Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Gergely Barki: Czóbel from Paris to Paris 1903-1925
NYERGESÚJFALU IN 1907 A few weeks after his appearance at the Salon des Indépendants, Czóbel travelled to Nyergesújfalu at the invitation of Károly Kernstok, with whom he had spent much time in Paris. From that summer on, the young painter no longer returned to Nagybánya,even though he was invited there to teach that spring, not long after his arrival in Nyerges. He had already had a great effect on his older colleague in Paris, but in Nyerges - like his performance in Nagybánya - he was the leaven for a modernist maturation (of defining importance from the point of view of The Eight), a sort of localized chain reaction that Ödön Márffy would join one 61. Béla Czóbel: Courtyard in Nyergesújfalu, 1907. Pécs, Janus Pannonius Museum year later. Still, in Nyerges, Czóbel only fulfilled the role of catalyst. The pictures that he painted there he did not show in Hungary, but only at the start of the next year in Paris. These works are very significant, however, and not purely in the sense of Czóbel’s oeuvre. They brought about revolutionary new aims in the history of Hungarian modernism. Following the wild pictures from the summer spent on Kernstok’s holdings were further par excellence Fauve compositions in Paris. In the second half of that year, masterpieces such as Fauve Still-life (Plate 71) and Man in Straw Hat (Plate 72) were born. The latter presumably immortalizes the critic and art dealer Adolphe Basler.31 In the autumn, he again sent pictures to the Salon d’Automne - among them, those prepared in Nyerges, too - but out of the four, the strict jury only accepted two. Now not a single one of them is known. In addition to France, he displayed his pictures in Belgium at this time; and although we do not know precisely which works were exhibited there, we can conclude from the mean-spirited French critique below that he, too, was already considered one of the Fauves. His wild pictures belonged to the new stylistic trend: “When Matisse, Othon Friesz, Derain, Braque, Dufy and Czóbel exhibition at the Libre Esthétique in Brussels, naturally they come before a foreign audience. It would be good to protect the title »independent« in France, since they are not independent, but merely disturbed. They rebel against the Latin spirit, and their freakish formations, which they wish to pass offas indispensible set pieces, invariably become alarming caricatures.”32 31 For more on this, see: Bárki, Gergely: “A vaddá válás evolúciója Czóbel Béla korai portréin [Evolution into a Wild One in Béla Czóbel’s Early Portraits]”. VADAK, pp 201-216. 32 Pératé, André: “Les Salons de 1907 (premiére article) [1907 Salons (first article)]”, Gazette des Beux-Arts, 1907, XXXVII, 1st semester, 49:3, p 326. Quoted in: Bartélémy, Sophie: “Pan! Dans I’ceil... A Magyar vadak fogadtatása a párizsi szalonokban a korabeli francia kritikák tükrében [Just look! Hungarian Fauves’ Reception in French Salons as Reflected in Contemporary French Criticism] (1904-1914)”. Vadak, p 72. CZOBEL FROM PARIS TO PARIS, 1903-1925 51
