Gyergyádesz László, ifj.: „Csavargó”. Mednyánszky László élete és művészete (Kecskemét, 2007)
33 Munich as one of the first students of the young Otto Seitz. From the autumn of 1874 he was the student of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris but only for one year, among others because his master Isidore Pils, the historical genre painter, who was famous for his paintings of battles, died in 1875. Although Med- nyánszky could follow his studies in Paris with live models, still he preferred going to the Musée du Louvre, and to the Palais du Luxembourg and he could also visit the exhibition of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot organised after his death in 1875. So he did not like teaching here either, it is not by accident that after this he never wanted to follow official studies again. His painting was more affected by the fact that in the spring of 1875 he got to know the representatives of the second and third generations of painters in Barbizon, e.g. Karl Bodmer, Odilon Redon and László Padi. Mednyánszky was fascinated by the landscapes of the painters of Barbizon first of all because they were formed by the personal experience of the artist as well, and the individual emotions and moods are reflected in the paintings in spite of the basically realistic concept. This was the time when he started to get acquainted with Millet's art as well, what greatly influenced him later. Mednyánszky stayed in Paris actually till the beginning of 1877. His paintings were also exhibited here for the first time, the audience could see some of his works at the Spring Salon of 1875 and the Winter Salon of 1876. He met Mihály Zichy in Paris who was at that time the chairman of the Hungarian Association in Paris, and he learnt Mihály Maniacs here, whose way of life he did not like very much. Besides the painters of the Fontainebleau Forest, where he returned later, he was especially affected by the ‘Stimmungsimpressionismus’ of Vienna from the end of the 70s. But before that time, in 1877 and for the second time in 1880, he stayed in Szolnok for a short time where he met Lajos Deák-Ébner, as well as painters from Austria, among them August von Pettenkofen, the leader of the school of art. Mednyánszky was greatly influenced by the plain, which was new for him after his childhood spent in the Tatras, its results can be well observed in his paintings, e.g. the more sub tile demonstration of light and the line of horizon which got lower. However, as to the latter fact, to be accurate, we must quote one of Mednyánszky’s interesting diary records from 1900, which also reflects the more complex and sometimes emotional background of the compositional solutions of his paintings: ’It has always been one of my ideas to imagine a piece of nature exaggeratedly in a fantastic way. So much that people could walk under the leaves of the strawberry. I had to place myself back into the mood where everything seemed so big. Pushing the visual angle. The horizon has to be lowered or lifted higher. This way everything can be exaggerated to fantastic sizes, peremptorily, and it is strange that we are right then, because everything around us is extremely large. It is the sight what is small and ridiculous. Every person is a miracle of size.’ While visualising the unique, friendly atmosphere of the landscape along the Tisza river, the curve of the river disappearing in the infinite became a constant motif of his art (its antecedent can be found on the earlier demonstrations of the Poprád river): ‘All his life he painted obsessively this form which became more and more abstract in his paintings... (...) The motif, as Vázlatkönyvi rajz - Kisvárosi részlet (kát. 29.) / Sketchbook drawing - A Small Town (Detail, 1914-1916)
