Background
Miklós Barabás was born on February 22, 1810 in Markersdorf, Grand Pincipality of Transylvania, Austrian Empire.
Miklós Barabás was born on February 22, 1810 in Markersdorf, Grand Pincipality of Transylvania, Austrian Empire.
Miklos Barabás was educated at the Protestant school of Nagyenyed. He painted from an early age, and in 1829 he was a pupil of J. Ender in Vienna for a while. Back in Kolozsvár in 1830 he learned lithography from Gábor Barra. In 1834-1835 he traveled to Italy, where he learned watercolor painting from the Scottsman William Leighton Leitch.
William Leighton Leitch who was six years his senior became his friend and they toured and painted in the Lago Maggiore region in 1834, and Leitch was a great influence on Barabás's future work. He finally settled in Pest in 1855.
His "Romanian Family Going To The Fair" (1844) was considered the most beautiful folk genre painting of its time. It met with great success at the 1844 exhibition of the Vienna Art Association, and later in Pest. He spent most of his life in Pest.
During absolutism, he had to face financial problems, forcing him to take photos and to paint altars for some time. As a result of his struggle, the Art Society was established in 1859, of which he was the President from 1862 until his death. Starting in his 20's he painted a great number of Hungary, Austria and Romania's elite in formal portraits. The subjects included men and women from politics, music and literature, religious leaders, military men and high society, but he also painted scenes of rural life and peasant family portraits.
His realistic style was in vogue in mid-19th-century Europe, in the decades just before photography was invented and the artistic revolution of Impressionism. As late as 1884 he painted a well-known portrait of the great Hungarian poet János Arany. Revolutionary Lajos Kossuth and poet/revolutionary Sándor Petőfi are also among his famous subjects.
He died in Budapest.
Portrait of Franz Liszt
Portrait of János Buttler
Portrait of Emil Desseweffy
The Blue Grotto
Portrait of János László Pyrker, Bishop of Eger
Portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph I
In the Atelier (Róza Teleki)
Flirtation
Laying the Foundation-stone of the Chain Bridge
Romanian Family Going to the Fair
The Eruption of the Vesuv
Portrait of a Woman
Count István Széchenyi
Standing Portrait of László Teleki
Portrait of Ms. Konkoly
Portrait of Poet Mihály Vörösmarty
Portrait of Mrs. István Bittó
Woman in Striped Dress
The Artist's Wife
The Family Dégenfeld
Women at Nettuno
Lago Maggiore
Quay of the Danube with Greek Church in 1843
Portrait of Savka Obrenovic
Vesuvius Seen from the Island of Capri
Portrait of a Woman
Portrait of József Teleki
Portrait of William Tierney Clark
Pigeon-post
The Arrival of the Daughter-in-law
Portrait of János Matta
Self-Portrait
Venice at Dusk