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

the place of the former, as followers of Munkácsy. Several Szolnok paintings in the Ball Room were put away in stores to give room for the Mednyászkys left out from the floor above; due to similar reasons, we have had to add paintings produced in Nagybánya to the exhibits in the space occupied by the Hollósy circle, thereby also changing the original periodization of our 19

th-century exhibition. It is only to be hoped that by furnishing the newly acquired Building A of the Buda Royal Palace, the 20

th-century exhibition, exemplary as it is in its detailed and informative character, can present an even more extensive material. It is quite right that permanent exhibitions should be continually renewed to be able to reflect new scholarly results and changes in taste. It had been a formidable, yet loveable task to set up the new 19

th-century exhibition twenty years ago, and the colleagues who will change it according to their own concepts in the future will have to perform a task no less formidable. In contrast to most nations, Hungarian art-history writing and book publication still owe a wide-ranging series of studies providing in-depth treatment of this period or its particular issues and of monographs on individual artists. It therefore remains the responsibility of the Hungarian National Gallery to present as full a picture of the 19

th century - particularly important to the nation - as possible, especially as it owns the most comprehensive and richest collection artworks from this period. The words of Elek Petrovics are as valid as ever: "This is our duty to not only ourselves, but universal culture, as well; for, from among the many tasks set by the latter, our most natural lot is to collect and study the material our own art has produced. This is a task no one else is going to perform in our stead, and this is the field where we can produce a rounded whole."'

7 NOTES On the illustrations: The photographs of the former permanent exhibitions can be found in the Archive of the HNG. inv. nos.: 22001/1983 and 22134/1984. The present exhibition was photographed for the purpose of this publication in April 2008. 1 Kotrbová, M. A. and J. Kotalik et al. Peinture tchèque du XIX

1

' siècle. Guide de l'exposition au Couvent d'Agnès-la-Bienheureuse. Prague, 1980. 2 Porçbski, Mieczyslaw. Das Nationalmuseum in Krakow. Galerie der Polnischen Malerei und Skulptur des 19. Jahrhunderts in den Tuchhallen. Ein Führer durch die Sammlungen. Krakow, 1991. 3 Lenz, Christian. Die Neue Pinakothek München (Museen der Welt). Munich: C. H. Beck; The Neue Pinakothek Munich. London: Scala Books, 1989. p. 4. 4 From 1896, Tschudi was the director of the Berlin Nationalgalerie founded twenty years earlier, but was dismissed due to his modernist attitudes in 1909. Always rivalling Berlin, Munich immediately invited him to head the Neue Pinakothek. It was owing to him that the gallery acquired several impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces. 5 Ruhmer, Eberhard ed. Neue Pinakothek. Erläuterungen zu den ausgestellten Werken. Munich: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, 1981, pp. 10-12. 6 Roscnblum, Robert. "Reconstruire la peinture du XIX

e siècle." In: Le déhat. March-May, 1987, no. 44, p. 85. The 192-page special issue of the periodical prompted by the opening the Musée d'Orsay has an interesting section contrasting the often not at all favourable opinions of several well-known specialists asked to present their views with those of the museologists who created and arranged the museum. 7 For a more detailed discussion of the project, see Laclotte, Michel. "Le projet d'Orsay". In: Le débat, March-May, 1987, no. 44, pp. 4-19; Pomian, Krzysztof. "Entretien avec Françoise Cachin - Orsay tel qu'on le voit." In: ibid., pp. 55-74; and the other studies of the issue. 8 Le rôle de 1 Ecole de Paris dans la peinture hongroise. Hôtel de Ville, Salle de Flore, Dijon, 1986. The Hungarian Institute in Paris also put up the exhibition, though in a smaller selection in the December of thai year. 9 The type-written transcript of the speech recorded on tape on November 3, 1987. HNG Archive, inv. no.: 22796/1987. 10 I cannot dwell on the major theoretical and practical issues brought up by the exhibition which have not been discussed elsewhere. For a room-by-room guide published by the National Gallery see Bakó, Zsuzsanna, Anna Szinyei Merse, Antal Tóth and Viktória L. Kovásznai. Hungarian Painting and Sculpture in the Nineteenth Century. Guide to the Permanent Exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery. Budapest: Hungarian National Gallery, 1989. Unfortunately, like the 19

,h-century volume of the handbook series on Hungarian art history produced by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the great work of preparing the multi-authored catalogue of the National Gallery exhibition has also been left unfinished. A representative album by Zsuzsanna Bakó and Gabriella Szvoboda Dománszky (XIX. századi magyar művészet. Állandó kiállítás a Magyar Nemzeti Galeriéiban. Budapest: Kossuth Kiadó, 2004) sought to make up for this want with its short introductory essay but bounteous selection of reproductions. With regard to the first half of the century, this is a sort of "musée imaginaire", for it reproduces paintings that could not be displayed in the lack of space. It is a pity that this open-handed selection could not be proportionally continued due to the sheer size of the material the genuine flowering and artistic fulfilment produced after 1860. 11 Cf. Szinyei Merse, Anna. ,.The Collection of Nineteenth-Century Painting." In: Idem ed. The Hungarian National Gallery. Budapest: Corvina, 1994, pp. 9-12. 12 See the register of the Modern Gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts published in 1906: A Modern Képtár lajstroma. Budapest: Szépművészeti Múzeum, 1906. In his introduction, Director Ernő Kammerer writes that Károly Ferenczy, Ferenc Paczka and Pál Szinyei Merse participated in the selection, and the curator was Bertalan Karlovszky. For a catalogue with descriptions see: Peregriny, János. Szépművészeti Múzeum. A Modern Képtár leíró lajstroma. Budapest: Szépművészeti Múzeum, 1906. (By 1910, it already had four reprints.) 13 A catalogue of the Modern Gallery: Térey, Gábor and Zoltán Takács. A Modern Képtár katalógusa. Budapest: Országos Magyar Szépművészeti Múzeum, 1913. 14 See his publications on the new arrangement: [Petrovics, Elek]. "A gyűjtemények rendezése." In: Országos Magyar Szépművészeti Múzeum Evkönyvei III, 1921-1923, Budapest: Szépművészeti Múzeum, 1924, pp. 118-119; idem. Élet és művészet. N. p. [Budapest], 1937, pp. 149-154. Furthermore: "Az újjárendezett Modern Képtár." In: Vasárnapi Újság, 1920, no. 12, p. 137; no. 14, pp. 161-164. 15 Magyar festészet a XIX. században. A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria első kiállítása. (Catalogue, introduced by Pogány, Ö. Gábor), Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 1957; Bényi, László. "L'exposition de la peinture hongroise du XIX

e siècle à la Galerie Nationale Hongroise." In: Bulletin de la Galerie Nationale Hongroise, no. II, Budapest: Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 1960, pp. 93-96. 16 Charaziriska, Elzbieta et al. Galéria malarstwa Polskiego. Przewodnik. Warsaw: Múzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, 1995, pp. 125-142; and Poprzçcka, Maria. Polskié malarstwo salonowe. Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1991. 17 Petrovics. Élet és művészet, op. cit. (see Note 14) p. 149. First published: "A Szépművészeti Múzeum jövője. Az új igazgató munkaterve." In: Az Újság, 12 April, 1914. p. 35.