Publication details
Old Paintings, New Lives: The Afterlife of Nineteenth-Century History Paintings after the Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | A lecture about the Old Paintings, New Lives: The Afterlife of Nineteenth-Century History Paintings after the Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire. In the nineteenth century, history paintings played a significant role in the construction of national identities. In the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire (between 1867 and 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) these pictures articulated the self-image and aspirations of different nationalities. Often executed in a monumental size, the paintings were displayed in national galleries and public institutions. They promoted the national cause, but they did so in an imperial context: their points of view were divergent and often diametrically opposed, but still part of a shared political discourse. In 1918, the Habsburg Empire ceased to exist. Its successor states were separated by solid, although often contested borders. In these new nation states, the construction of firm and exclusive national identies was an urgent matter, and paintings created in the previous century sometimes continued to serve as tools in this quest. This was, however, complicated by the fundamental transformation of the geo-political context. For instance, territories that had once been part of Hungary now belonged to Czechoslovakia, Romania or Yugoslavia, which meant the radical recontextualisation of Hungarian history paintings that remained in those territories. Whether they were transferred, placed into storage, redisplayed, or just left hanging in their original locations, these paintings were time capsules through which the imperial past haunted the new nation states. My paper will examine the efforts to fit them into brand new political narratives. It will also explore the inescapability of déjá vu, as old narratives inevitably resurfaced through these recontextualised images. |
| Related projects: |