Interpretazioni artistiche di Dante nel primo Novecento ungherese: Lajos Gulácsy e Dezső Fáy

Abstract

My essay discusses a selection of Dante-inspired turn-of-the-century artworks by two renowned Hungarian artists; the painter Lajos Gulácsy (1882-1932) and the illustrator and painter Dezső Fáy (1888-1954). Different in character and artistic style but bound by friendship, the «kindred spirits» (Szabadi 1983, 77) took extended journeys to Italy together and, once back in Budapest, exhibited their works in a joint exhibition. This exhibit at the Urania Gallery in 1909 brought critical acclaim only to Gulácsy. While Gulácsy, six years senior to his friend, was already at his artistic zenith, Fáy had to wait for another twenty years to become successful. The critical novelties of the article consist in the analysis of Dezső Fáy’s Dante illustrations and in the identification of some Dantean reminiscences in Lajos Gulácsy’s writings, as well as in a proposal to give a new title to the graphic work now entitled «Dante and Beatrice» (1910) kept in the Hungarian National Gallery.