SZÉKELY, Bertalan

Hungarian painter, an outstanding personality of Hungarian romantic painting, one of the most important exponents of Hungarian history paintingGLOSSARYPainting concerned with the representation of scenes from the Bible, history (usually classical history), and classical literature. From the Renaissance to the 19th century it was considered the highest form of painting, its subjects considered morally elevating.. Between 1851 and 1855 he studied at the Academy of Vienna, then in Munich Székely's name became inseparable from Hungarian history painting. He depicted chapters from the stormy past of the Hungarian nation, but in the same time he always had something genuine to say to the people of his own time. The Discovery of Louis Il's Dead Body, Women of Eger, Mohács, King László V and Ulrik Cillei are among the most important of his history paintings.

His lyric genre paintingGLOSSARYThe depiction of scenes from everyday life. Elements of everyday life had long had a role in religious works; pictures in which such elements were the subject of a painting developed in the 16th century with such artists as Pieter Bruegel. Then Carracci and Caravaggio developed genre painting in Italy, but it was in Holland in the 17th century that it became an independent form with its own major achievements, Vermeer being one of its finest exponents. started to blossom during the 1870s, The Life of the Woman is circle belonging to this period and genreGLOSSARYIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature.. Dancer, Happy Mother, Boating Lovers are his most beautiful genre paintings. In the same time be also painted portraits, among others such masterpieces as his early Self-Portrait and Miss Mesterházy.

After the 1880s Székely also started to paint murals. His most famous murals can be found in Matthias Church, Budapest, in the CathedralGLOSSARYThe principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed. of Pécs, in the Budapest Opera, and in the Kecskemét Town Hall.