Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei (Budapest, 2008)
ANNUAL REPORT • A 2008. ÉV - ZSUZSANNA GILA: Renaissance and Mannerism in the Netherlands
in Budapest. Stevens' innovation can be detected in the six sheets displayed that demonstrate his attempt to capture natural light and atmospheric conditions, which he mainly achieved by a brush drawing technique. The last hall at the Louvre exhibition displayed drawings by Dutch artists of Late Mannerism (Karel I van Mander, Goltzius, Abraham Bloemaert, Jacques II de Gheyn). The art of Rudolphine Spranger was mediated to the Haarlem masters, such as Goltzius, by Karel I van Mander. Goltzius's passionate Prophet is a splendid example of the expressive version of Late Mannerism in the Netherlands wdiere Sprangerism changed the artistic production for decades to follow. The study sheet by Jacques II de Gheyn was already conceived in the spirit of seventeenth-century Dutch realism: the depiction of the psychological state of the figures is so convincing that it suggests real-life models might have been used in their preparation. Bloemaert was the period's great draughtsman, and his characteristic work depicting two peasant houses introduced a new genre into Netherlandish art. Compared to her catalogue published in 1971 (Netherlandish Drawings in the Budapest Museum: Sixteenth-Century Drawings, An Illustrated Catalogue, two volumes, Amsterdam and New York 1971), the curator Teréz Gerszi, produced new attributions at this exhibition. In the 2008 catalogue she published Apollo and the Muses as an early drawing by Floris, as opposed to the 1971 attribution to an artist in the master's circle, and based on her recent research she linked the Annunciation, earlier attributed to Hans Speckaert, to Karel I van Mander. The interesting Saint Jerome sheet, combining drawing and engraving, w r as published in this catalogue for the first time. Satisfying the request of the French partner, the catalogue contains an extensive introduction and short entries written for each drawing. The introduction details the history of the collection and outlines the main trends of the extremely complex and contradictory sixteenth century. The forging ahead of Italianism is identified as the predominant trend, which manifested in Netherlandish drawings mainly in the figures' dynamic movements in space. Despite the external influence, Netherlandish art preserved its traditions in some genres, and over the sixteenth century, and especially in the second half of it, interaction gradually developed. The Italianising process was actually slow: a difficult struggle w r as fought to find a new form which lasted almost throughout the century. Zsuzsanna Gila
