Exhibtion and Book Reviews: Monochrome Renaissance in the Museum of Fine Arts and Precious fragments by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

Monochrome Renaissance: Drawings by Raphael and more in the Museum of Fine Arts

 When thinking about Renaissance art, a number of stereotypes and generalizations appear in our minds, like the revival of antique culture or a more realistic way of depiction. We automatically think of Florence and Rome, of Botticelli’s huge canvases or Michelangelo’s frescos – of a world that is bright and colorful. Our immediate associations derive from reproductions seen in school-books, in art literature or on the web. We live in the lucky age of mechanical reproduction: the most remote things (both in time and space) are available for us more or less in their authentic forms. This was not the case five hundred years ago when people living North of the Alps, or even in another Italian city, could only learn about the new ideas and compositions of the great masters through drawings and prints. Until the end of March, we have the opportunity to explore this “monochrome version” of the Renaissance: the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest presents sixty drawings and prints from its graphic collection which can all be associated with Raphael.

The exhibition highlights six autographed drawings by Raphael: preliminary studies and sketches to altarpieces and to his frescos in the Vatican. We can also examine his working process on the only panel painting exhibited among the drawings, the so-called Esterházy Madonna. On the surface of this unfinished painting, the under-drawings are visible even to the naked eye. This work demonstrates well how a colorful masterpiece emerged from the monochrome sketches.

Raphael was a model of artistic virtuosity not only among his pupils, but among his younger contemporaries, like Parmigianino. This younger generation continuously copied Raphael’s drawings and used his finished works as sources for their new compositions. The exhibition shows several studies which were inspired by the great master’s inventions, for example nudes or antique mythological scenes. The first erotic series of drawings and prints derived also from Raphael’s circle: the printmaker was put in jail for the series called I Modi (literally, the ways) which showed various sexual positions. However, some years later the creators of another series called the Love of the Gods could publish similar sheets without any consequences by hiding the “real topic” in a mythological framework.

In the sixteenth century, drawings were already highly esteemed and were collected not only by the artists as inspirational or as study material, but were assembled by the amateur collectors. However, it was the medium of the engraving which really broadened the circle of collectors by the means of printed sheets – which could be issued in hundreds of copies, and were much cheaper than the unique drawings. Raphael consciously used the new medium of engraving to spread his inventions: he closely collaborated with the printmaker Marcantonio Raimondi to publish a great variety of compositions. The exhibition shows a wide range of these prints, like scenes from Virgil’s Aeneid or a sheet after Raphael’s preliminary drawing for the fresco on Apollo and the Muses in the Vatican. We can also follow the working process. Besides a drawing of the Massacre of Innocents, we can examine the completed print based on this drawing. Raimondi’s prints after Raphael’s works were part of every remarkable collection formed in the sixteenth century: they were kept in albums or framed and put on the wall as substitutes of paintings. This is the way, Raphael was known for centuries: in the form of fine lines and refined shades - in black and white.

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael: The Massacre of Innocents, ca. 1511-1512. Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum/Museum of Fine Arts

Triumph of Perfection – Raphael

Renaissance Drawings and Prints from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest

18 December 2013 - 30 March 2014

Alexandra Kocsis, Hungary,

Medieval Studies

Precious fragments

Lyudmila Ulitskaya is so popular in Hungary that the Hungarian translations of her books closely follow the original publications.  Her most recent book, Священный мусор, has already been translated to Hungarian by József Goretity, Ulitskaya’s frequent Hungarian translator.  The Hungarian translation, “Örökbecsű limlom” (Discarded Relics) was presented in front of a large audience in late November, 2013. On this occasion, Ulitskaya and Goretity talked about the book, about her oeuvre, and about literature, culture and life in general. I especially enjoyed Ulitskaya’s remark concerning seeing herself as a bigger success for being published in Eastern Europe, rather than in the West, due to the “understandable” Sovietophobia which dominated this region in the 1990s. The Ukrainian translation of her work makes her the happiest, by proving that culture can be more powerful than politics. Unfortunately, in some other comments she contradicted herself by saying that the significance of literature and the importance of writers is an Eastern European, particularly Russian, cultural myth that has no real basis in our world. However, she repeated the example of her own experience as a Russian writer translated in Ukrainian (sometimes she also adds a Russian writer of Jewish origin) as proof of culture’s power. I Ulitskaya ultimately wishes to believe in this .

At first sight, the content of Discarded Relics fits the title perfectly, being a collection of fragments, untold stories, details of stories already told and memories. However it is indeed a structured collection of fragments. From many writings, we learn the opinion of the author about very diverse issues, and one suspects that these opinions are asked and read only because the author is who she is, an internationally known writer. Although Ulitskaya notes in the introduction that she dislikes giving interviews and hardly any journalist asks meaningful questions ever, in this volume she selected quite a few interviews, which demonstrate brilliantly how an interviewer can either make fool of the interviewee or make her/him seem wiser. There are also beautiful essayistic writings on people whom Ulitskaya knew. Some of them are also known by her readers as characters in her novels and short stories. Others have not yet become characters in her oeuvre, but have the potential to become so. The most touching chapters of the book are the author’s own experience with cancer and her recovery. At the book’s presentation she told the audience that this would probably be her last book, but she quickly added that “Well, this might also be my penultimate book”.

Readers who prefer politics to narratives of personal lives will also find interesting chapters to read in this book, first of all the writer’s correspondence with Khodorkovsky while he was in prison.

I recommend Discarded Relics first of all to the fans of Ulitskaya and I also recommend reading some of her short stories again after reading this new rather self-reflective work. It is exciting to discover new meanings in the short stories after having learned about the real persons who inspired the characters, particularly in the short stories of the volume All Our Lord's Men. I also recommend Discarded Relics to everyone who has read anything from Ulitskaya so far and is curious about the person behind the writer. Unfortunately, for the moment being Discarded Relics  is available only in Russian and Hungarian.

Agnes Kelemen, Hungary,

Nationalism Studies

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Image: ulickaja.hu