Biblical Book of Revelation Exhibition Opens in Budapest
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Apocalyptic cycles depicting the visions of the Book of Revelation are the focus of an exhibition that opened Thursday at the Museum of Fine Arts.
The core of the exhibition titled “Apocalypse. Biblical Prophecies from Dürer to Béla Kondor” consists of woodcut series by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach the Elder, copperplate engravings by Jean Duvet, and lithographs by Odilon Redon, created much later than the former works.
The exhibition, on view through September 20 and featuring some 100 works, concludes with the visions of 20th-century Hungarian artists, including Béla Kondor.
Szilvia Bodnár, art historian of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Graphic Arts Collection and curator of the exhibition. Photo: MTI/Kovács Márton
The Museum of Fine Arts’ Graphic Arts Collection houses numerous series of illustrations from the Book of Revelation, which concludes the New Testament; and the exhibition presents four of these series, said Szilvia Bodnár, art historian at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Graphic Arts Collection and curator of the exhibition, at Thursday’s press preview.
In addition to the apocalyptic cycles, the exhibition also features works that belong to the apocalyptic theme but are also popular as standalone images, including the evangelist John on the Island of Patmos and St. Michael defeating the dragon.
The introductory section of the exhibition presents Albrecht Dürer’s series published in 1498, which is regarded in art history as a milestone in the development of woodcut as an independent artistic medium.
In 1522, Martin Luther published the September Testament, a new German translation of the New Testament. To make the text more accessible, the reformer commissioned the elder Lucas Cranach to illustrate the Book of Revelation.
French graphic artist Jean Duvet completed his 23-plate series of copperplate engravings around 1555; 19 of these compositions are on view in the exhibition.
At the end of the 19th century, Odilon Redon, a leading artist of the French Symbolist movement, broke with the narrative depiction of end-of-the-world events. His lithographs do not depict events, but rather individual figures or motifs that allude to the text, while the titles are quotations selected from the Book of Revelation that relate to the images.
A separate section of the exhibition features Sigmund Hebenstreit’s stained-glass window designs, which depict three scenes from the eighth chapter of the Book of Revelation.
The final section of the exhibition features works by 20th-century artists Béla Kondor, Béla Stettner, and Kálmán Csohány.
Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at the exhibition “The Apocalypse: Biblical Prophecies from Dürer to Béla Kondor” at the Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: MTI/Márton Kovács
The apocalyptic visions spanning more than half a millennium were selected from the materials of the Museum of Fine Arts’ Graphic Arts Collection, Old Picture Gallery, and Old Hungarian Collection, as well as from works preserved in the Graphic Arts Department and Contemporary Collection of the Hungarian National Gallery.
Via mti; Featured images: MTI/Kovács Márton
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المصدر: Hungary Today