Mikó Árpád szerk.: "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" M S Mester vizitáció-képe és egykori selmecbányai főoltára (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1997/1)

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - MOJZER MIKLÓS: A festő hagyatéka, ahogyan ma látjuk

raries to him. He had a flair for making colours shine, or making them look transparent, or even glazed, wherever he thought it necessary; he had a talent for composing a larger segment, or even the whole, of the painting by using complementer and contrasting colours. Take, for example, the almost visionary representation of the Church of Jerusalem behind the resurrected Christ, for which the artist used coloured lines, merely suggesting the image of the building and, therefore, emphasizing the parallel between the body and the church - according to the Holy Scriptures. Since so far no infrared photographs have been taken to reveal the artist's underdrawing, we do not really know how good a draftsman he was. Some of the underdrawing is visible only in the case of the hands, the heads and a few more details, mostly in outlines. Due to the thinning of the paintlayer, the underdrawing, and even the pentimento, are visible, for example, in the case of the head and body of Christ in Crucifixion, but all we can infer from this is the point that the painter sketched out and painted his works very quickly. The sketched-out composition of St. Catherine's beheading on the reverse of Resurrection, featuring two figures, is quite probably the work of Master M S. However, it would be difficult to pass judgement on the basis of this rough sketch. The execution is far too sketchy to allow a comparison between the drawing of these figures to that of the figures on the painting, when in fact so little has been seen of the latter. Nevertheless, the composition seems to point to the main figure of Master M Z's large engraving The Martyrdom of St. Catherine, although in comparison to the arrangement of the figures in the drawing, the engraving's composition is in mirror image. The drawing forms an (exclusively and merely) compositional analogy with Hans von Kulmbach's panel of the same subject, displayed in Our Lady's Church in Cracow. The Signature has frequently been the subject of debates: is it original, is it false, or could it be that only the date was added later? The author of these passages happens to subscribe to the view, which regards the letters „M S" - along with the master sign between them - to be definitely original, and the same goes for the date „1506". A more interesting matter of investigation - one that has never been discussed (and could not be decided on its own merits) - would be the specification of the language in which the signature should be resolved or explained. Assuming, of course that they are indeed the initials of a name (or names). Such a result or argument can, however, be considered only if further works emerge, which simultaneously satisfy the following conditions: they provide information unequivocally linking the emerging works to one master; they are stylistically reconcilable with the panels of the altarpiece of Selmecbánya; the artist's biographical details are not in conflict with the place and time of origin of the said altarpiece; and the riddle of the signature is also unequivocally resolved. Until that time, however, we can talk about Master M S's Assumed Oeuvre only as an unsubstantiated proposition. In 1907 Herman Voss dated Visitation from the period of the Danube school, suggesting that it was the work of the engraver Master M Z; in 1928 Büchner attributed the series to the young Jörg Breu; and in 1939 Tibor Gerevich made an attempt to include in Master M S's oeuvre the four paintings held in the monastery of Prague-Strahov. All three suggestions were dismissed by expert critics. As to the intimations of Polish origin, I had good reasons to reject the suggestion which claimed that Deposition of Christ, a panel held in St. John Church of Torun, had been painted by Master M S at around the year 1500. The painter's technique, the material used for the panel, as well as the figures which were undeniably heavier than those found in the Selmecbánya altarpiece, all argued against Master M S's authorship; nevertheless, the possibility should still not be discarded entirely. In any case, the panel in Torun is unsigned. By contrast, the critical examination of the twentytwo engravings and three known drawings by the casual copperplate engraver, Master M Z, seem to suggest that his inspiration came from sources very similar, or identical, to those of Master M S: Pollaiuolo, Mantegna and his circle, Nicoletto da Modena and, to a certain extent, Veit Stoß - in addition to the fundamental influence of Schongauer and the young Dürer. Along with Diirer's prints, Master M Z's copperplate engravings dated from the period between 1500 and 1503 provide the earliest evidences for the influence of Italian graphical art in the North. For the period before 1505 this is a distinctive characteristic. Stylistically, the copperplate engravings and the panels of the Selmecbánya altarpiece are very close to each other, which strongly suggests that the same set of archetypes, i.e. the same collection of graphical works, stood behind both group of compositions, and therefore they could have been made by the same master. Then, of course, we still have to explain the problem of the different signatures, and there is also the problem regarding the character of Master M Z's three drawings, which is closer to Diirer's style, and is more realistic and more elaborate than Master M S's style of drawing seems to be, judging from the little that the panels of the Selmecbánya altarpiece reveal in this respect. However, I continue to believe that on the basis of these anomalies we still should not discard the possibility of Master M S and Master M Z being the same artist. Then there is a third artist, whose art shows even closer links to Master M S's art, the Master of the Codex