Hungarian Masterpieces

Összefoglaló

The volume plays tribute to nearly seven hundred years of Hungarian painting. It opens with codeces and altarpieces, many of unknown provenance, so that our knowledge of their makers is scarce - a name on the former predella of the Altar of Garamszentbenedek, or the initials MS on a panel in the Christian Museum of Esztergom.

Still, even in the 14th to the 16th centuries, they can tell us much about themselves, first and foremost, that Gothic and Renaissance painting of Hungary, of which very little remains to us from their past, formed a harmonious unity with European art, plyaing a role in its development. The works to follow, whose makers are easier to identify, often prove to have been made by artists from abroad or, if their maker was of Hungarian origin - Ádám Mányoki and Jakab Bogdány among them - it often happened that they would leave Hungary to work in another country.
The advent of a typically national art in the 19th century did not break with the history of European painting. Still, it took on an increasingly marked and unique character, so that today it falls into a class of its own. The two hundred years development of modern Hungarian painting is hallmarked by celebrated artists such as Károly Markó, Miklós Barabás, Mihály Munkácsy, Károly Lotz, Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry, József Rippl-Rónai, and more recently, Lajos Vajda and Béla Kondor.
Each painting in the volume is presented on two to four pages including a large-size reproduction with typical details, and similar accompanying works. The decsription includes the most important details of the life and work of the artist's oeuvre, as well as in the history of art in general. Still, first and foremost, the volume is meant to please the eye and our sense of the beautiful, with the text supporting the aesthetic content.