Lengyel László (szerk.): Devóció és dekoráció - 18. és 19. századi korolstormunkák Magyarországon - Studia Agriensia 7. (Eger, 1987)
Summary
still used today, the Hungarian researcher must be satisfied with reconstruction with the help of historical data and the „end products”. Unfortunately, there are no such contemporary written sources, which would provide an opportunity to study, impart, learn and develop different decoration techniques and motifs. The absense of historical data does not allow us to trace connections between different foreign and local convent workshops nor the route of the techniques and motifs, or the activity and radiating influence of classic decorators. All these difficulties can at the same time reveal the further tasks of research. LÁSZLÓ LENGYEL 18th and 19th CENTURY CONVENT WORK IN HUNGARY The convent works of the 18th and 19th century belong to the sphere of the lesser known circle of the local remains of the Baroque period relic and devotional picture cult which flowered in the spirit of Tridentium as a counterbalance to the Reformation. The examination of different types of convent works found in Hungary facilitate with additional data a more complete knowledge of our cultural history. This type of object which was mass produced during the Baroque centuries was always pushed out to the boundaries of the specialised branches of science. Sometimes the approach which considered artistic quality taken in an academic sense primary in relation to the high art of the period and sometimes the ideological obstructions prevented the examination of the object sphere and correct estimation. Therefore, firstly researchers of religious ethnography and some “deserter” art historians did research in this theme. The religious communities of the 18th and 19th centuries which furthered the inheritance of the medieval workshops of the monastic orders — besides the increasingly determining art academies and professional secular art — made extraordinarily manifold works in accordance and in total harmony with the tastes of their age. But from the great sphere of these convent works we wanted to show only those which belong to the sphere of individual faith and are in close connection with the cult of devotional pictures and relics. Due to this we gave up examining many types of convent work. So we also disregarded in our research goldsmith work, carpentry, church vestments and the multiplied mass products of the ecclesiastical object industry in the 19th century. From among objects for church use only the 143
