Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: Vaszary János (1867–1939) gyűjteményes kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2007/3)

BERECZKY LÓRÁND: Előszó

Foreword With János Vaszary's large-scale retrospective, the jubilee-celebrating Hungarian National Gallery seeks - as though continuing the series of thematic of exhibitions started this spring and summer - to display another important branch of its museological labours. Particularly at the time of the anniversary, we believe it is a task of the National Gallery, which collects a full range works of art from the establishment of the Hungarian Kingdom to our day, to present its vocation, its array of duties and the work going on within its walls. The Hungarian National Gallery is a national collection with regard not to its social status, but to the character of its collection. Its responsibility is to collect, safeguard, analyze, document, and display works of artistic merit produced in the course of Hungarian history. In fulfilling its obligations, it meets a requirement specifically designed for it with regard to, we believe, both the cultural life of the nation and a globalizing world by being able to show the outstanding achievements of the intellectual life of a country, a people, a nation. In the day-to-day handling of works of art, naturally, several obligations have to be met. Different kinds of expertise are required for collecting, for safeguarding, etc.; at the same time, analysis and documentation have to focus individually on each work of art. A particularly thrilling activity is exhibiting, for it is through exhibitions that the general public - from whose payments of taxes the state maintains our institution - can have the most direct encounter with the results of the work carried out at the museum. This is why we sought to present the various branches of museological activity in our programme for our jubilee year 2007. Our exhibition called Artworks Made to Speak was mostly about collecting and scholarly analyses; the exhibition entitled The Art of Restoration presented one of the most important aspects safekeeping, and the Time of Painting show was about the relationship with contemporary art, which entails a particular kind of museological and art historical task. The classical relationship between art history and work done at the museum is represented by our large-scale retrospective of the œuvre of János Vaszary. It would be no exaggeration to say that we could hardly have found a better subject for presenting these duties of ours than treating the extraordinarily complex lifework János Vaszary had left to us. Born in the year of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, 1867, and died just before the world conflagration of World War II began, Vaszary had not only a unique talent, but also an unbelievable openness towards the various progressive aspirations characteristic of his times, and, adjusting them to his own artistic creed, he made use of them in his work. He experienced and interpreted countless new experiments and initiatives, incorporating many of their artistic effects. And what is most fascinating in him is that, for all his creative periods different in time and orientation, he was capable of expressing himself with full intellectual integrity. It is a genuine trial for art historians and museum experts to face the work of Vaszary, understand the throes of the man and the creative artist, comprehend his programme, and to take heed not to be carried away in applying various theories that have nothing to do with his works themselves. In the course of the preparatory scholarly studies and arrangements, the curators of the exhibition sought to display to the public the Vaszary œuvre in the broadest and most authentic selection possible in order to illuminate and delight every soul. For this great accomplishment, for the exhibition being also worthy of our anniversary, I would like to express my acknowledgment and appreciation to the curators Mariann Gergely and Edit Plesznivy in particular and all those colleagues who have deftly contributed to this exhibition and our classically conceived museological work at the Hungarian National Gallery. Lóránd Bereczky Director-General