Mikó Árpád szerk.: Reneissance year 2008 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2008/1)

ÁRPÁD MIKÓ: The Legacy of King Matthias. Late Renaissance Art in Hungary (16th-17th Century)

Iiistus Sustermans and workshop: Ferdinand III as King of Hungary, 1626 Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Galena Catholic priest of Sopron. There are also some painted epitaphs, which also belong to the Baroque era. Portraits were also made on copperplate engravings: reproduction graphics became an important tool in the artistic representation of the period. The exhibition includes single pages and examples from series; the best known are Elias Wideman's "one hundred Hungarian nobles". Goldsmith's Art: Old Forms, New Ornamentation The art of the goldsmith provides us with the finest and most diverse set of objects from the period. Many of the fine goldsmiths working in Upper Hungary and Transylvania are known by name, and their known oeuvre continues to expand. The ornamentation demonstrates most clearly how difficult it is to draw the boundary between late Renaissance and Baroque. 16th century strapwork decoration survived in 17th century Transylvania goldsmith work: the cartouche and auricular decoration run right through the 17th century; and the latest starter, the acanthus ornament, the enormous, all-covering acanthus leaves and flowers, look exactly like Baroque formations. In the meantime, vessel types remained unchanged: the most common was the stem glass, which occurs everywhere, mostly in simpler versions, although there are also grandiose examples as big as buckets. Sebastian Hann, who worked in Nagyszeben (Sibiu), is traditionally regarded as the first protagonist of the Baroque in Transylvania, but the precursors of his motifs include late Renaissance etchings, and his vessels are all of highly traditional types. The same ornamentation was not confined to vessels; it can be seen on bookbinding, weapons, woodcarvings and miniature paintings. It also propagated by the medium of reproduction graphics, demonstrated here by some etchings, some of which were used in Hungary. The archive pictures accompanying all parts of exhibition are not only of objects which, for various reasons, cannot be moved. They are also intended to convey the interest m the historical community, and sometimes the wider public, which from the late I 8th or early 1 9th century turned their scrutiny on this period and its art. These two hundred or so years appear m something like a double mirror: the elusive boundaries — which can never be tied down exactly — between Gothic and Renaissance, and Renaissance and Baroque. Elias Bergman: Tankard with the arms of the family Széchy, c. 1645 Budapest, Iparművészeti Múzeum