As a carpenter's apprentice and orphan, he became an internationally renowned salon painter: Mihai Munkachi

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Recently, in the Western world of art, a tendency has begun to be traced more and more clearly, radically changing the priorities of styles. And no matter how the adherents of abstractionism and modernism opposed it, finally there was a turn towards figurative painting - meaningful and realistic. The viewer was much more impressed by the plot canvases, which can tell a lot for themselves. And today I would like to reveal to the reader the name of the amazing Hungarian painter of the 19th century Mihai Munkachi, whose painting in our time has become in demand as it was 150 years ago.

The life path of every artist is always complex and ambiguous. So Mihai Munkachi, passing along it, experienced stunning ups and downs. But, as is known from history, only masters who are strong in spirit, entering into a battle with adversity and misfortune, contrary to all the laws of logic, temper their art, giving it true strength.

A bit of biography

Mihai Munkachi (1844-1900) - Hungarian realist painter of the second half of the 19th century, famous for his subject paintings in portraiture, genre and historical painting. The birth name of Mihai Munkachi is Mihai Lib. Born in the small town of Munkacs in Austria-Hungary to a poor Bavarian official, he became an orphan at the age of six. The boy very early had to endure the bitterness of resentment, grief and terrible fear.

Looking at the world around him through burning tears, he more than sipped grief. And these childhood impressions for the rest of his life ate into his soul, and neither fame nor overwhelming success in the future could overshadow and did not allow him to forget that he came from the common people. By the way, Munkachi emphasized his connection with Hungary throughout his life, he also chose the name of his native city (now the Ukrainian city of Mukachev) as his pseudonym.

Orphaned, the boy ended up in the care of his own uncle, who did not really favor his nephew. When he was barely ten years old, he was apprenticed to a carpenter. But the boy got seriously ill from hard work, and his relatives were forced to take him home.

It was during this period that Mihai began to paint, and a little later took art lessons from the local artist Elek Samosi. And I would like to note that the teenager's passion for drawing was so great that he did not miss a single chance given to him by fate. So, on the recommendation of his first teacher, Mihai went to Budapest, where he continued his studies, and with the support of a famous metropolitan artist, he won a scholarship to study abroad.

In 1865, the gifted young man went to Vienna, where he studied at the Academy of Arts for a year. Then there was Munich and Paris, where Mihai got acquainted with the latest achievements of German and French painting.

Yawning student

The Hungarian 24-year-old master painted this stunning sketch in 1868, and a year later he created the painting "Yawning Disciple", in which the public saw not only a realistic portrait of a teenager and a full-length figure of an apprentice, but also a wretched dwelling with an untidy bed. In addition, the author, as if recalling his suffering and deprivation, with amazing skill conveyed the atmosphere in which this teenager lived. It is as if the sounds of cuffs and slaps, the rude swearing of the master are still heard in it. It was this work that brought Mihai Munkacsi into the ranks of the 19th century realists.

"Condemned to death" or "Death row"

But this canvas, more often called "The Death Row" is deeply tragic and meaningful. It depicts the last day of the life of Betyar, who was sentenced to death - that was the name of the Robinguds of Hungary in the 19th century. Just robbers from the people, freedom-loving and magnanimous, they were a fear for the moneybags. And when they managed to catch them, then of course, they became doomed to execution.

According to the law of those distant years, on the last day of their lives, everyone who wanted to say goodbye to those sentenced was admitted to death row. And this was done not at all out of humane motives, but to intimidate, so that others would be discouraged. Therefore, we see a lot of people on the picture plane, including a sobbing wife, clinging to the cold prison wall, and a little daughter standing in bewilderment in the foreground, and even a lot of onlookers who have come either to sympathize or gloat. By the way, Mihai himself in his youth was more than once a witness to such terrible scenes.

Clenching his fists and turning away from pestering gazes, the condemned Bettyar sits at the table. Heavy thoughts took possession of him, but from everything it is clear that faith in a just cause overcomes fear of inevitability in him.

The presented painting "Condemned to Death" in 1870 at the Paris Salon brought the artist a gold medal and became a guarantee of his popularity. A prominent French critic wrote at the time:

Salon painting by Mihai Munkachi

However, the most turning point in the fate of Mihai Munkacsi was the acquaintance with Baron Henri de Marche and his wife Cecile, who later became a real support for the young artist, who constantly suffers from doubts about his own talent and from the fear of being unrecognized.

With the assistance of the de Marches, in 1871, Munkachi thoroughly moved to the capital of France, and his works took a worthy place in the Paris Salon. Moreover, after the unexpected death of the patron of the Baron de Marsha, his widow married Mihai Munkachi as soon as the mourning for her husband ended.

This marriage radically changed not only the artist's life, but also greatly influenced the character of his paintings. He began to write genre plots on everyday themes, depicting elegantly dressed young women, children and their pets in light, cozy interiors. At the same time, portraying them while talking, reading, handicrafts and playing music. In a word, Mukanchi transferred his acute social creativity to salon painting, which was so popular and in demand at that time in Europe.

Munkachi devotes himself entirely to salon "chic" painting, soulless and false. After all, a wife, accustomed to luxury, had to be adequately supported. And the former folk lover Mihai becomes a fashionable Parisian artist, and his studio turns into a painting factory.

Inspired by his wife, the artist was constantly in a creative search for new subjects. Once he was fascinated by the life story of the English poet of the 17th century John Milton, in whose fate line Munkachi found a parallel with his own fate. In 1878, the painting Milton Dictating the Poem Paradise Lost to His Daughters was painted. The tragic image of the blind poet deeply touched the artist. And it was this canvas that brought the artist the long-awaited worldwide fame.

A well-chosen plot, an interesting approach to compositional construction, an amazing transfer of the character of each character, the originality of the pictorial solution made an incredible impact on critics and the public. For this work, the artist was awarded the Order of the Iron Crown and received a certificate of nobility on behalf of the emperor of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy Franz Joseph I. At the World's Fair in Paris in 1878, the jury awarded this painting a gold medal.

But after these events in the life of Munkachi, events take place that played a fatal role in his fate. After the exhibition in the Salon "Milton" was acquired by the famous Parisian reseller of paintings Zedelmeyer, who for a long time became the evil genius of the artist. Having tightened Mihai on the enslaving terms of the treaty in a rigid framework, for a whole decade he began to dictate the themes for his works. And fully owning the rights to painting, he drove the master's creations across Europe and America, earning fabulous money on this. Indeed, at that time the author was very famous, and his paintings were doomed to success.

However, over the years, he began to think more and more about how to live for him further. The artist began to be oppressed by the life situation in which he became a hostage. During these years of crisis and reflection, another misfortune awaited the artist: an insidious ailment - eye disease. Living in a golden cage, the artist was very worried, homesickness deeply rooted in his mind, and the thought of returning to Hungary and starting to live and create was still tearing his soul apart. And partly the artist succeeded. After breaking up with Zedelmeyer, the artist paints the painting After Work. With this canvas, he seemed to demonstrate a return to himself, to his origins, which was a kind of victory for the artist's spirit.

To the descendants Mihai Munkachi left a whole gallery of portraits of his contemporaries, genre and historical paintings, a series of landscapes and still lifes, of which there are about 600 exhibits.

Towards the end of his life, Mihai began to suffer from a severe mental disorder. Munkachi died in the spring of 1900 in a psychiatric hospital near Bonn.

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