Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
ANNUAL REPORT • A 2008. ÉV - ZSUZSANNA GILA: Lines of Beauty
Claude Lorrain —studied light conditions by drawing in nature to help him design tapestry cartoons with landscape backgrounds. The French guest exhibition gave a full answer to the question of what the genre of drawing was for in the two centuries portrayed. The multifarious functions of the eighty-four sheets were well presented: drawings were either preparatory studies made for paintings, frescos and tapestries, were drawn specifically as details, or as an elaborated compositional study to convince a commissioner, were works in their own right made for a commercial purpose, and were portraits or documents of historical events, ancient stories with a morale circulated on thousands of prints, and studies made by artists as an everyday practise or with the intention of creating their own repertoire of model drawings. In a large number of cases drawings are valuable documents since the otherwise fragile sheets often came down to us as the only records of the decorations, paintings, frescos and tapestries of French palaces that no longer exist. Thus, such graphic works helped create a more comprehensive picture of an era during which French culture was at the centre of public attention and admiration all across Europe —not for the first time, nor for the last. Dóra Romek rendered her valuable help in the organisation of the exhibition, and the harmony of the interior architecture w r as realised thanks to the beautiful design —one of his last projects —created by Pál Héjjas (12008). Zsuzsanna Gila
