Bíró Szilvia - Székely Zoltán: Arrabona - Múzeumi Közlemények 49/1. Tanulmányok T. Szőnyi Eszter emlékére (Győr, 2011)
Székely Zoltán: Unger Alajos antik szobrokról készült akadémiai tanulmányrajzai
I I ARRABONA 2011. 49/1. TANULMÁNYOK UNGER ALAJOS’ ACADEMIC STUDY-DRAWINGS FROM ANTIQUE SCULPTURES The less known painter of : Unger Alajos (1814-1848) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna between 1836 and 1842. From this period several of his study-drawings survived including five drawings from antique sculptures, namely the Hercules head of the Farnese, Menelaos’s head from the Pasquino Group, a portrait of a Roman matron (the so called Marciana), the Borghese Gladiator and the Resting Hermes. The methodology of the academic artist education was developed in the Renascence Italy and spread all over Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The most important means of the education was the drawing (disegno) that was considered both as the basis of each branch of the art and the medium of the character of the artistic works. The art of drawing had to be mastered by copying the antique sculptures and the works of the great masters that were considered as the measure of art. To this end the different academies developed collections of plaster-cast of antique sculptures. The plaster-cast collection of the Academy of Vienna, which was established at the end of the 18th century, was developed continuously, but during the 20th century it lost its importance and many pieces of the collection were lost. So, from among the pieces having been drawn by Unger Alajos only two survived: the Farnese Hercules bust, and the bust of the Roman matron. At the time of Unger’s studies the spirit of the neo-classicism dominated the Academy of Vienna, which determined both the methodology of the education and the requirements in view of the artistic language forms emphasizing the role of the contour in the art of drawing. Zoltán Székely 322
