Fabó Beáta - Gall, Anthony: I came from the East to a City of Great Palaces. Károly Kós, the early years 1907-1914 (Budapest, 2013)
Influences
<4 ■ Finnish Pavilion, World Exhibition, Paris, 1900, Gesellius, Lindgren and Saarinen Magyar Iparművészet, 1908.3.9. 10 Portrait of Elek Koronghi Lippich dedicated to Akseli Gallen-Kallelá Helsinki Egyetemi Könyvtár ffl The Villa of Dezső Malonyay, Budapest, 1905-1906. Kós was impressed by this building, reflecting English, Finnish and Transylvanian influences Lajta Béla terve, A Ház, 1908.3. ENCOUNTERING FINNISH ARCHITECTURE The beginnings ‘At the World Expo in Paris in 1900, a small-sized pavilion received universal attention. It was simple, almost primitive. Its outer appearance resembled that of a village church, but not entirely. A big red tile roof covered the low walls; from the middle of the building a slim, artfully tilted tower (which tapered in an upward curve, like the body of an Attican Ionic column or like the tower of, well, the Körösfő church). In front of the tower was the main entrance; reminiscent of the Middle Ages, but not medieval, with its semi-circular arched entrance below a tall gable. ... it was a gift tofine arts that the world received at this exhibition, in the form of the small, modest Finnish Pavilion.'pásztorta*•1940-26-‘The truly sensational moment of the World Expo of1900 in Paris, for us, was the rather hidden little pavilion of the small Finnish people, which, however, emanated monumental Art. Architecture, painting and sculpture all in sweet harmony, with an almost style-founding force. It had a wonderful impact on the thousandyear-old celebrating heart of Hungarians, so full of national pride at the time!GörgyiDénes:KétnemzedékköztM,193S-121 The competition for designing the Finnish pavilion had been won by three young architects, merely twenty six years old: Hermann Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen, while the paintings of the interior had been done by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. Their design opened a new chapter in the history of Finnish architecture and called the world's attention to Finland. The group known in Hungary as ‘The Young Ones’ had not even started their university studies at the time - Kós found out about the pavilion during his university years. In their memoirs written in the interwar period, both Kós and Györgyi mention this encounter as an important moment. Official art policy and Elek Koronghi Lippich (1862-1924) The Finnish pavilion, which caused quite a stir at the Paris World Expo, didn't attract too much attention in Hungary. It was only a few years later, in 1906-1908 that the Hungarian art policy decision makers became interested in it, or, rather, in Finnish architecture in general. The head of the Arts Department of the Ministry of Culture was Elek Koronghi Lippich and among the employees we find art collector Pál Majovszky also. Elek Koronghi Lippich worked at the Arts Department of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture from the age twenty four and became the head of the department in 1899, which involved overseeing all art-related policymaking and influencing the distribution of stipends and financial support. His own ideas concerning art policy were being shaped around the turn of the century. He called for the creation of a modern Hungarian national style on the basis of folk art, as opposed to the historically focussed national romanticism. This was the aim of the book series published at his initiative from 1907 onwards, entitled ‘ The Art of the Hungarian Peoplei whose specific agenda and topics were also set by him. The series was edited by writer Dezső Malonyai. The project involved some fieldwork, which started in 1904, and the first volume of the series appeared in 1907, dealing with the folk art of the Kalotaszeg/Tara Cälatei region of Transylvania, collected, amongst others, by artist Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch and the architect István Medgyaszay. One of the patrons of this first volume was József Bartóky, a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Agriculture, who later became friends with Károly Kós. In the second half of the 1900s Lippich found artists whose world and vision was akin to his ideas and expectations. He befriended these artists and supported their work by procuring stipends, financial aid or commissions. His protégés include Aladár Körösfői-Kreisch, Sándor Nagy, sculptor-architect Géza Maróti, Károly Kós and Béla Lajta. At one point or another all of them visited Kalotaszeg/Tara Cälatei for study trips. However, this rather partial arts policy won numerous enemies for Lippich among the academic-historic and Western-oriented artists, and he was eventually forced to retire in 1912. Finnish Art and Hungary The beginning of Finnish-Hungarian artistic ties can be traced back to a Finnish sculptor living in Hungary, Yrjö Liipola. It was on his initiative that in 1906 the Ministry of Culture invited renowned painter Gallen- Kallela to look after the Finnish paintings to be presented at the Winter Exhibition. The visit of Gallen-Kallela to Hungary signalled the beginning of a period of lively mutual cultural exchange between the two countries, the two landmarks of which were the International Winter Exhibition at the Palace of Exhibitions in Budapest in 1906-07 presenting the art of Northern countries and the exhibition of Gallen-Kallela's graphic art in the Museum of Fine Art which opened in January 1908. The Ministry of Culture was eager to publish Finnish artists and scholars Hungarian art journals in parallel with the exhibitions were on and Gallen-Kallela was asked to suggest someone suitable. Yet it was as late as January 1908 that a Finnish art critic eventually published a paper entitled ‘Finnish Art and Applied Art’ in the Hungarian Journal of Applied Art, Magyar 52
