Maximilián Schurmann — Cyril and Methodius

Each historical period a nation experiences requires the immersion into the distant past of previous generations. It is only then that the nation learns to know the roots of its national and cultural existence, the fate of generations and individuals that had lived their lives before.

Nitra, in the past an important commercial and cultural centre, lived through one of its most significant historical moments in the period of the Great Moravia, when brothers Cyril and Methodius from Solun came to the territory of Slovakia.

Artists, musicians, writers but also painters and sculptors payed homage to the spiritual message the two brothers, priests, left behind.

The acquisition fund of the Nitra Gallery contains several presentations of these saints by various authors. One of them is also Schurmann’s tiny artwork painted in the technique of acquatint from 1933. The author reproduced his own oil painting of Cyril and Methodius from 1929 (203 x 100 cm) that was commissioned by the Bishop’s Office in Nitra.

This monumental artwork was exhibited at Salone des Independents in Paris where it was highly appraised by conservative critics. As Štefan Valent (1908 – 2007), the founder of the Nitra Gallery, writes in his catalogue to accompany the exhibition of Maximilián Schurmann (1890 -2007) at 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth: “according to the author the models were old-world, patriarchally looking former secondary school teachers from Nitra.”

The composition of two figures is descriptive, it corresponds with all appropriate canonical attributes. St. Cyril is dressed in a monk’s habit with the opened Bible and respectful expression on his face as if he was talking to the people and explicating the Bible. St. Methodius who stands next to him listens to the words of his brother. He is also depicted with all appropriate canonical attributes: bishop’s staff, mitre and bishop’s robe. Both saints were declared the copatrons of Europe in 1980.