Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH. PHD THESES AT THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY - Bernadett Puskás: The Art of the Munkács Greek Catholic Diocese (16th-19th centuries)

THE ART OF THE MUNKÁCS GREEK CATHOLIC DIOCESE (16TH-19TH CENTURIES) BY BERNADETT PUSKÁS The history of the Munkács (Mukachevo) diocese has been documented since the 15th century. In establishing the temporal limits of my research, I took as my basis the earliest relics associated with the local church, as well as artworks created at the time of the expansion of the diocese during the 17th-18th centuries, and considered only briefly works made in the 19th century. The geographical boundaries were set by the confines of the diocese. During the first few centuries of its existence, most believers within the Munkács diocese, then part of Hungary, were Ruthenians, the rest being Romanians, Slovaks and Hungarians. At present we do not have sufficient data to produce a volume of topographical details. Yet relics that ended up in other collections, as well as related archival sources, enable us to outline the art life of the Munkács diocese, to sketch the activity of studios, artists and patrons, to represent tendencies and connections in the art of the period in question. These connections include the influence of Moldavian art in the 15th-16th centuries, the influence of the late Renaissance and the Baroque in the Carpathian region, the activity of artists from the south of Poland and Hungary, and in general, the role of Hungarian art - something never expounded in the international literature. Available are now hitherto unpublished relics and data among them the bishop's portrait gallery, images of dignitaries lying in state, printed antimensions, icons and iconostasis fragments surviving in the diocese which add to, and correct, our previous knowledge of art in this peculiar church. The choice of subject enabled me to delve into several questions hitherto overlooked, like the role of those commissioning the works, especially ecclesiastic patrons, and the special relationships between church policy and artistic phenomena (cf. relations to Galitsia and then to Vienna). Several epochs can be distinguished within the art history of the Munkács diocese, as indeed in the art of its broader context, the Carpathian region. The traditional terms of style are applicable when describing the art of the periods: I. The 15th—16th centuries were a time of homogenous medieval Metabyzantine Christian culture, ending at the turn of the 16th—

17th centuries. II. The 17th century was a time for modern attitudes and revival, the appearance and florescence of the local late Renaissance. III. With the dawn of the 18th century, a new chapter of modernization began, with an orientation towards the West and the gradual prevalence of Baroque. IV. The 19th century was characterized by historicizing and a modern-age interpretation of the tradition. The multinational league of researchers is divided over a question of terminology, namely whether the art of the entire region is to be referred to with a national or geographical denominator. I chose the term widely used in ethnography, 'Carpathian', something that does not exclude the possibility of discussing phenomena and schools of smaller localities. Those, now scattered, relics whose creation fell on the first period of the Munkács diocese, after the foundation of the monastery, at the time of the development of the local church, reveal a Central-European version of a peculiar, medieval post-Byzantine culture. In the earliest surviving examples of the local log-walled churches the tripartition of space was the synthesis of various traditions (late Byzantine with Vlach-Moldavian mediation, the beginnings of Slav wooden architecture, the influence of Latin stone temples). Certain technical solutions of the three- and later four-row iconostases found in the Munkács diocese are reminiscent of northern Russian specimens. Their foundation initially followed the low, Balkan model, later to approximate, by the end of the 16th century, the Moldavian solutions. The icons used in the 15th—

16th centuries in the Carpathian region, or in 16th-century Hungary, were made in southern Polish studios. In the development of local icon painting, as in the case of the sporadic book painting relics, northern Russian and Moldavian influences are discernible. During this period representations were highly traditional, only minor technical changes (colour scale, mode of painting, background pattern) mark the phases of development. Relying on multiethnic cultural sources, art in the region was also ready to admit local Latin - Gothic - influences. The 17th century (Chapter II) was a time when the region became receptive towards the strengthening economic, political and cultural influence of the West. Following western styles in art, initially the late Renaissance, indicated a desire to draw upon the achievements and experiences of European culture, to become part of it. This shift was also necessary as the medieval foundations of Byzantine culture were crumbling, which affected both the Greek Orthodox and the polemically relateCatholic