LOTZ, Károly

Hungarian painter. Lotz was one of the greatest Hungarian academic painters in the style of Historicism. He started his studies at the Viennese private school of Carl Rahl in 1852; later he worked for Rahl by drawing his preliminary cartoons. Between 1855 and 1870 Lotz painted his panneaux in a characteristically romantic style. The female portraits and nudes painted between 1855 and 1879 show the stylistic traits of lyrical realismGLOSSARYRealism (with an upper case "R"), also known as the Realist school, denotes a mid-nineteenth century art movement and style in which artists discarded the formulas of Neoclassicism and the theatrical drama of Romanticism to paint familiar scenes and events as they actually looked. Typically it involved some sort of sociopolitical or moral message, in the depiction of ugly or commonplace subjects. One of the main representatives and spokesmen was the painter Gustave Courbet. In the dispute about ways to represent reality, Realism rebelled against the idealistic and classicist tendencies in painting. and fine naturalismGLOSSARYGeneric term for scientific positions supported by natural insights. In fine arts and literature between approximately 1870 and 1900, Naturalism tried to reproduce the reality comprehended through sensory experience as realistically as possible, i.e. without idealising the object, but with scientific precision. In contrast to Realism, which was also based on the accurate description of natural occurrences, Naturalism concerns itself with the sensual dimensions of observation, whereby questions of morality and social criticism come to the fore. The spokesman for literary Naturalism was Emile Zola, who believed the artistic methods provided evidence of human existence..

Lotz was one of the most popular mural painters of this time. His murals were always in harmony with the style of the building they were designed for. The friezeGLOSSARYa horizontal band of architectural decoration; in a classical entablature, the horizontal member band between the architrave and the cornice. compositions decorating the staircases of the Hungarian National Museum and the frescoes in the Budapest Vigadó (Casino) - both done jointly with Mór Than -, the ceiling of the Opera's auditorium, and the murals in the House of Parliament are among his best-known works.