Turin 1911: The World's Fair in Italy

Digital File Back Image

Catalog Level
Items (Cataloging Focus)

Title Proper/Title Text
Padiglione ungherese architetti progettori - inside

Name of Publisher/Creator Identity
Societé Anonyme Hongroise pour l'Art de Reproduction

Related Protagonists

Date of Publication/Creation Date
1911 ca.

Dimensions Description
9 x 14 cm.

Inscription Language
Italian (Language)

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Descriptive Note Text

This imaginative rendering of the interior of the Hungarian Pavilion presents a highly stylized tableau, with elongated human figures and one of the ornamental fountains that animated the pavilion’s exhibition spaces. The composition emphasizes decorative harmony over naturalistic representation, foregrounding instead a visual language shaped by the aesthetics of national revival and artisanal craftsmanship.

The palette—dominated by deep blues, burnished golds, verdant greens, and a range of saturated violet tones—evokes the chromatic richness associated with Hungarian folk art traditions. These color choices, together with the ornamental stylization of the figures and architectural elements, reflect the early twentieth-century effort to construct and disseminate a distinctly national visual identity grounded in vernacular forms. Drawing on motifs derived from rural embroidery, woodwork, and ceramic design, the pavilion’s interior decoration exemplifies the broader movement within Hungarian arts and crafts to reconcile modern exhibition practices with an idealized vision of ethnographic authenticity.

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