The formation of the sculptural content and painting in the Museum of Fine Arts’ Romanesque Hall
MúzeumCafé 46.
The Romanesque Hall contains the Fine Arts Museum’s most impressive, fully painted wall space, yet almost from the start it was to experience an adverse fate. It fulfilled its original function only for a short time, occupying a marginal position within the museum, and with the closure following World War II it remained unchanged. The fate of the hall was inexorably tied to its original function and the history of the plaster copies destined for its interior. However, its situation was made more difficult by the changing appreciation over time of those copies, and given the current renovations new questions will have to be addressed by specialists dealing with both modern and historical museum philosophy. How and in what form can a new understanding in the museum’s conceptual and physical space be gained by an exhibition hall which has lost its function, which for 70 years was downgraded in quality? After the renovation, this space will be assigned a new function. If this space that cannot be neglected, is defined in line with its original concept or at least reflecting it, a great step forward can bemade in the necessary rehabilitation of the hall. If redefinition is restricted merely to being imposing, it may result in a complete break with the museum’s historical layers. In the first phase of the museum’s planning the medieval-style modelling of the hall was not on the agenda. The term ‘Romanesque court’ (as it was then called) first appeared in the documents in 1900 at the time when construction of the museum began. According to the minutes of the building committee, the architects originally had in mind a glass-covered court in Renaissance style. However: “…as the finance for this is covered in the budget, it was decided to give it a Romanesque character.”