Hungarian National Gallery

On Wednesday morning I had some time to myself before an afternoon full of meetings at Corvinus University so I used it to climb back to the top of Castle Hill. I spent an entire day there last year and loved it - and wrote all about it earlier in the blog. However, on the previous trip I missed out on going into the National Gallery because a wing of it was closed for repairs. So, I was determined to get back up there. It was a lovely way to spend a couple hours, not simply because it is located high on Castle Hill and you'd be looking at a picture and suddenly look out the window and have this spectacular view looking across the Danube to the Pest side (Castle Hill is on the Buda side). The view looking over the chain bridge and towards the Parliament building was pretty amazing.

I, sadly, didn't know much about Hungarian art, and now I know a little more. Every place I visit I always end up at the local art museums, which I guess is the hallmark of the utter nerd. I usually bring along a pen and small pad of paper so that I can make notes to myself as I wander through the museum - you never want to go to a museum with me, it can take hours - and then I'll want to go back through it again. Anyway, this time I forgot my pen, but stopped an ancient Hungarian woman who was working there are borrowed her nub of a pencil to make notes on my Budapest map. There were several artists that I found quite interesting. There were several painting from an artist named Soma Orlay Petrich, but the one I found most interesting was his painting of the Greek poet Sappho, not only because she looked very Hungarian as compared to Greek, but also because she looked like a younger version of his mother (another painting that was featured there) - submit pop psychological analysis here. There was also a really arresting painting by Jeno Gyarfas entitled The Ordeal of the Bier, which featured a woman, with an utterly mad look on her face, stumbling out of a room where her lover's body is on display - there is a bloody knife on the floor and you can see the wound, vaguely, on his chest. However, it is the passionately deranged look on her face which kept me coming back again and again. They also had some of the studies leading up to the final painting and it looked like something right out of Goya. However, the painter that I found most interesting was the great Hungarian romantic painter Bertalan Szekely. His paintings are featured all over the museum. He had an entire collection simply called the "loose women" collection which was pretty interesting, including a painting of a Japanese woman changing out of her traditional dress - the painting is quite beautiful, although the woman is a very Hungarian Japanese woman - and considering how great a painter Szekely was I'm sure that's not representative of his inability to render the image. There were also a series of paintings which were very nationalistic and almost messianic. The destruction of the Hungarian army at the battle of Mohacs in 1526, which marked the greatest victory of the Ottoman leader Suleyman the Magnificent and also the destruction of the Hungarian kingdom and the beginning of four centuries of subjegation, is a very popular topic for Hungarian painters, and Szekely is no exception. He also did a painting entitled Mihaly Dobozy, another theme copied by other Hungarian painters. It deals with a Hungarian hero being pursued by the Turks and trying to escape with his wife or lover (I'm not completely familiar with all the aspects of the story). In Szekely's version the hero is standing next to his dead horse with the Turks rushing towards him - and the woman is opening her blouse to give him a clear path to plunge in his knife so that she (and, metaphorically, all of Hungary) will not have to undergo this degradation. Obviously, very romantic and very messianic, but also pretty moving. So, if you make it to Budapest, plan to set aside several hours to spend at the National Gallery.