Liszt: Ideas on Art and Artists - New temporary exhibition at Liszt Museum

Franz Liszt had a very sensitive and at the same time creative approach to the arts. He was inspired by the different moods paintings reflected and at the same time Liszt tried to transform/translate his impression into music. Some of his important works were based on art, such as historic frescos (Kaulbach - The Battle of the Huns), oil paintings (Raphael - Sposalizio) and ink drawings (Mihály Zichy – From Cradle to the Grave). Liszt firmly believed that different forms of art can assist and strengthen one another. He had modern ideas: (even in the contemporary sense of the word) he wanted to hold a Diorama along with the première of his Dante Symphony.

The newly-opening exhibition at the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum focuses partly on how Liszt was influenced and inspired by works of art and also on the huge amount of experience he gained while travelling to European cities, during which he visited several exhibitions. In his travelogues and letters, the composer gives expressive and sensitive descriptions of what he saw, how he liked it and also gives accounts of the encounters with contemporary artists. Liszt and his first partner, Marie d'Agoult, travelled to Italy several times and saw amongst other things, the Vatican Museum, the Brera in Milan, the Académie des Beux-Arts in Venice and the Medici Chapel in Florence. He gives thorough analyses of Renaissance painters and the relations between music and visual arts. When he lived in Budapest in the last five years of his life, he often visited the Műcsarnok (Art Hall) next door, attended exhibitions of great contemporaries like Mihály Munkácsy and Vasily Vereshchagin. He was also friends with the young Hungarian sculptor Alajos Strobl, who made a sitting statue of Liszt which is on the front of the Hungarian Opera House to this day. Works of a few young contemporary artists will be exhibited showing their first impressions of Liszt, Liszt's music or Liszt and fine arts. Artists: László Antal, János Brückner, Mátyás Falvai, Anna Fatér, Áron Lakatos, Boróka Piros, Adél Hanna Tillmann, Eszter Varga-Nádas.