Gellér Katalin - G. Merva Mária - Őriné Nagy Cecília (szerk.): A gödöllői művésztelep 1901-1920 - The artist's colony of Gödöllő (Gödöllő, 2003)
GELLÉR, KATALIN: INNOVATION AND TRADITION
ments imitating graveposts, embroideries, flower stands. There is a painted chest below the window, and the wardrobe reminded one of a shepherd in an embroidered felt cloak, as the catalogue said. Leatherwork was designed by Sándor Nagy and Jenő Fischhof. Leó Belmonte added oil paintings to the ensemble. The carpets designed by Körösfói-Kriesch were executed in the Pozsony weaving school and the Torontál carpet factory. Mariska Undi's plank furniture of geometric forms combining Viennese and folk inspiration in the female study was added accessories showing village scenes, including leatherwork by Sándor Nagy, carpet by Aladár KörösfóiKriesch. The pillows, cushions and bedcover were made by Mariska and her sisters, Carla and Jolán. The catalogue of the exhibition was the work of the leading book designer of the period, Elemér Czakó. 8 9 Mariska Undi's female study and Ede Thoroczkai Wigand's furniture pieces depicting folk tales reflect most faithfully the rendering of the home and the interior as an inner portrait and artistic programme. In her interior of 1905 inspired by Kalotaszeg, Undi applied the tools of colour symbolism; she painted the walls "to give the impression of a field of wild chicory", the "golden yellow radiant" sandalwood furniture was meant to suggest "the mood of ripe ears of corn", the ornamentation consisted of stylised wild flowers. 9 0 Among the younger ones, Rezső Mihály presented his works woven at Gödöllő in Lajos Kozma's interior in the Kéve [Sheaf] group's exhibition. Many of their works are only known in sketch. A whole series of stencils of animal figures survive which show how Sándor Nagy stylised the perceived sight in a geometrical manner. TRADITION OF GENRE PICTURES, FOLK INSPIRATION AND FUNCTIONAL PLANNING Various stylistic phases can be differentiated in the work of artists at or related to the Gödöllő colony. The first is linked to the ethnographic, topographic collections. The bulk of the early drawings and illustrations of Sándor Nagy and Árpád Juhász were genre scenes of the simple people rendered with topographic precision. Aladár Körösfói-Kriesch, István Zichy, later Mariska Undi and Rezső Mihály elaborated the material collected in Kalotaszeg and Mezőkövesd in a decorative, stylised manner. Árpád Juhász depicted folk costumes and customs first in naturalistic, later increasingly decorative paintings. Pál Horti and János Vaszary drew on the genres of the 19 l h century for their carpet designs. Not only the decorative transcription of the Hungarian genre, but also the frequent use of a decorative motif - the potted plant - in the carpets tied the Gödöllő masters to Vaszary. "I've turned the Hungarian man and woman, horseherder, plough, ox, the whole Hungarian genre lock, stock and barrel into ornamentation," Sándor Nagy wrote. 9 1 His paintings, illustrations, tapestry, embroidery and leather designs of the first years of the 1900s continue the line of the early popular genres with Great Plain shepherds, horseherders and cattle-herders of the 19th century masters, Mihály Szemlér, József Marastoni and Károly Lötz. He framed the folk scenes with secessionist ornaments or decorative linear borders, or sometimes set them in a geometrical structure (woven tapestry with a ploughing scene; head-piece and closing ornament of Művészet 1902). 92 Another group of works were made using some natural motifs in a stylised form (silk embroidery with butterfly, closing ornament, box, mirror designs with butterfly motif). 9 3 Mariska Undi began stylising floral motifs, 9 4 before becoming the most devout follower of the popular genre, even when the leading master had abandoned this theme, at least in such an obvious form. Körösfói-Kriesch also started out from the genre tradition, e.g. in his latent carpet Watering, but he was soon to monumentalise the theme as in the synthesising, decorative transformation of his 1905 painting Going to church in Kalotaszeg for a panneau on the ornamental gate of the St. Louis World Expo. Outlined by a decoratively rhythmic line the women appear symmetrically, alternating with stylised little trees. The culmination of the theme is his tapestry Women of Kalotaszeg (1908) in which the geometrical, two-dimensional modelling required by the material and the technique, and the elevated tone of the theme are harmoniously combined. A similar method is demonstrated by the Tree planters gathering all elements of the composition decoratively in the harmonious union of nature and man, also rendering the figures in planar ornamentation. The decorative revival of the popular genre was also the starting point for Rezső Mihály and István Zichy. They reinterpreted the landscape and the genre. Mihály's transformation was mainly decorative, while Zichy's romantic frame of mind lies behind his thickly outlined solitary tress and human figures charged with passionate emotions, in harmony with the possibilities of lithography. Körösfői-Kriesch's furniture designs lead from historicism to secessionism. In the 1890s he planned a dining-room in a historicist style with a Hungarian touch. His ministerial study shown at the World Expo in Milan in 1906 exemplified Viennese interior decoration, while his dining-room was a close kin to Thoroczkai Wigand's design starting out of the structure of peasant furniture. 9 5 He usually planned heavy sombre suites of furniture, with the exception of two
