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

Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch: Ego Sum Via. Veritas et Vita / tempera on canvas. 1903 tors as well as a ceramics studio, and almost all arts and crafts were included in the spectrum of their interests: furniture and leather designs, embroideries, mosaic and stained glass were made here. Their embroidery and interiors, carpet and ornamentation designs were disseminated in the Pattern Sheets. Some designs from this source were used by Emil Fischer to embellish his ceramic vessels. Their literary endeavours are also Known. They took part in several individual and collective exhibitions. Their first group showing was in the Circle of the Friends of Art in 1904. Their largest collective exhibition was in the National Salon in 1909. They entered works for the major national showings, as well as the world fairs of Paris in 1900, St. Louis in 1905, Milan in 1906, also winning various prizes. They were active participants in the Hungarian artists' community. The leading artists were coopted into the Circle of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists in 1907, and they were founding members of the Society of Hungarian Watercolour and Pastel Painters. In 1913, Körösfői-Kriesch set up the Society of Guild Members. THE INFLUENCE OF RUSKIN AND MORRIS, TOLSTOY AND THE GNOSTIC TEACHINGS The majority of the artists studied in the School of Art and School of Design in Budapest, as well as in Vienna, Munich. Berlin, Rome and Paris, or had study trips of varying lengths abroad. After 1900 they mainly travelled to England and Greece. Körösfői-Kriesch and later Sándor Nagy were among the painter Bertalan Székely's favourite pupils, although the two only met in 1891 in the workshop of the Nazarene painter Ferenc Szoldatits in Rome. Their somewhat dry religious graphics and more importantly, their interest in traditional techniques can be derived from his influence. In Rome, they also learnt plein air painting. Sándor Nagy's next station was Paris, a more attractive place than Rome in terms of modern art (1892-1900). As a student of the Julian Academy, he came under the influence of contemporary symbolist trends, the works of Héléne Blavatsky and the society of Rosicrucian painters. Their ideas maturing in the 1890s were visualized in two works at the very beginning of the new century: Sándor Nagy's Rabbi, Where Abidest Thou? (1901) and Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch's Ego Sum Via Veritas et Vita (1903). Nagy painted a conventional composition of Christ calling his disciples to formulate the religious vocation and Tolstoyanism