Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
ANNUAL REPORT 2004 - A 2004. ÉV - PUBLICATIONS - KIADVÁNYOK - ANNA JÁVOR: Andrea Czére, 17th Century Italian Drawings in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. A Complete Catalogue
After the "Academies", scientific drawings, come the dear ones, and we have only reached the F's alphabetically: and this is at the beginning of the era, the ever increasing Budapest œuvre of Pietro Faccini, likewise from Bologna. Card-players, picture dealers, the Sermon of Saint John the Baptist - all appear as momentary glimpses in his virtuosic brush drawings, charged with such atmosphere, that - platitude it may be they have the power with just a few lines to evoke - authentic or presumed seventeenth century "life"; his Mary Magdalene inspired by Correggio, on the other hand, is an important source for the later visual topos of the "woman reading in the forest". Outside of the register of names, at the end of the volume, a fortunate new acquisition of the Collection of Prints and Drawings appears as an appendix: the 358th item is by Giacinto Calandrucci, student of Maratta, an outstanding ink and wash drawing depicting the alms-giving of a young saint, whose protagonist has been identified as Saint Thomas of Villanova by an Italian art historian in his review of the systematic catalogue (Ranieri Varese, Critica d'Arte, 24-25 [2004], 14-15). We have already made mention of the structure of the present volume: the brief preface provides first and foremost a survey of the history of collection and research, which outlines the position of the collection within the context of the Budapest and other graphic collections. The artists follow in alphabetical order, including also those which are questionable, as well as followers and copiers; at the end of the volume, various indices, including an iconographie one, also assist in the retrieval of information. Questions of style are found within the individual items: Andrea Czére characterises the artworks shifting between the contemporaneous traditional Classicist-Baroque dichotomy, and describes their nuances, including the concept of Realism. The book is comfortable to handle and attractive, thanks to János Lengyel's design. Measuredly alternating are the colour - as we should keep in mind that the majority of not only the drawings, but also their paper, was coloured - and black and white illustrations, among them the reproductions of extraneous comparative artworks, with the principal drawings presented as is worthy, on full pages. With its English-language publication - in Andrea Czére's own translation the museum satisfies international interest, which concerns only in part the drawings themselves, the era and the world-renowned Budapest collection. Here, the author's expertise itself is a significant factor, and her published opinion and standpoint can now be employed as a point of departure for foreign scholars, just as the professional literature has built upon her works until now. But this superb volume can also be recommended to every student, museum-visitor, collector and demanding, contemporary "amateur". ANNA JÁVOR
