Among the figures of the historical arcade, visitors also encounter an unusual sculptural group. Here Bory Jenő did not portray a ruler or military commander, but ‘the artist of King Matthias’, thereby commemorating the art and makers of the Renaissance.
At the centre of the composition stands an artist in a long garment, holding a drawing instrument or design sheet. Beside him is a statue of the Madonna with her child, while behind him rises a Gothic-Renaissance architectural detail. The group thus refers at once to the worlds of sculpture, painting and architecture. Bory did not portray a particular historical person, but recalled the Italian and Hungarian masters who worked at the court of King Matthias.
During Matthias’s reign, the Hungarian royal court became an important centre of the Central European Renaissance. Italian artists, architects and scholars arrived in Buda and Visegrád, where they established a new artistic outlook. Palaces, chapels, sculptures and decorative works were created, representing the most modern European artistic aspirations of the age.
The sculptural group also occupies a special place in the historical programme of the arcade. While the surrounding figures are rulers, military commanders or ecclesiastical personalities, this work reminds us that the importance of an era is determined not only by political events but also by the achievements of culture and art. In this way Bory Jenő also commemorated his own vocation: in the figure of the medieval creator, he emphasised the artist’s role and art’s power to shape history.
Together, the Madonna figure, the Gothic architectural motif and the artist’s figure evoke the intellectual and artistic flourishing of the age of Matthias, which for a long time defined the memory of one of the high points of Hungarian cultural history.