ZICHY, Mihály

Hungarian painter, graphic artist. He was a significant representative of Hungarian romantic painting. During his law studies in Pest from 1842, he attended Jakab Marastoni's school as well. In Vienna he was Waldmüller's pupil in 1844. Life Boat, his first major work, comes from this time. On Waldmüller's recommendation, he became an art teacher in St. Petersburg. He swore allegiance to freedom by painting the 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painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or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). of Lajos Batthány, the first Hungarian prime minister, in 1849. From 1850 onwards, he worked as a retoucher, but he also did pencil drawings, watercolours and portraits in oil. The series on the Gatsina hunting ordered by the Russian tsar raised him to a court artist. He founded a society to support painters in need. Autodafé on the horrors of Spanish inquisitionGLOSSARYMedieval ecclesiastical institution for hunting down heretics and criminals; from 1231 papal Inquisitors (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) were appointed. Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) and the collection of decrees published in 1234 made the Inquisition a papal institution ("Sanctum Officium"), and it was later extended to include other offenses such as magic, witchcraft and fortune-telling. was painted in 1868. He travelled around Europe in 1871, and settled down in Paris in 1874.

He painted Queen Elisabeth is Laying Flowers by the Coffin of Ferenc Deák on Treffort's order. Drinking Bout of Henry III, his next large scale picture came from 1875. The Triumph of the Genius of Destruction painted for the Paris Exhibition was banned by French authorities because of its daring antimilitarist message.

He left Paris in 1881 and returned to St. Petersburg after short stays in Nizza, Vienna and the county Zala inHungary. From this time onwards, he was mostly engaged in illustrations (The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách, 1887, and twenty-four ballads of János Arany, 1894-98).