Takács Imre: Az Árpád-házi királyok pecsétjei (Corpus sigillorum hungariae mediaevalis 1. Budapest, 2012)
Image and Style
IMAGE AND STYLE Any discussion of art works reflecting the artistic standards and tastes of the royal court during the Árpád era must take some account of royal seals. Those from the decades around 1200, by virtue of their greater numbers and satisfactory condition, permit analysis beyond mere description of their general typological and iconographic characteristics, embracing the style of the figurái representations and their places in style history. The depiction of King Emeric (1196-1204) on his great seal is a work of monumental effect, the most perfect expression of sovereignty and power of any royal seal from the House of Árpád (Cat. 20). The image of Béla Ill’s eldest son and the animal-head faldistorium have forms that may be traced to the twelfth-century royal seal type, and so the seal is a direct compositional derivative. Other contemporary representatives of the type are the royal seals of Louis VII (1137-1180) and his successor Philippe Auguste II (1180-1223) of France, and the same compositional model survived in the era of Louis VIII of France and even outside France, on the seals of Henry III of England (figs 27-29).327 In addition to the composition, the style features of Emeric’s great seal also speak of French precursors. An analogy from the direct artistic environment, i.e. Hungarian art of around 1200, was also proposed some time ago: the figure of Christ on the Deesis tympanum in Esztergom (fig. 40).328 On similar considerations, we might also mention a fragment of a figure found in Somogyvár, of unknown purpose, but with southern French connections (fig. 41).329 It should be added that these parallels do not permit us to outline a local system of connections for the representation of the king on the seal. It is curious that this extremely striking design was subsequently dropped, no successor of Emeric wishing to use it as a model, even though the form persisted on royal seals in its original homeland for another generation, and there was no break in the adoption of French artistic models under Andrew II. Indeed there are signs from many other areas that this influence actually strengthened. Even though Andrew II had been in constant battle with his elder brother before succeeding him on the throne, no explanation of the discontinuation 327 On King Emeric’s great seal and its Western models: Bartoniek 1924, pp. 14, 15, 19,24,26. 328 Marosi 1984, Abb. 180-181. 329 Pannónia Regia, cat. no. IV-14. of the French-inspired image on Emeric’s great seal couched in terms of a wish to distance himself from the style of representation followed by Emeric’s court will stand up. The counter-evidence lies in the stylistic conception of the figures on Andrew’s first great seal and double seal, which closely follow that of Emeric’s gold seal, a stylistic phenomenon which no doubt started within the court and radiated throughout the kingdom. This must have been the style of figures which dominated around 1200, because its traces can be found in both stone carving and small-scale art (fig. 32). Its roots may be traced to the twelfth-century classical sculpture of southern France and works of Maas country metalware which also adapted ancient forms. Worthy of particular mention is the seal of Emeric’s chancellor, Bishop Desiderius of Csanád (1202-1229). The form of the figure shows some kinship with the royal gold seal, and the throne bears a most striking similarity (fig. 34).330 The artistic isolation of Emeric’s great seal, and the fleeting guest appearance of a distinctively French court type is more likely to be attributable to the departure from Hungary of a goldsmith who had been working under court commission in 1196. Two major changes in the life of the Hungarian court in the late 1190s may have had a bearing on this. One was the departure of Queen Margaret Capet, who had come to Esztergom ten years previously from the court of her brother, Philippe Auguste. In the year following the death of Béla III, the dowager queen set off for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from which she did not return. The other far-reaching change may have been cause by Emeric’s marriage to Constance of Aragon in 1198. The retinue arriving in Esztergom with the Queen must have included artists as well as court nobles. As already pointed out, the disappearance of what was certainly a propagandistic political symbol, the image-type of the imposing royal great seal, did not derive from a political or other decision extending to the regal symbols in general, because the influence of Emeric’s gold seal persisted. The reverse side of the gold seal is the first appearance of the coat of arms on a medieval Hungarian seal (Cat. 21). The maiest as composition on the obverse also has a new and distinctive articulation through the more sophisticated costume than on previous royal seals. A shorter upper 330 p;rsj publication of the bishop’s seal which survives in a severely damaged state in the archive of Pannonhalma Abbey: Takács 1992, p. 25, fig. 11. 64
