Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

LÓRÁND BERECZKY: The First Fifty Years - 50™ ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY - Anna SZINYEI MERSE: Periods, Masters, Styles, Themes...: 19th-Century Painting in the National Gallery

1. Historical paintings by Bertalan Székely and Viktor Madarász mixed in with other genres and styles in the building of the High Court, late 1950s of indication, though they tried to avoid mixing the various stylistic tendencies. And they were particularly careful to clearly separate in spaces also marked by levels the avant-garde of the period, impressionism and post-impressionism from not so innovative tendencies (i.e. naturalism and symbolism). They kept the best skylight halls for the avant-garde they themselves appreciated most.

7 Still, their cautious attempt to exhibit after a long break a few works by academic and eclectic artists or others who had been supported by official circles (e.g. Couture, Chassériau, Cabanel, Bouguereau), which was important in view of presenting the context of the innovators, elicited charges of supporting kitsch from various groups of critics and intellectuals. The calls mentioned above by experts of 19

th-century art history for total displays of the period did not meet full approval from all quarters at that time, but the past two decades have resulted in a kind of acquiescence. Nevertheless, penetrating analyses of this amazingly creative and prolific century have continued to be pursued in temporary exhibitions, catalogues, essays and monographs in France and elsewhere, and they might very well yield surprising results for many of us. In this survey, I need not dwell on the problems that many have brought up, namely: periodization, the presence of foreign artists and that certain paintings might not have found their most appropriate places in the not always fortunate shaping of spaces in the railway-station-turned-exhibition-hall; these issues would each require separate studies. With these examples, I wished to allude to how far our own 19

th-century exhibition is imbedded in the European context. When the author of this paper was first offered the honourable opportunity of participating - with my colleague, Zsuzsanna Bakó in the elaboration of the concept of the permanent exhibition of the 19

th century in the Hungarian National Gallery back in 1985, she had not had the chance of seeing the new building of the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, but did maintain connections established earlier with the curator Eberhard Ruhmer, who advised her on the principles of arranging their display. I had studied 19

th-century exhibitions first in Eastern Europe, then I had the opportunity to do so in Western Europe (in Munich and Paris, too). I also had recollections from before 1957 of the halls of the Museum of Fine Arts frequently visited in my childhood. In 1964-65 I myself conducted several gallery presentations as a university student on museological practice and later as an employee in the Hungarian 2. Historical paintings related to the Munich School (Benczúr, Liezen-Mayer, Székely) on view in the present exhibition of the HNG National Gallery (then in the building of the former High Court, now housing the Museum of Ethnography in Kossuth tér). In the meantime, I developed an interest in director Elek Petrovics's prewar arrangement of the Museum of Fine Arts, which my parents would often recall with nostalgia. Having more thoroughly acquainted myself with the stored and deposited material in the 19

thand 20

th- century collection of the National Gallery, from which I curated several exhibitions at external locations, I often ruminated on how it would be possible to improve and make more complete the 19

th-century exhibition set up temporarily when the Gallery was moved up into the Buda Royal Palace in 1975. The not quite fortunate facilities of the building and various other constraints gave us plenty to ponder over; however, the first plan we had made with Zsuzsanna Bakó already contained elements that could later be used in the final version. In the autumn of 1986, before the opening of the exhibition of the Hungarian National Gallery in Dijon,

8 I stopped over in Paris for a few days. Seizing the opportunity, I tried to get into the still closed exhibition of the Musée d'Orsay and meet the curators working on the final stages of the arrangement, but even professional visitors were not permitted entry before the official opening. I had to content myself with the personal discussions with the French colleagues and with the printed information given, which, however, proved to be very reassuring for our Budapest plan had had several features akin to that of the d'Orsay one without our prior knowledge of it. Following my return home, a professional debate took place again, the central issue of which was the placing of the historical paintings and Pál Szinyei Merse's Picnic in May, this masterpiece of Hungarian plein-air painting. In respect of the former we modified our plans, and refined some of the details in other aspects, too. We had to limit our initially copious selection as arrangements in the rooms also changed. And then began the last-minute rush. The series of rooms displaying the works of Mihály Munkácsy and László Paál had been the first to open already in the summer of 1986. Unfortunately, the air-conditioned cabinet system inherited from the High Court building could still not be disposed of - this had to wait for another decade. In the course of 1987, the small Szinyei Merse room, the halls on the two sides of the space under the cupola and the U-shaped series of rooms were completed, and, when we were ready with the Ball Room, we had the official opening ceremony. In his opening speech, the retired general di-