAM IN A FIELD, ca. 1895 (111. 3) Pencil and charcoal on paper, 560x745 mm Inv. no.: F. 2005.12 In 2005 the collection of prints and drawings of the National Gallery was enriched by two rarities, two large-scale drawings from around 1895 by László Mednyánszky (1852-1919).' Among the drawings of the artist extant in Hungary, very few are largescale, and even fewer are those which were made around 1895, that is in his "symbolic, allegoric and philosophic" period. It is particularly interesting that both works treat the subject matter of mortality, the "extrication of the soul from the body", the "hereafter" and dream, which, like a subterranean river, flows through all his lifework. The parallel writings that have come down to us from the artist provide an inside view of the profound trains of philosophical thought often drawing on the contemporary reception of theosophy and Buddhism, which are determined by the continued presence of the issues of physical and moral suffering, life after death, the purification and ascension of the mind. By the accounts of his contemporaries, Mednyánszky was a deeply sympathetic, generous, devoted person though not quite exempt from inconsiderateness, sarcasm; nevertheless, in the middle of the 1890s, he was deeply interested in the consequences of good and bad deeds, the questions of rebirth and "Nirvana", the functioning of "roborating and ascendant", as well as in "reproductive and horizontally effective" instincts, sadistic scenes, the duality of body and mind, the "pure spirituality" of both Buddhism and Christianity. His loves - especially Bálint Kurdi, whom, after his death in 1906, the artist addressed as his "spiritual leader" in his diaries - became his advisors, protectors against temptations and the "demonium", and his examples on the way to spiritual purification and strengthening, a kind of enlightenment, understanding and tranquillity, where the "spiritual world", i.e. that which is freed from the burden of bodily existence, has a fundamental role. Surveying briefly the most important works up to 1895 that belong to the theme outlined above, we must begin with Watering Place with Ravens (ca. 1878, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), a picture with symbolic content, which the artist painted after the death of the child of his childhood friend, János Dinda, and which records the emotions of facing physical evanescence: a trough, resembling a coffin or a tomb covered with tears, is seen in a gloomy and hopeless landscape. The picture entitled Over the Grave (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), also painted around 1878, is presumably related to the same tragedy: a grief-stricken couple look down upon a small grave surrounded by small, desiccated plants. Another aspect of representing death included "vi1.
