Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 102-103. (Budapest, 2005)

ANNUAL REPORT 2005 - A 2005. ÉV - ANNA JÁVOR: Pictures within Pictures: The Artist and the Public over Five Centuries of Graphic Art from Burgkmair to Picasso

PICTURES WITHIN PICTURES: THE ARTIST AND THE PUBLIC OVER FIVE CENTURIES OF GRAPHIC ART, FROM BURGKMAIR TO PICASSO 1 December 2005 - 27 March 2006 Curator: Zsuzsa Gonda GONDA ZSUZSA. PICTURES WITHIN PICTURES: THE ARTIST AND THE PUBLIC OVER FIVE CENTURIES OF GRAPHIC ART FROM BURGKMAIR TO PICASSO. BUDAPEST 2005. HUNGARIAN AND ENGLISH TEXT. 184 PP.. 100 COL. ILLS.. ISBN 963 7063 13 7 Zsuzsa Gonda undertook, with the exhibition she staged in the Museum of Fine Arts, no small task, with the ambition to unveil, equally for art historians and the public, the "final realities" of art history and of graphic art itself. She lined up behind the captivating and witty title, Pictures within Pictures, all the topics that were ever addressed by those who were in contact with art, either as creative artists or as its recipients, thinkers and viewers. She transformed six main topics into six "chapters", the passages of which she filled with the excellent works from five centuries of graphic art, from Burgkmair to Picasso (fig. 77). There were, in the first chapter, stories from Antiquity about the origin of painting: from Pliny's well-known tale of the Shepherdess, who depicted the shadow of her beloved on the wall, to the contemporary fashion of silhouette pictures. This was followed by the anecdotes of Zeuxis and Apelles, among them the painting of a deceivingly lifelike bunch of grapes, a tale favoured by late-eighteenthcentury Mannerism; continuing with a series of stories, up to the myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell in love with his own artwork, recalled first in a serious, then in a caricature-like vein. In this chapter, Mercury and Minerva appear as patrons of the arts, while Apollo will come to the fore in the following chapter, dedicated to the allegorical figures of art. This section addresses the visual representations of the various branches of art, their rivalry and the theoretical background of the entire issue. This theme ends with the visual and conceptual expression of promoted art and art exposed to dangers. In the catalogue, just as in the exhibition, a separate iconographie grouping was dedi-