Déry Attila: Budapest eklektikus épületszobrászata (Művészettörténet - műemlékvédelem 1 Országos Műemlékvédelmi Hivatal, 1991)

Angol nyelvű összefoglaló

The eclectic sculptural decoration of Budapest The reason to write this paper was that in the course of evaluation the increasingly prominent eclecticism, we recurrently had to face difficulties regarding the identification and evaluation of the, often missing architectural sculptors. Our target can only be - owing to the lack of sufficient data and documentation of the so far ruined buildings to obtain an appropriate amount of examples to enable us to describe the activities of some artist and to familiarize ourselves with the development of this branch of sculpure. Our period under review falls between the «Compromise" of 1867 and the outbreak of World War I. The Compromise was not simply a document of reconciliation - i. e. political agreement - between the sovereign and the (ruling stratum of) Hungarian nation, it represented an overture to the Hungarian civil liberal development The Hungarian middle-class of that time valued it as their own political success because they saw a clear relationship - with good reason - between their economic success and political hedway. After 1867 the great creative energy with the immense effort to economical success indicated a severe free competition. The creative will and the drama of competition filled up the emotional frame of eclecticism with a real content, resulting in the surprisingly high artistic quality of the 1870-1880-s. Some artists of this era enriched by the self-consciousness of romanticism found narrow the role of stone-cutter stone-scupltor, craftsman taken shape in the 18-th century. The „artist" expressed trie conflicts existing in the mind of society, and was transferred to the focus of public interest, at the price of sacrificing his ties to any social classes and strata and was forced to set himself free of eimer feeling or being aware of social responsibility and reliability. Therefore the „artist-role" was not at all so attractive for everybody. The well-accepted craftsman-sculptor and artist roles divided into the „artist-role" securing publicity but lacking the existential safity, and the artist-craftsman leaning on the obsolescent guild-tradition which generally meant a safe job. As a result the decomposition of the 18-th c. division of labour regarding architecture took place. The place of master builder who had shouldered the planning and building together was taken over by Oie planner architect and the building contractor; tine artist-sculptor, architectural sculptor, and stone-cutter took the place of the sculptor who made their own artistical works, architectural sculptures and architectural sections as well; and the place of the stone-cutter who carried cutstone to the building of bastard-masonry and raw material for the sculptors, was taken up by firms hawing no contacts with private persons. In this study we deal with architectural sculptors. They could be ranked in different groups The late follower of classicism kept to the obsolescent guild-traditions; Károly Schaffer, Mátyás Ziegelwagner, Ignác Hentsch... In most instances they were in possession of great and well-known workshops and the characteristic features of their works were the use of antique préfiguration and precise shaping. Their typical work was a caryatid sculpture situated between windows. Somtetimes baroque fragments appeared on their works, also imitated by the classicist sculpture of Pest at the beginning of the 19th century. This conception of sculpture was not an anachronism at the end of the 19th century. The antique spirit and the culture related to it, have