CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Csikos, Veronika |
|---|---|
| Title | The Statues of the Gilded Chapel of Our Lady at Pecs - The French Connection in the sculpture of Hungary and Central Europe |
| Summary | In the centre of the present thesis stand two groups of the fourteenth century statuary fragments: fragments from the so-called Gilded Chapel of Our Lady in Pécs, excavated in 1982, on the one hand, and a group of sculptures in Vienna from the middle of the fourteenth century on the other. These two groups seem to be closely related. The connection between them is lies in that they follow the same artistic pattern, namely, the one developed in monumental sculpture production in France at the beginning of the fourteenth century, called simply the “French style” in art historical discussion. The aim in this study is to determine the most important features of how this style was adopted in Central Europe through these two examples of Hungarian and Austrian medieval sculpture. This monumental sculptural style was developed in the territory of Île-de-France around 1300-1330, probably in close connection with the unfolding of the saint cult of Louis IX. From these roots, this “French style” was quickly and successfully associated with the idea of ideal kingship, and therefore probably became a fashionable style among the significant courts of Central Europe in Prague, Vienna, and some Hungarian centres. In the fourteenth-century sculptural material in Hungary the largest known association of sculpture showing this French style is a group of fragments from the Gilded Chapel of Our Lady in Pécs. The research of Ernő Marosi and Imre Takács threw light upon the stylistic origin of this group in the direction of not-far-away Vienna, where the sculptural decoration of the Franciscan Church shows remarkable similarities to the Pécs fragments. Among them, especially the relief depicting prophets raises the possibility of a direct connection to the Viennese workshop. Concerning the latter, Gerhard Schmidt has convincingly pointed out its north French origin. This thesis will continue the research from this point and it aims to answer the following questions: (1) What is the precise relation between the Pécs and Viennese fragments? (2) What kind of connections link these French works to their Central European artistic context? Who can be assumed as their commissioners? What kind of artistic context are they incorporated in? My main intention is, by placing these in a larger context, to draw some conclusions about the kind of features that characterized the “French connection” in fourteenth-century monumental sculpture in Central-Europe. |
| Supervisor | Bela Zsolt Szakacs, Jozsef Laszlovszky, Imre Takacs |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/csikos_veronika.pdf |
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