Marianne and Adrian Stokes were very productive painters who worked at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20 century. She was actually a leading Victorian painter among female artists. They both started their artistic career as the landscape artist and Adrian very much kept the direction. Marianne, on the other hand, was way more inclined to experimentation, or, if you want, delved into other areas of painting.
Hungary is a book about one of the numerous places visited by an artistic couple who spent a lot of time on the road, always in search of new places and experiences. Adrian Stokes wrote the text and made all landscapes influenced by then-popular Impressionism while Marianne focused on portraits of inhabitants in national costumes worn on special occasions (in church, at weddings, …). Her portraits, done in the Pre-Raphaelite style, are important documents for every folklorist, interested in this specific subject.
This book is unfortunately almost forgotten today, yet it presents many interesting pictures from the past with places that are completely changed today and documented numerous elements of folklore two decades before color photography took on.
All paintings were done in one of four trips of the couple into Hungary, always confined to a pretty narrow area. We should know that Hungary was a multinational country (and still is) with a rich tradition and at that time under serious changes after being the losing party as the part of Austro-Hungaarian state in the World War. So don’t be surprised that most of the people on the portraits are Slovaks, not Hungarians.
Are we ready for some paintings?
1. The Bridal Veil
I. From Austria to Orsova
2. The Danube from Esztergom (Gran)
3. A Hungarian Baby
4. A Backwater of the Danube
5. A Little Slovak
6. The Danube at Orsova
7. A Young Slovak
II. From Orsova to the Tatra
8. The Lake of Csorba in June
9. In Church at Vazsecz
10. Pines in the Tatra
11. Child with Fowl, Tatra
12. Birches at Lucsivna-Fiix-do
III. Vazsecz (a Slovak Village), and a Parliamentary Election
13. Slovak Women at Prayer, Vazsecz
14. A Road in the Carpathians (Peasant woman carrying her baby in the basket on her back.)
15. Descended from a Brigand Chief
16. View from our Windows in Vazsecz
17. Misko
18. Krivan, seen from near Vazsecz
IV. Vazsecz, Lucsivna-Furdo, and a Little Sport
19. Slovak Girl in Sunday Attire
20. At Vazsecz
21. An Engaged Couple (Misko and Maruska, at Menguszfalva.)
22. Menguszfalva
23. Young Girl of Menguszfalva going to Church
24. The Carpathian Mountains from Lucsivna-Fiirdii
V. Hungarian Gipsies
25. Slovak Woman singing a Hymn
26. A Mill near Vazsecz
27. Mother and Child at Menguszfalva
28. A Gipsy Home
VI. Kalocsa (a Magyar Cathedral Town)
29. Woman of Kalocsa in Work-day Dress
30. On the Waste Lands near Kalocsa
VII. Kalocsa, and across Croatia to Fiume
VIII. Zsdjar 163
IX. Banffy-Hunyad
X. Desze, Some Other Places, and a Salt-mine
XI. Estergom (Gran), Budapest, and Bags
XII. Transylvania, the Great Puszta of Hortobagy, and Lake Balaton
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