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

LÓRÁND BERECZKY: The First Fifty Years - 50™ ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL GALLERY - Anna SZINYEI MERSE: Periods, Masters, Styles, Themes...: 19th-Century Painting in the National Gallery

5. Hall of the Age of Reform in the building of the High Court, around 1960 6. In the first permanent exhibition in the Buda Palace, only screens were used to divide the U-shaped series of rooms. In the background to the left, a detail of István Ferenczy's Shepherdess can be seen. Photograph made around 1980 7. Neoclassical art at the present exhibition and traditions, presented in the U-shaped series of rooms, were given a worthy and an organically related introduction by the parts of the exhibition around the cupola space. Through typical examples of portraits and landscapes - genres which dominated the beginning of the century -, the genre paintings of the next decades, as well as one or two mythological and Biblical representations, we were also able to characterize the way larger stylistic groups yielded several variations according to subject matter. We also took into consideration the quantitative proportions of genres. The mixed hanging of genres facilitates a variegated general impression, and is highly effective in reflecting the overall view of art in a given period. Earlier on there had been only a few still lifes on show, we now selected some more of them, as we could allude to certain cultural historical moments through them (as for instance through Béla Schäffer's mid-century still life that depicts the porcelain statue of the famous dancer Fanny Elssler with a bouquet of roses around it). Space lacking, we could only hang works by lesser masters (such as János Hofbauer, Ferenc Pongrácz or Lipót Kerpel) when their presence was justified by the appearance or the increasing importance of a type of picture or genre, or when they gave expression to a subject matter important for a particular period. Often as not, classicism, classicizing romanticism, bourgeois romanticism or, to use its other name, Biedermeier and late romanticism were coupled with a certain degree of realism, and the majority of our historicist, academic artists made a virtue of their realistic approach. In this period of stylistic pluralism, an artistic tendency was seldom formulated in its purity. In the new exhibition, the smaller units arranged to facilitate a better understanding show many of the variants observable within particular groups of styles. Furthermore, in our arrangement, units beside each other, often perceivable from the same point of view, are capable of rendering the simultaneity of certain tendencies. However much reflection had to be expended on designing the arrangements in the sequence of rooms forming a U around the grand staircase and opening on to the space under the cupola on two sides, it offered opportunities for innovations compared to antecedents. Partition walls could be placed in the most appropriate spaces for the groups of artworks selected; it was only the series of thick-set pillars that tied our hands. This meant great freedom compared to the restrictions of the halls and cabinets of the Museum of Fine Arts and the High Court, which are of different sizes but in a fixed order. The corridor-like longitudinal space beside the pillars, from where the different rooms open to the left, can have an important role, though, at first we had believed it would be a hindrance. For example, this was how we could place Károly Kisfaludy's work belonging to early Hungarian romanticism on a sidewall beside the Neoclassicism Room the two contemporaneous tendencies are thus shown together but without the perturbed artistic world of Kisfaludy's landscapes disturbing the calm overall impression of the space dominated by the neoclassicist sculptor István Ferenczy's Shepherdess. (Ills. 6—7) In the corridor, the pictures with an Italian subject matter refer to the Italian study tours of our painters, and also prepare the way for the masterpieces by Károly Marko Sr. in the adjoining room. On the opposite side, József Borsos's paintings call attention to the parallel Viennese relations (Colour Plate XVIII), as precursors of which we hung the works of Gábor Melegh on pillars. Still on this side, there are a few pictures with orientalizing themes to at least