Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)
ANNUAL REPORT - A 2006. ÉV - AXEL VÉCSEY: El Greco, Velázquez, Goya: Five Centuries of Spanish Masterpieces
Not surprisingly, considering the character of the Budapest collection, the El Greco sequence represented one of the highlights of the exhibition. The Museum's own works in themselves possess the power to follow through the development of El Greco's style in his Spanish period, but the two canvases lent by the Prado made an important addition to this view by representing important genres missing from Budapest. The powerfully expressive Pentecost Altarpiece formed a perfect pair with the contemporaneous Annunciation in Budapest, contrasting the grand-scale public and the intimate private versions of the same visionary spirituality; whereas the Portrait of an Unknown Knight, together with two magnificent sixteenth-century royal portraits from Vienna (Sanchez Coello's Isabel de Valois and Pantoja de la Cruz's Infante Don Felipe) created a revealing introduction to the extremely strong Velázquez room in the exhibition. The comparison with the Pentecost disproved the assertion made by certain scholars that Budapest's El Grecos had been over zealously cleaned in the past: the thin layers of paint, under which the priming sometimes showed through, was a characteristic of Greco's later style rather than the result of some conservational treatment. Zurbarán's paradigmatic masterpiece, the Saint Bonaventura in Prayer from Dresden was displayed separately in the middle of a huge wall space, which further intensified its isolating approach, lending a majestic and sacramental character to the picture. The accompanying works in the fourth room, chieflv representations of Saint Francis of Assisi from the period 1620 to 1650, provided an insightful context for Zurbarán's work. The paintings by Ribera, Espinosa, and Antonio del Castello represented different approaches but all shared an intense spirituality. The Budapest Peasants at the Table represented Velazquez's achievements in the bodegón genre, nicely put in context with two fine still lifes and Ribera's Diogenes (Dresden). But the real highlight of the exhibition was the Velázquez room. Eva Nyerges made a very shrewd decision when, instead of displaying a small part of each aspect of Velazquez's art, she concentrated on court portraiture. The room was dominated by the magnificent full-length painting of the Infante Don Curios (Prado), an emblem of the Spanish court's sober majesty. This image again acted as a reference point, creating the atmosphere and reinterpreting" the other paintings. However, the most insightful feature of the room was the joint display of the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress (Vienna) and its green-dressed version by Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo (Budapest). Although Mazo was not able to capture the same depth of personality as his father-in-law, his tonal harmonies and especially the sumptuous greens so much a characteristic leature of his art reveal his mastery of colouring. His version shows less of the burden of rule but rather creates a smoother, warmer image of the girl. Both paintings come from the
