Harmonising Death

Eurythmia (1894-95) by Ferdinand Hodler

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Péter Ujvári

Eurythmia is a Greek word meaning: 1. correct beat/proportion/harmony; 2. decorum/dignity. The painter gave this title to his work, adding that the five men marching with decorum are heading for death. Nothing in the picture refers concretely and directly to death. Hodler rather indicates the destination of the march with the autumn atmosphere and the […]

Restored masterpiece from Leonardo’s workshop

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Ernő P. Szabó

A masterpiece depicting the Madonna with child and the young John the Baptist is exhibited alongside paintings by Giorgione, Raffaello, Tiziano in the Old Masters collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. Specialists presume that the work – held in storage for nearly a century – must have been painted by an artist in Leonardo […]

Ecclesiastical treasures

Vestment embroidered by Maria Theresia

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Margit Turok

Some ten or more years ago the site of the Regnum Marianum community’s buildings was a desolate, outlying area of Budapest. The complex, which includes a church, crypt, presbytery and a part for communal purposes (library, gallery, rooms for sessions, playground) was built to continue the work undertaken earlier. Parish priest Father György Hajnal, himself […]

Mátra Museum at the foot of Kékes Hill

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Dr. Levente Fűköh, biologist, palaeontologist, director of the Mátra Múzeum

The Mátra Museum has been housed in the neo-Classical former Orczy Mansion in Gyöngyös for nearly half a century. The town purchased the building from the Orczy family in 1937 with the express purpose of creating a permanent home for the museum. Yet the history of the mansion in the past 70 years has been […]

Gymnospermae, angiospermae – growing before us

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: István Rácz, senior museologist, Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum

The pine collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum is internationally renowned. Today some three hundred million samples of the world flora’s estimated 350,000 plant species are held by some 10,000 specialists in more than 3400 herbaria throughout 170 countries. Exploration of the Earth’s flora is still underway. The majority of samples in the herbaria […]

Secrets of a crashed aeroplane

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: István Szathmáry

Even the experienced researchers of the Aviation Museum near the Szolnok Helicopter Base were shocked when, half a century after the catastrophe, they found some physical remnants together with bodies of passengers who had been on an aircraft which crashed on the Great Plain in 1963. The plane belonging to the Romanian carrier TAROM took […]

Medieval Zalavár

Tracing the urban character of the Carolingian age – part 2

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Ágnes Ritoók, archaeologist, Hungarian National Museum

While the history of Carolingian Mosaburg and its changing topography can be reconstructed fairly precisely due to written sources and archaeological data (Béla Miklós Szőke: Urbis Paludarum – Mosapurc, MúzeumCafé, 2008/1), the history of Zalavár-Vársziget in the 10th century is shrouded in obscurity. Excavations suggest gradual decay and partial abandonment. Door and gargoyle stone carvings […]

Will interest grow in contemporary exhibitions and galleries?

MúzeumCafé 8.

Gábor Einspach, art market specialist of Kieselbach Gallery and Auction House It is no surprise that graffiti, for example, has already come under the hammer in leading auction houses. Interest will definitely rise. A distinct turn to post-war including contemporary art has recently been experienced not only in western Europe and North America, but also […]

Hungarian Fauves on tour

MúzeumCafé 8.

author: Zoltán Rockenbauer

“After the south of France, Hungarian Fauves set the north ablaze!” Thus wrote one reviewer in October about the exhibition Fauves Hongrois 1904-1914 when it reached the second venue of its tour. The first was the small Pyrenean town of Céret (population 8000) where the exhibition, which opened in May, was unexpectedly successful, attracting more […]

With the power of art

The Kolozsváry collection

MúzeumCafé 7.

author: P. Szabó Ernő

Ernő Kolozsváry set an example with his modesty. He would even spend his teacher’s salary to obtain a work of art important for him. He established a private collection, which has not been dispersed after his death. Paintings by masters of the European School and works of art by outstanding contemporary artists sing the praises […]