Katalin Gellér: The art colony of Gödöllő 1901-1920 (Gödöllő, 2001)

CONCLUSION With the gradual decline of Hungarian Art Nouveau, the Gödöllő artists received fewer and fewer commissions. Their educative efforts came to the fore: Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch taught classical techniques at the Academy of Applied Arts, Sándor Nagy began to teach tempera, mosaic and fresco at the Academy of Fine Arts much later, in 1934. A few left the colony after some years, getting other assignments or forced to leave by the meagre living. When the First World War broke out, Leó Belmonte returned to France. State and private orders dwindled during the war. Several artists joined up to fight or work as war painters. With the death of Aladár KörösfőiKriesch in a sanatorium in Buda in 1920. the first, greatest period of the colony was over. The survival of the weaving workshop was ensured by the persistence of Sándor Nagy's family and the Remseys. In 1924 Jenő György and Zoltán Remsey founded the Association of Spiritual Artists, while the monumental designs and classical techniques were preserved and passed down by the Cennini Society founded by Sándor Nagy and the pupils of Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch. Critics of the much disputed and contested historical Art Nouveau of the Gödöllő artists, their ideological, often illustrative art, ignored for a long time the richness of the philosophical and literary contents of the works and their role in creating the continuity of the Hungarian artistic tradition. By its diversity, the artistic output of the Gödöllő colony must be seen as the most authentic visual and verbal source of the spiritual life of that era. Governed by their unusual philosophy of life and art, the Gödöllő masters regarded creation as a form of cognition, a station along the road of inner development. They were more intent on finding common ground with the past and with international spiritual and artistic trends instead of seeking for innovation or uniqueness. Their place would be found among the Finnish, Polish, Russian, Czech, Scandinavian and Irish movements stressing national identity and incorporating regional characteristics. These national currents of Art Nouveau started out from local traditions, building styles, use of materials in accordance with the principles formulated by the English Arts and Crafts movement. Their secessionism was highly eclectic both in sources and individual styles, influenced by English, French, German secessionism and finally, around 1910, by the geometrism of Vienna and Glasgow. Though they did not develop a new and common formal idiom, the meeting of 19th century romantichistorical sources and the most up-to-date endeavours in their art gave it a special significance. Even though he had no direct contact with the avantgarde, surrealistic elements were always present in Sándor Nagy's style and from the 1910s some of his works were consistently geometrical and bordering on expressionism. The fundamental significance of the art colony lies in a search for alternative lifestyles, in reforms to improve the quality of life the ethical-humane dimension of which is exemplary even if the majority of their works with their utopistic views on art and society constitute the epilogue to the 19th century. Sándor Nagy: Longing/red chalk on paper, around 1910