Prohászka László: Equestrian Statues - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)

control the horse with the finest movement of the ankle - an important consideration for a warrior in heavy armour.

Despite the heavy weapons and armour, there is nothing cumbersome about the piece. The statue of the victor of Nándorfehérvár radiates some inner force as well as imperturbable calm. The main figure almost standing up in the saddle with outstretched hand is the only motif to break the tight composition of the monument. The enormous charger and the armoured warrior might even be terrifying were it not for the absence of a helmet to cover the head of the rider, which leaves the face open with features suggesting a humanness of character and thus inspiring confidence.

The static nature of the statue is loosened by the cloak hanging off the shoulder of the rider in irregular folds. “Even with no authentic portrait available,” says the contemporary critic quoted from the journal Szabad Művészet by Ferenc Romváry in his book on the statues of Pécs, “[Pátzay] was able to sculpt a genuine portrait of the great statesman.”

As decreed by'the municipal authorities of Budapest, the copy, scaled down to less than half the original size, was erected near Vajdahunyad castle, a location deemed to be the most fitting environment, but unfortunately in a somewhat hidden spot, in 1986. The inscription on the rather high pediment says laconically: Hunyadi.

The genre of public sculpture has its own laws. A 125 per cent life-size statue set on a proper pediment impresses the onlooker with its monumental proportions looking even larger than it actually is. However, its scaled down copy when placed into a public space will look smaller than its real size. That is precisely what happened to Ferenc Medgyessy’s St. István in Győr and Esztergom, and also to Pátzay’s Hunyadi in Budapest.

After this look at historical sculpture, another change of style now follows. In 1988, an interesting statue with a distinctive aura was erected in a small, third-district park, at the intersection of the Szentendre-bound Highway 11 and Pünkösdfürdő utca, close to the boundary of Budapest. The piece, entitled In Memory of the Painter of the Path of the Sun, is a complex composition in a thematic as well as a technical sense. The bronze statue is placed between

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