Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

NEW ACQUISITIONS, NEW RESULTS - Monika BINCSIK: On the Two New Mednyánszky Drawings in the National Gallery

oient death", accidents, as well as an interest in sadism and torture - another streak running through his oeuvre and his diaries, too. The physical suffering and the annihilation of the body, their effect on the viewer, and the pure, powerful depiction of mental processes concerned are what the artist focuses on. He kept returning to this subject matter as is shown by, among others: Kneeling Convict (first half of the 1880s, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), A Prisoner Bound (1890s, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), or, giving another reading of the same theme, Tragedy (ca. 1880-85, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava) and Fisherman Dying (ca. 1880-85, Vychodoslovenská Galéria, Kosice), as well as many graphic sketches. The precise representation and anatomy of reclining agonizers, dead bodies and their countenance often engrossed the attention of the painter, and particularly intensively in the period of the 1880s and early 1890s. In the picture entitled Monk, a transfigured, emaciated, sharpfeatured figure in a hood faces the viewer. (111. 1 ) His glance, his deep-set, visionary eyes accentuated by white lights show that he is surrounded by no earthly reality in his meditative, absorbed state: it is the infinite he sees. (The old man of The One That Sees [The Head of an Old Man] in the Slovak National Gallery from the same period has a similar infinite-seeing pair of eyes). He rests his clasped hands on an open book, with the cross of his rosary dangling over the kneeler. From both the left and the right, two spiritual beings bend over him; it is as though he were listening to their whispers. The finely, sensitively drawn picture with its soft, mysterious lights was made around 1895, when, following the death of his father (at Beckó on July 25,1895), he was very much concerned about the relationship between body and soul, the questions of mortality and spiritual purification. On the reverse side of the sheet, we have a sketch of the painting depicting his father's death (The Death of an Old Man, 1895) unfolding. (111. 2) Death appears over the bed of the terminally ill old man, perhaps he pries into the light extinguishing from his eyes, and we know he is soon going to lead the old man across to the netherworld; as he draws the curtains back, the lights show the way. The relation between the two compositions is also attested by a diary entry made at Beckó: "The sad summer at Beckó. Symbolic figures in (water, in air). After my father's death. The sad autumn. Death and a woodcutter in the forest. - Death and the ailing. - The monk and temptation. (Shadows). The scholar with two symbolic figures (angel and death)."

2 The painter was deeply absorbed in thoughts of how he could represent the act of spiritualization. How could the most refined material be depicted, how it could be shown with the use of crude means so that it would affect the eyes in an invisible and occult way from underneath the visible layers. The allegorical-philosophical themes in Mednyánszky often associate romantic and dramatic effects. In Memento (Terror Scene) also made around 1895 (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava), it is the encounter with death and the terror of final and irrevocable recognitions that unfurl. In Prayer over a Grave (ca. 1895, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava) the fine "spiritual bodies" of ghosts, light-imbued allegorical figures, appear among the branches of trees, over the figure of a broken-hearted, kerchiefed woman kneeling beside a grave in a forest. Forest Ghost (ca. 1895, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava) also depicts a similar spiritual being. Elderly Couple at Night (ca. 1895-1900, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava) is also related to this subject matter with the furrowed faces of the pair reflecting otherworldly light. The drawing entitled Dream in the Field is another masterpiece belonging to this period: the lights playing over a silky grain field and the translucent, fine texture of the veil brought by winged beings witness to extraordinary craftsmanship. (111. 3) In the small clearing, a man dozes off to sleep, beside him, a woman, resting against a haystack, looks on, a can of water standing at her legs. From above, angels (?) cover the man with a veil. There is a characteristic lack of women portrayed in the Mednyánszky oeuvre; he mostly depicted wise-looking elderly women with glances of knowing everything. In this composition, he shows the woman in a long skirt sideways, almost showing her back to the viewer. The following diary entry may refer to the symbolic content of the picture, the depiction of the spiritual beings bringing the veil of sleep or dozing off: "The beginning of changes. Changes in the area of figurai motifs. Liberation from conventional realism. The beginning of allegorization. [...] Nagyőr. Under purely spiritual impressions. A sleeping ascetic and the shadows."

3 To describe the mood and the mysterious light relations of the picture, let us quote a 1908 diary entry by the artist: "Intimate effects are not luministic. Luministic effects always have some fur-