Unfortunately, two of the main art museums in Budapest, the Fine Arts Museum and the Applied Arts Museum, were closed for restoration while we were there. (As was Budapest's famous opera house.) But it's nice to know they are being restored. We visited the Hungarian National Gallery, though. (Why do so many countries segregate their own art from art of other countries in their museums? I don't know.) As always with national museums in smaller countries, one sees paintings that look very similar to the more famous ones in larger countries with a bigger claim on the art history narrative. But what impressed me in Hungary's National Gallery was the number of excellent paintings I saw by painters I had never heard of (because they were from Hungary?). Reflecting on that and reading about these painters, I realized that I had tended to underrate the role of Hungarian culture in Europe. Certainly Hungary was part of the mainstream of European culture both before and after World War 1, with artists fully participating in all the extraordinary changes happening during that period. But perhaps because of the post World War 2 isolation behind the Iron Curtain, Hungary somehow slipped out of the mainstream, and became a smaller, "other" country. I wonder if MOMA in New York has any paintings by Hungarian painters on display (besides the obvious emigres like Moholy-Nagy). In any case, I saw many interesting works created during the pre World War 2 period.
Here are a few paintings that interested me:
The above painting had some interesting notes. "Constructive surrealist thematic"...
Notes for the above:
Another Bela Uitz:
More examples:
The museum also has an amazing collection of Late Gothic winged altarpieces. Some of them are really flamboyant. Gold and color abound.
