"The exhibition uses the beautiful 18th and 19th century artefacts of the Museum of Ethnography to show the way the popular renaissance motifs – dragons, unicorns, jumping deer and colourful flowers – reached everyday culture.Since the use of renaissance elements is extremely striking and varied, earlier studies had liked to put an emphasis on how the Hungarian and Italian renaissance has carried on in the Hungarian and old Transylvanian folk art. The results of the predecessors can be wide-ranging and added to in many different art forms.
The exhibition presents items selected from the rich collection of the Museum of Ethnography, but places emphasis on pieces showing the renaissance motif treasures, putting pieces of national minorities deliberately next to Hungarian ones, as well as filet-embroidery, tin pots and documents made by common people. Apart from the pieces from the museum the items and documents borrowed from other collections also give help in the interpretation; and the databases published recently on the internet also help in this task.
The animal figures – deer, pelicans feeding their young with their own blood, unicorns and peacocks - that appear on embroideries, interiors of churches, tin pots and earthenware, on manuscripts and carved gingerbread-making wooden utensils - found their way to the everyday objects of common people in different times, based on different intellectual and conceptual background and archetypes.
The exhibition focuses on the spiritual, cultural, political, economical and technological processes that provide the framework for interpretation. On one hand these show how and in what genres and areas of the material world included renaissance elements, on the other hand it demonstrates the way these motifs found their way onto the everyday objects of people in the 18-19 centuries.
Visitors of the exhibition can see dragons, unicorns, jumping deer, lions, pomegranates and flower bouquets arranged in Italian vases pictured on beautiful pieces of art from the 18-19 centuries. Painted ceilings and ceiling panels, glazed earthenware, tin pots, folk weave and embroidery as well as special objects and drawings from the collection of the Museum of Ethnography are presented alongside each other.
Some of these have never been on display before, therefore are unknown for both ordinary visitors and trade experts, making it possible for seeing the pieces under new lights and giving new explanations.
Further information:
Museum of Ethnography
Phone: +31 1 473 2400"
Source: Budapest Tourism Office
31.12.2008