STRÓBL, Alajos

Hungarian sculptor, a leading personality of Hungarian sculpture at the turn of the century. His art can be best characterized with sensitive realistic modelling. He was a pupil of Kaspar Zumbusch (1830-1915) between 1876-80. He was a young sculptor when his statue Perseus (1882) attracted a lot of attention.

He created two statues for the façadeGLOSSARYthe front or principal face of a building, especially one elaborately constructed; a blind façade is a façade that is purely decorative and does not relate to the structure of the building. and two sitting figures (Ferenc Erkel and Franz Liszt) for the entrance of the Opera. From that time onwards, he became the most popular sculptor of memorials. He sculpted the figure of the poet János Arany (in the garden of the Hungarian National Museum) in 1893, the Fountain of King Matthias (in Buda Castle) in 1904, and the equestrian statue of St. Stephen (in the Fischer Bastion in Budapest) in 1906. The Semmelweis Memorial was erected in 1906 (now in front of Rókus Hospital). The statue of the writer Mór Jókai (1921), the composition Reading Girls (1921), the Sándor Károlyi Memorial and the busts of József Eötvös and János Arany stand in public places of Budapest. Together with Kálmán Gerster, Stróbl produced statues for the Kossuth Mausoleum (1907) and the Elizabeth Memorial. The statue of János Arany (1910) can be seen in Nagykörös and the Szécheny Memorial (1914) in Szeged. His war memorial, originally intended to be an apotheosis of Károly Lotz, is in Sansted, England.

In addition to his works in the style of memorial typical of the 19th century, he also created a great number of impressionist portraits (Self PortraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). at Young Age, 1878, Young Woman, 1916-18, and Szinyei Merse, 1918-19, etc.). Our Mother, one his major works, was awarded the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris. For many decades, he was a teacher of the Art School, his influence in this capacity was enormous.