Őriné Nagy Cecília: A gödöllői szőnyeg 100 éve (Gödöllő, 2007)
THE GÖDÖLLŐ CARPET'S 100 YEARS
THE GÖDÖLLŐ CHflPET'S TOO YEARS The Gödöllő Artists' Colony has been founded at the beginning of the 20 t hcentury, in a period of artistic renewal in Europe and in Hungary, more particularly in the heyday of Art Nouveau. The founding artists were influenced by the result of innovations of 19 t h century painting, by the lively artistic life in many European cities, but most of all by the ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris, the English art theoreticians of the second half of the 19 t h century. These ideas were not alien to Hungarian artists thanks to the remarkable personality of the museum director Jenő Radisics who very actively promoted the development trends in applied arts to counteract industrial mass production. The decisive figure of the Gödöllő Artists' Colony was Aladár KörösfőiKriesch who had studied painting at the Budapest Art School (Mintarajziskola) under Bertalan Székely, and then took study trips to learn more about modern European art. It was in Rome that he met painter Sándor Nagy, in the early 1890's, and the two developed a friendship that was to last for life. They often visited together Ferenc Szoldatits, the Nazarene painter who was to have a lasting influence on their attitude of mind and on the whole of their art. They made further study trips together and what they saw made a great impression on the oeuvre of both of them. The idea to found an artist colony first occurred to Körösfői-Kriesch and his friends at the end of the 19 t h century, when they spent the summer working together in picturesque Diód, Transylvania (now Stremt, Romania), staying at the mansion of their physician friend, Jenő Boér. Beside the ideology of the Nazarenes, the English pre-Raphaelite movement and the ideas of Tolstoy, the group was greatly influenced by the Hungarian-born anarchistic philosopher Eugene Heinrich Schmitt. The members of the group considered the mission of their life to renew art and better life through art. These ideals are reflected and markedly expressed in their creations themselves and also in their writings on art, theoretical and pedagogical alike. Körösfői-Kriesch formulated their attitude to life and art in a programme published in the journal Magyar Iparművészet (Hungarian Applied Arts) in 1909 apropos of the 52
