Evangelical banquet hall
"Ignác Alpár, one of the most prolific architects of Hungarian architecture, designed the beautiful monumental main building, which accommodates about 500 pupils and opened its doors as a central elementary school in 1892."
The banquet hall
The school management approached us in early February 2020 with an invitation to help renovate the school hall. At that time, an old photo was available showing the interior of the original assembly hall. In order to restore this hall to its original splendour, we needed to spend many months of research.
Unfortunately, there are very few written documents and even fewer photographic records of the painting of the Evangelical Primary School's hall. Although we have made many efforts to gather information, we have found no written trace of who did the decoration work in the building. However, we have studied Ignác Alpár's architectural work extensively and have drawn inspiration from his artistic repertoire for the design.
Our detailed research revealed that the Lutheran elementary school and the County House were built in a similar period, and both were constructed by the same local company. The designer, the general contractor and the date are the same, so it can be assumed that the person who painted the County Hall also painted the Lutheran school. This common point and the similarity of the architectural elements was a key piece of information during the restoration work.
Decorative painters
More research revealed that the decoration of the Nyíregyháza County Hall was done by Róbert Scholtz. Besides Róbert Scholtz, we consider Károly Miksa Reissmann to be an outstanding decorative painter, they worked together on several projects. So we looked at their work and the decorative motifs they created to get a more accurate picture of the design.
Róbert Scholtz
Károly Miksa Reissmann
Plant motifs
The most important motifs and basic compositions of plant ornamentation were created with a magical, cultic role to ensure the success of crop production. At the beginning, the aim was to achieve a naturalistic effect in the depictions of plants, and the basic types of plant ornamentation motifs that have survived for thousands of years were crystallised. Most people have been using ornaments since ancient times, wherever they live, because they like to make the world around them more beautiful and interesting. Among other decorative elements, they like to use motifs of plants and flowers in different shapes, colours and materials. These decorations are not only aesthetic, but often have symbolic meanings, especially in religious or mythological contexts. Plant ornamentation has a millennia-long history in universal culture. The accuracy of the depictions varies greatly from the beginnings to the present day, ranging from the unrealistic to the fully stylised.
Buildings, as physical bodies, also gain spirituality through plant imagery, they have a message and they are an eye-catcher around the world.
The stylised shapes of herbs are echoed in the plant motifs on the imposing ceiling.
As well as being aesthetically significant, each of these plants is useful in a different way and has a long-standing significance.
Examples of ceiling patterns include the rose hip, which in ancient Greek and Roman mythology was associated with love and beauty, and the cumin, which can be a cure for a myriad of ailments.
There is also the hibiscus, the leaf of the oak tree, the tree of life, the symbol of the deity, of time surviving all things, and the hollyhock, which helps to break down toxins.
The ceiling decoration also features the katang, which is not only but it also used to be considered a magical plant, the flowers were soaked in water and used to see into the future.
But the green leaf of coriander is also recognisable in its stylised form, rich in vitamins and minerals.
Róbert Scholtz
Róbert Scholtz was born in 1832 in Silesia. He studied painting in Vienna, where he worked as a sculptor, but he also received commissions from Hungary early in his career. He is often cited in the literature as the founder of the Hungarian sculpture industry, who elevated the genre to a high, artistic status. Róbert Scholtz is also associated with the decorative painting and gilding of the Opera House, the Várkert Bazaar complex of buildings also boasts his decorations and sgraffito, and the decorations of St. Stephen's Basilica are also of decisive importance in his life's work. At the turn of the century, Róbert Scholtz was a highly renowned and respected artist, the best example being the decoration of the Parliament building, for which Imre Steindl asked Róbert Scholtz to decorate.
Károly Miksa Reissmann
Károly Miksa Reissmann was born in 1856. Scholtz and Reissmann had worked together earlier, when they decorated the Museum of Applied Arts. Similar to the motifs found in the Parliament building, we can see floral ornamentation with a strong national character. He also owes his knowledge to his familiarity with the great stages of art history, the European, Chinese and Egyptian periods and their spirit. Finally, it was Róbert Scholtz who invited Károly Reissmann Miksa to Budapest and gave him a wealth of work. He has an impressive number of works in several settlements in Hungary, including Nyíregyháza. Geometrical installations, floral decorations and vine line stitching characterize his designs.
The left picture shows the only surviving photo documentation of the hall of the Evangelical Elementary School, while the right picture shows the visual plan of the hall of the Túróczy Zoltán Kindergarten and Hungarian - English Bilingual Primary School, based on the work of the decorative painters Róbert Scholtz and Miksa Károly Reissmann.
Find out more
Our digital books will soon be ready, in which we will present in detailthe decorative painting works, plans and the plant motifs and their meanings on the ceiling of the Túróczy Zoltán Evangelical Kindergarten and Hungarian-English Bilingual Primary School in Nyíregyháza.
You can also visit our website later to view these books.
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