Gyula Benczur

Gyula Benczur’s work "The Christening of Vajk", 1875

Hungary sees resurgence of interest in key artist

(Budapest) When Hungarian painter Gyula Benczur bumped into the Hungarian minister of culture at the threshold of the entrance to an exhibition almost a century ago, the artist motioned to let the minister enter first.

« I beg not, » said the minister, « because in one hundred years nobody will remember who the minister of culture is, but they will remember the artist Gyula Benczur. »

After decades of neglect under communist Hungary, once again the minister’s words are beginning to ring true. In central Europe, the divide between 19th century historical painting and the modernist revolution that followed, is slowly disappearing.

The point was brought across at a recent gathering of international experts on central European 19th century art held in Budapest recently.

« Historical Painting of the 19th century in central and eastern Europe: Cultural Heritage, a Common Responsibility, » was a three-day event held in Budapest in September, with the participation of leading scholars of 19th century art from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and England.

The experts outlined how the boundaries between eras traced by art historians are not as evident as they are sometimes made to seem.

The new reading of historical painting was demonstrated when today’s Hungarian cultural minister opened the first important exhibition in decades of Benczur, the artist known for being the leading proponent of 19th century academic and historical painting.

« While Gyula Benczur had differences in opinion, and even considered himself an opponent of artists like Cezanne, Gaugin and the Hungarian moderns, » Zoltan Rockenbauer, Hungary’s conservative Minister of National Cultural Heritage said at the Ernst Museum opening in Budapest, « the further we go in time from the debate between the academics and modern painters, the less significant those debates become, » he added.

Gyula Benczur (1844-1920) was Hungary’s most popular painter of the 19th century, and was lauded for representing Hungarian national ideal. He was sought after among Hungary’s 19th century aristocracy to depict the country’s bourgeoisie, and was also known for meticulously depicting the pivotal historical moments of the country’s history.

« We have to be careful, though, when we interpret these paintings, » said Timothy Hunter, Director and Head of 19th Century European Art for the London-based Auction house Christies.

« Because in many cases they were formed at a pivotal point in the nation’s histories and they sometimes formed a national myth and identity which is easy to lose track of. We have to look at these paintings in their context.”

Hunter recalled The Royal Academy’s ’1900 Art at the Crossroads’ exhibition held last year which took the 1900 Paris World’s Fair as a starting point to examine the artistic and cultural cross-currents of the turn of the last century.

In that exhibition, for example, the art of Edvard Munch, Pablo Piccasso could be seen side-by-side with the more conservative works of Adolph-William Bougereau, reflecting that the break between 19th century and modernist works may well have been as much of a myth as the nationalist idealism sometimes drawn out in historical painting.

« It was a reminder that art, and art history, is not like a textbook. » Added Hunter.

While valued during his lifetime, it was with the beginning of Hungary’s communist era that the bourgeois life of the 19th century elite that Benczur depicted no longer fitted in with the ideology or aesthetics that drove socialism.

Under communism, it was the aesthetics of toiling workers that replaced the idealised bourgeois class, and then left Benczur’s works relegated into relative obscurity.

« His works depicted the elite of the dualistic monarchy, the portraits of Barons, Counts, Kings and Queens, and not the working class, » said Gabor Belak, curator at Hungary’s National Gallery, who recently published a monograph on Benczur.

Like his counterparts Ian Matejko in Poland and Vaclav Brozik in the Czech Republic, Gyula Benczur and Romantic Movement that they lead, however, are now seeing a re-birth in interest for the first time in decades.

New monographs being published, and exhibitions being organised in central European capitals to re-read 19th century historical painting in a new light.

« This is not a revolution, or even a revision, but simply a consequence of how the period of the 19th century was simply undervalued for decades, and is now on the rise again, » said Roman Prahl, Professor at the Institute of Art History of Charles University, in Prague.