Researches

Csilla Markója, senior research fellow, main research field: art historiography

The four-volume source edition that appeared as numbers 83-86 of Enigma, the Hungarian periodical of the theory and history of art and is now accessible on the online repository of the Hungarian Academy of Science may lay claim to considerable international attention. The publication comprising diverse letters, writings and other documents of art historian János (Johannes) Wilde offers an insight into the everyday life of the Vienna School of Art History (Wiener Schule) and into the Hungarian-Austrian scholarly interactions. It also sheds light on the so-far little known connections between the post-World War I wave of emigration and the art patronizing Austrian aristocrats on the one hand and the so-far almost overlooked profound professional and personal relationship between Wilde and Max Dvořák to which – on Wilde’s part – we owe nothing less than the edition, publication and interpretation of Dvořák’s estate in terms of the history of ideas. That is, without Wilde posterity would have no knowledge of the historian of ideas Dvořák as a “configuration” of the history of science. Later world-famous as a Michelangelo scholar, János Wilde, who spent the greater part of his life abroad, cherished a particularly intimate relationship with his two unmarried siblings Ferenc and Margit, who remained in Hungary and after the death of their mother lived together. The three siblings corresponded on a weekly basis; some of their invaluable correspondence is preserved in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies2, the greater part is kept in the Archive of the Museum of Fine Arts – Hungarian National Gallery. From this correspondence of several running meters, the first three volumes of Enigma include the letters relevant to the Vienna School and Dvořák, complemented with letters by Wilde’s friends, art historians, philosophers etc. – among others László Éber, Béla Fogarasi, Edith Hoffmann, Karl Maria Swoboda, Simon Meller, Elek Petrovics, József Balogh, Károly Tolnai – written to János Wilde. The fourth volume of Enigma is a unique document from 1944: the record of the Budapest siege written in the form of epistolary diaries by the Wilde siblings back in Hungary, reporting on the German occupation of Budapest, the situation of the Jews and the days of the siege literally from air raid to air raid. János Wilde, or Johannes Wilde as he was later known, the world-famous Michelangelo researcher, deputy director of the Courtauld Institute in London, who was among the first scholars to introduce the X-ray to the examination of art objects, was only 23 years old in the summer of 1914, a fresh graduate of the faculty of humanities. He was extremely happy as he had received a scholarship of 1200 crowns from the Ministry of Religion and Public Education for studies in Rome. The war, however, foiled his journey, and his superior at the Museum of Fine Arts, Elek Petrovics deemed it more prudent to send the promising young man to Vienna, to Professor Max Dvořák. He was personally introduced to Dvořák by another prominent colleague at the museum, Simon Meller, who had been the curator of the Department of Prints and Drawings – an acknowledged professional workshop – of the Museum of Fine Arts since 1910. The assistant was none other than Karl Maria Swoboda; a mere six years would pass before he – together with Wilde in emigration – would be preparing for print the enormous posthumous estate of Dvořák, who died an untimely death, terminating as it were the most radiant period of the Vienna School. The Enigma source publication divulges something personal about these miraculous and sad years marked by war, revolution and retaliations, and carries an ample selection of János Wilde’s official and private correspondence, beside diverse other documents. These primary sources conjure up the everyday life at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest and at the famous Vienna School, the world of the cultured Austrian aristocrats whom later Wilde befriended, and life in wartime Vienna in general which was soon to receive a multitude of Hungarian emigrants.

Key publications on this topic:

Csilla Markója: János (Johannes) Wilde and Max Dvořák, or Can we speak of a Budapest school of art history? Journal of Art Historiography, Number 17 December 2017

Csilla Markója: 'Everyday life at the Dvořák Seminar on the Basis of Contemporary Sources. Addenda to the history of the Vienna School of Art History. Journal of Art Historiography Number 25 December 2021

Wilde János és a Bécsi Iskola. Wilde-olvasókönyv (János Wilde and the Vienna School. A Reader on Wilde) 1-4. Enigma, no., 83., 84., 85., 86. (2015-2016) Ed. by Csilla Markója, Bardoly István. With an English afterword: Csilla Markója: Postscript to the four-tome Wilde-edition. In: Wilde és a Bécsi Iskola 4. Enigma, 2016. no. 86. 141-150.

OTKA (NKFIH) Research Program, 2024–2028
Principal Investigator: Sándor Hornyik
Research Team: Mónika Perenyei, Katalin Aknai, Edit Lantos, Kitty Árvai-Józsa, Erzsébet Tatai, and Gábor Pataki

Abstract / Project Description
The objective of this research project is to map and interpret the Hungarian adaptations, cultural "translations," and distinct textual and visual manifestations of Surrealist worldviews and visual topoi utilizing the methods of critical iconology. Consequently, the object of our inquiry is Surrealism in an expanded sense: while anchoring our departure point in the Surrealism of Lajos Vajda, Ernő Kállai, and the European School, our primary focus centers on the post-World War II revival and transformation of Surrealism within avant-garde art and popular culture. The diverse modalities of Surrealist vision manifested across numerous interconnected scholarly and artistic discourses, including magic realist painting, commercial graphic design, organic architecture, experimental cinema, interdisciplinarity, and intermediality. Within these discourses, a privileged position was occupied by concepts such as "primitivism" (peasant and tribal animism) "discovered" by the Surrealists, "madness" (encompassing both clinical insanity and everyday ecstasy), the fantastic (fairytale, mythological, and science-fiction cultures), and creativity.

Beyond the psychological dynamics of "madness" and creativity, the success of Hungarian "Surrealist" creators was further propelled by the expanding aesthetics of the fairytale, erotica, and the vernacular, alongside the rising societal relevance of interdisciplinarity during the second half of the twentieth century. By this period, Surrealism—in its entertaining, playful, provocative, and creative capacities—had transcended the boundaries of isolated, insular avant-garde circles to emerge within various academic and popular cultural spheres. It left its mark on philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy, as well as on the visual representation of fairytale and science-fiction literature. Ultimately, the scientific-technical revolution and the era's cultural liberalization allowed this Surrealist counterculture to integrate into mass culture, substantially shaping the "interdisciplinary" and multicultural worldviews of both the neo-avant-garde and postmodern movements.

Paul Klee: Schlamm-Assel-Fisch, 1940. New Worldview exhibition, February 1947. Ernő Kállai Legacy, Archive, ELTE HTK Art History Research Institute, MKCS C-I-11 (No. 29.)