Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 18. (Budapest, 1999)

Zsuzsa H. BOGNÁR: About the Dining Room in the Buda Palace of Count Tivadar Andrássy - apropos of an armchair

Because of the volume of research on the seemed exhaustive. However, even today new subject, analysis of the Andrássy dining room data, even plans are coming to light, opening as a unit, and of its individual pieces, has new possibilities for research. NOTES 1 Christmas Exhibition of the Applied Arts Society, Museum of Applied Arts, 1898. Andrássy palace, Fő utca 17, Budapest; Gyula Andrássy's country house, Tiszadob. 2 In his letter, sent with the designs, to Endre Thék (November 1897), he explained, with his customary dynamism and enthusiasm, the aim of the undertaking: "We can ensure an imtimate social life for a large gathering of people, especially those with better taste, only when we surround them with things that are as beautiful as possible, things which are supplied with the mark characteristic of our artistic taste, which are entirely up to date, and which have a future. Our age has no style, because it has no applied art! In Paris we were many times in the ranks of the modernizers, of whom I'm the only Hungarian working in this field. The question now is whether you are willing to accommodate to the plans here enclosed; as you can see I have strayed from conventions, not accidentally but on purpose. Nous voulons quelque chose de riche, et majestueux dans la grande Simplicité!" Pewny, Denise: Rippl-Rónai József. Budapest, 1940, p. 51. 3 Sármány, Ilona: A deszkabútor-stilus Bécsben és Budapesten a századfordulón (The Plank Furniture Style in Vienna and Budapest at the Turn of the Century), in: Ars Decorativa, 9 (1989), pp. 95-121. 4 Rippl "designs", composes; he does not first and foreemost move and break up the contours of the furniture, but applies, literally see 'Tart appliqué" - in conformity with the frieze, etc. The pieces in the suite were composed individually in two dimensions - which suits construction of the furniture next to the wall and the appliqué work on these, but the suite as a whole is also very well thought out, although it betrays a spatial arrangement composed in a painterly and rhythmic way. See "Sketch of the Andrássy Dining Room", Rippl-Rónai Múzeum (hereafter: RRM), Kaposvár, Inv. No.: 55.82. 6 Lázár, Béla: Rónai József, in: Magyar Iparművészet, 1912, No. 3, pp. 83f: "...Rippl-Rónai is an artist with an entirely abstract imagination, one for whom nature is just medium for the articulational of his mental images, but it is not the direct or immediate impressions from nature that spark his imagination, but the mental image itself which then is shaped, reformulated, accentuated, recreated, and simplified by his imagination, and which compels him to abstract from many details in nature, so that everything should be adjusted to his compositions, enabling him to paint, draw and shape that which became formulated in him prior to his beginning to paint it." And later: "...In the arrangement of the Andrássy dining room he tried to embody in abstract ideal mood and subordinated everything to this, the bent forms of the supraport and the tranquil simplicity of the large oval table, stressing the fine taste in it, in the lines of the fireplace and in the refined colour filtration of the stained glass alike." After the impersonal faces of the earlier designs (graphics), he gave an already decided character to the profile of the woman in the pictorial tapestry "Lady in Red", in accordance, naturally, with the requirements of stylization and transcription to a tapestry. See "Portrait of Mrs. Andrássy". RRM, Inv. No.: 87.5.L, as well as the compositional similarity between "Design for a Glass Painting", Hungarian National Gallery, Graphic Collection (hereafter: HNG. G.C.), Inv. No. 58.14. and "Country House at Toketerebes". Decorative design. HNG. G.C. Inv. Nos.: 1933-2290. 8 See his handwritten reply to a questionnaire from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. HNG. Archives, Inv. No.: 1324/1920/b.