Bardoly István - Cs. Plank Ibolya szerk.: A „szentek fuvarosa” Divald Kornél felső-magyarországi topográfiája és fényképei 1900-1919. (Forráskiadványok Budapest, 1999)

ABSTRACT

of Art in Szepes County) appeated in three volumes between 1905 and 1907, illustrated by first class photos by the author. The book contains altogether 189 photos, 97 of which are of works of art. By the second year of Divald's research in the Szepesség some new tasks were added to the previous ones. In the summer and autumn of 1905, upon the request of the Ministry of Religion and Public Education, he was engaged in the registration of the movable and real estate historic monuments of Hungary, and in organising country museums. It was on the basis on his collections that museums were opened in Bártfa in 1907, in Besztercebányáin 1909, and in Selmecbánya in 1912. During his long journeys he had an incomparable opportunity to go round each and every village and settlement and scrutinise each church and its fixtures. It was Szepes and Sáros counties which he worked out in most detail, between 1903 and 1919, and it was also these two counties where he took the greatest number of photos. The production of the first two years — 500 glass negatives - was bought by the collection of the MOB as early as 1905. He strove to place his valuable and fragile negatives in public collections later on too, though maintaining the right of free use for himself. His photographic journeys can to a cettain extent be considered as expeditions. He visited places where hardly any photographer had turned up before, taking photos of churches and their interiors and artistic treasures with a scientific objectivity. For one journey, which generally was two to three weeks long, he took along 50-100 silver bromide dry-plates of 13x18cm size, generally visiting three or four villages per day. The subjects of his photos varyied depending on the character of the journey. In 1906, took photos almost exclusively of items of applied art for the relevant chapter of the volume on Szepes county. Between 1907 and 1910 he recorded the historic monuments of Liptó, Arva, Bars, Hont^nd Zólyom counties, in the meantime collecting material for the ethnographic museum in Besztercebánya. Though he took less photographs at this time, they are high quality ones almost without exception. Let us quote as an example the perfect series of photos taken of the items in the exhibition cases in the museum in Besztercebánya, or the artistic composition of the photos of the sculptures in the Roman Catholic Chutch in Nagyócsa. A great part of Divald's photos are reproductions of works of art, taken of parts of winged altars, sculptures, textiles and goldsmiths' work. Quite often the surprise is further enhanced by the fact that his "findings", generally long out of use and in a very bad condition, were found by him in lofts, lumber rooms, or in the most hidden parts of churches — behind choirs, altars and cupboards. It is not by chance that he himself likened his method, comprising every minute detail, to archaeological research. Divald was in a special situation as a photographer as well, as he did not work in an atelier, but took his photos in the open air, using daylight. However, when taking photos of works of art, he also made use of installations like glass, cardboard, wooden staircases, door posts, or the wall of the church, creating contrasts with a fantastic effect. As a museologist he acquired several hundred items, either as presents or by means of purchase. And, as most of these objects were carried by him to the nearest town by cart, local papers used to call him "The carter of saints". Buildings and their furnishings constitute a separate part of his photographic work. He acted with great understanding in these cases as well. Many of his general shots of the church interiors were photographed either from the choir or from rhe far end of the church, using the lengthwise axis. For a representative presentation of the interiors he chose the symmetrical and the diagonal composition to bring out the perspective. The rest of his photos of interiors were composed with the aim of either encompassing the principal units — main altar, altars, benches, pulpit — or, in other cases, of presenting a more singular aspect. The photographic virtuosity of Divald may best be observed in his photos of details. As an example, when taking a photo of a winged altar, he never contented himself with a distant full view. He was very well aware that it is not only the entirety, made up of parts, that had to be scrutinised but also the individual parts, made up of predellas, gables and a mass of sculptures and paintings on the wings. It is this "research" attitude that accounts for so many study photogtaphs, photos "made for notes" and taken from a close view-point. For the sake of a good quality detail he very often took photos of the movable parts of the working altars individually or as a complete unit as well. The importance of architectural details does not appear so matked — he accentuated exterior total views and a proportionate presentation of the interiors and their architectural characteristics. Despite of the fact that the life-work of Kornél Divald, an art historian, is important in the field of photography as well, he himself had never considered himself to be a professional photographer, and he never risked the success of his shots with developing them in an amateur laboratory; he always had professional photogtaphers develop the plates he exposed during his eventful journeys. In his memoirs he wrote the following: "Besides exposure, on the accuracy of which depends the success of taking a photo, I do not have a smatter of photography up to the present day." However, knowing his photos, he seems to have been over-modest as he obviously knew everything a good photographer should know, especially choosing proper exposure time in different situations, the importance of which he himself also emphasised. Generally he worked in the interior of dark churches but, whenever it was possible, he took photos of the movable items under the open sky. In the task of reconstructing the original situations, his pocket-diary size notebooks are of a great help to us. In them he recorded the serial numbers of the plates he used and the subjects of the pictures