Munkácsy exhibition in Hajdúszoboszló

The life of Mihály Munkácsy, in brief

(20 February 1844 – 1 May 1900)

• Birth — Mihály Munkácsy was born on 20 February 1844 in Mukachevo.
• 1892 — He lost his parents at an early age, and from the age of eight he was raised by his uncle, István Röck in Békéscsaba.
• 1895 — When he was barely 11 years old, his uncle gave him to a local master carpenter’s apprentice.
• After he was liberated, he became a carpenter’s apprentice in Arad; By this time, he was already supplementing his income by drawing small portraits.
• After two years, a serious illness took him home to Gyula. During his convalescence, he drew constantly, so his uncle sent him to study with the painter Karl Fischer, who worked in the city.
• It was there that he was noticed by the academic painter Elek Szamossy, who can be considered his first master. Munkácsy spent two and a half years with Szamossy.
• In 1863 he settled in Pest and immediately appeared at the exhibitions of the National Hungarian Fine Arts Society.

First successes

• In the first half of 1865, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he wrote Easter Sprinkling (1865), one of the main works of Munkácsy’s first period.
• He spent the next year and a half painting portraits and folk scenes in Pest, Békéscsaba and Gerendás.
• In the autumn of 1866, he enrolled at the Royal Bavarian Academy in Munich.
• The most important event of his second year in Munich was his visit to the 1867 Paris World’s Fair, where he became acquainted with the works of the outstanding artists of his time. 
• The effect of what he saw was first evident in the Yawning Apprentice made in 1869.
• However, the real breakthrough was the Death row, painted in the second half of 1869, which surpassed his earlier paintings both with its interpretation of the theme and its strongly realistic painting style.
• The painting was awarded a gold medal in Paris, and the only 26-year-old artist was offered a contract by Adolphe Goupil, one of the most important art dealers of the 1860s

Settling in Paris

• At the beginning of 1872, after the success of the Death row, Munkácsy moved to Paris. In the first years, he painted folk scenes with Hungarian themes.
• In 1873 he travelled to Barbizon for a short visit to László Paál, but the atmosphere of the place and the intense creative atmosphere that characterized the community of Barbizon painters made him stay longer. There he adapted the plein-air color treatment characteristic of intimate landscapes to his own ideas. Gypsies at the Edge of the Forest is one of the excellent landscapes painted at this time, reflecting Munkácsy’s conception of nature.
• From the 1870s, realistic life pictures (In the Pawnshop, The Village Hero, Night Vagabonds) and expressive portraits revealing the influence of the paintings of Rembrandt and Frans Halls originate.
• As the critics of the time objected to the dark tone of his works, in 1876 he depicted himself and his wife in subtle shades of gray in front of the easel (In the Studio). Unfortunately, in the meantime, the picture turned black, so not only the furniture and ornaments in the background disappeared, but the child sitting behind the easel also became almost invisible.
• The next major composition, The Blind Milton Dictates «Paradise Lost» to His Daughters, won the highest prize at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair, and Franz Joseph awarded the painter a title of nobility.
• In the summer of 1874, Munkácsy married the widowed Baroness De Marches (born Cécile Papiér). In the following years, the couple built two exquisite houses in the artists’ quarter of Paris. The palace at 53 Avenue de Villiers, with a huge reception area, two studios, several smaller salons and bedrooms, was suitable for accommodating large groups. The Munkácsys and Munkácsy hosted painters, sculptors, writers, scientists, critics, art dealers, composers, including many Hungarians, from bourgeois and academic circles here every Friday.

Christ compositions

• The decade between 1878 and 1887 was the most productive in Munkácsy’s career. This was the time when the two monumental compositions of Christ were born: Christ Before Pilate (1880–1881) and Golgotha (1884).
• In February 1882, after Paris and Vienna, Christ Before Pilate was also exhibited in Budapest in the theatrical environment already established at the previous locations. The huge screen was presented on the floor in a dark room, in a special light that illuminated only the image field, which could give the public the impression of color films invented in the twentieth century. The whole country celebrated Munkácsy for weeks, and a delegation accompanied him to his hometown, where a memorial plaque was unveiled for him.
• In 1881 he began the much more dramatic Golgotha. He depicted the crucifixion according to traditional iconography, and he depicted the indifferent, rough crowd with the tools of verism.
• During the preparation of Golgotha, Munkácsy’s most personal image of Christ, Christ in the Rock Tomb, was created. The work is an interpretation of Hans Holbein’s painting preserved in Basel.
• He painted his last great biblical composition, Ecce homo, between 1894 and 1896. In the picture, a vulnerable son of God, who can be humiliated in his humanity, stands alone in front of the crowd. The scene is not only tragic, but also cruel. The elaboration of the huge canvas is rougher than that of the two earlier images of Christ, in a sense more modern.
• Ecce homo was premiered in Budapest in 1896, during the millennium celebrations, and this was Munkácsy’s last visit to Hungary.
• The Christ Trilogy can be seen today in the Déri Museum in Debrecen.

Genre paintings ,Landscapes, Portraits

• In the second half of the 1880s, Munkácsy painted a series of costumed scenes set in the era of King Louis XIII. We see the same characters here in changing situations, which, like the unusual presentation of the biblical images, can be seen as a precursor to a cinematic vision consisting of sequences.
• In addition to genre paintings, landscapes and a few portraits are significant works of the eighties.
• In the autumn of 1886, at Sedelmeyer’s encouragement, he sailed to America, and although there was no shortage of celebrations, as he was also received by the President of the United States of America and received several portrait commissions, the trip did not live up to the hopes placed on him.
• After three months, he returned to Paris, where he received two extraordinary commissions: The Apotheosis of the Renaissance, he first had the opportunity to create the decoration of the staircase ceiling of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The 10 x 10 meter allegory can still be seen in its original place in the Austrian capital.
• At the end of the 1880s, he was asked to present the Conquest of Hungary in a monumental vision for the new building of the Parliament. Munkácsy’s largest picture in size was completed in 1894, its original title was Árpád. Today it adorns the Bureau of the Parliament.