Rocky Landscape

In 2011, the Hungarian National Gallery found a peculiar place for this picture at its Markó exhibition, providing it with a new reading. The fact that Károly Telepy was featured at that exhibit indicates that he is to be considered a follower of Károly Markó the Elder. Telepy absorbed the influence of Markó’s manner when he visited Italy, and saw its lands. This painting recounts an excursion, whose requisites are placed on the bench by the mouth of the cave. If you virtually place this piece next to another painting in the Collection, Markó’s Venus and Amor (as they were in fact hung in the National Gallery), you will note that the two artists probably painted the same, Italian location. And there is even more behind this correspondence: Romantic landscape painters liked caves for their special light conditions and natural forms—as well as for their utility as destinations of excursions and artists’ feasts. Cited by contemporary sources as a favourite haunt of artists, Cervaro was probably made popular by Johann Christian Reinhart, a German painter who was also a keen huntsman. As the decades passed, the hunts and celebrations fell out of custom, but the place continued to attract tourists: in all likelihood, Telepy already visited it for its natural beauty.