Participants:

– Pál Csáky, member of the European Parliament

– Mária Prokopp Dr., professor emerita, Institute of Art History of ELTE

Marcell Jankovics – Gábor Méry: Gothic altarpieces Middle age towns and villages make special gems on the unique, beautiful landscape of historical Upper Hungary. Amongst these excel the settlements which were founded by the Kings of the House of Árpád (Géza II and Béla IV), and all populated by Saxons. These places have a middle age church on the city square, and even today in almost all a carved, painted, gilded triptych is kept. Creation of such beauty was made possible by long-time, diligent work of miners, weavers and merchants. Commonly these masterpieces are associated with the mountainous region of former Szepes County, (Zips in German, or Spiš in Slovak, and Spisz in Polish), where the most important medieval towns edge along a thematic gothic route. Altars of similar design could also be found in the traditional mining towns or even Kassa (Košice), the regional center of present-day Eastern Slovakia.

Series presented:

St. Giles’ Cathedral, Bardejov

St. Elisabeth’s Cathedral, Košice

St. James’ Church, Levoča

St. George’s Church, Spišská Sobota

St. Martin’s Cathedral, Spišská Kapitula

Gábor Méry (born Dunaszerdahely, 1967) artist photographer, publisher. Between 1989-1995 he worked as photo reporter and editor for the daily Új Szó and weekly Vasárnap, published in the Hungarian language in Slovakia. Between 1995-97 Méry acted as cameraman for Duna TV. He has been exhibiting since 1990 (Somorja 1990, Tatabánya 2012, Rév-Komárom 2013, Melbourne and Canberra 2013). In 1993 he founded the publishing house Méry Ratio which has by now grown into one of the most significant publishers in the region. They produce art design calendars, photograph albums, classic and contemporary fiction, essays, documentary and memoir literature, political writing, historical monographs, publications on the history of art and culture, art albums and children’s books. A special profile of this publishing house are its reprint and facsimile publications. A particularly fondly cherished project of the publisher is the series of volumes presenting Gothic winged altars  in churches of present-day Slovakia. To date, seven volumes have appeared, where Gábor Méry’s photographs are accompanied by the expert commentary of Marcell Jankovics. He works in both Slovakia and Budapest.

Marcell Jankovics (born Budapest, 1941), film director, graphic artist, cultural historian and lecturer. Worked for Pannonia Films Co. between 1960-2007. Mostly known for his cartoons and popular educational television programmes. He has made several hundred films, having also directed 280 of them. He was leading director of the series Gusztáv and Folk Tales and Legends from Hungarian History. He is the maker of four full-length animation movies: János vitéz (1973), Fehérlófia (1978), Ének a csodaszarvasról (A Song of the Miraculous Hide) (2001) and Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man) (2011). He has won over forty festival prizes both in Hungary and abroad. His two best known short films are Sisyphos and The Struggle which received an Oscar Nomination and a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Jankovics taught animation for over 20 years. He publishes articles, papers and books, having authored 17 books to date, mostly in the fields of the history of culture and the arts, as well as innumerable shorter writings. He is one of the founders of Hungarian television channel DUNA TV. He is a member of several organisations, societies and associations. Twice he has held the post of President of the National Cultural Fund (1998-2002, 2010-11).

Mária Prokopp (born in Budapest, 1939) graduated in Art History and History at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, in 1962. After graduating she worked as a museologist in Esztergom. She returned to the alma mater in 1969, becoming a researcher, then professor at the Department of Art History. Her main research topic is art – especially mural painting – of the 14th-15th century’s Italy and Kingdom of Hungary. She is the author of several monographs and studies on Italian artists and their works from this era as well as masterpieces of the Esztergom Christian Museum. Her research on the iconography of the Árpád-dinasty saints are highly valued.