Rippl-Rónai József emlékház Kaposvár, Róma-villa (Kaposvár, 2014)
József Rippl-Rónai Memorial House (Róma-villa, Kaposvár)
József Rippl-Rónai (1861-1927) wrought a revolutionary revival in Hungarian painting of the late 14th century. Born in Kaposvár, he first qualified as a pharmacist and only after this started studying art. He spent 13 years in Paris where he became a member of the Nabis painters’ group. He established close friendships with the artists Aristid Maillol. Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Returning to the town of his birth, he lived in the yellow washed, villa-like house on Róma Hill. Kaposvár from 1908 until his death in 1927. The singlestorey building, ringed by a park filled with leafy trees, was erected on the designs of another Kaposvár artist, opera singer György Gundy, in 1868. It soon became the perfect artistic paradise. The home of Rippl-Rónai, who launched the modernization of Hungarian painting, became a defining element for the artist. However, Rippl-Rónai also took the first artistic initiatives in the spirit of Hungarian Art Nouveau (Secession) - to revitalize interior design and the applied arts, too. He never designed modern furniture for himself. Rather he preferred Empire and Biedermeier, and he chose to furnish his home with a secretaire, suite, beds and dressing table and mirror in these styles. The house was always full of artist friends of the painter: many of these people are pictured in paintings set in the house. All in all, the house enjoyed a lively social life, and indeed in the days of peace prior to the First World War there was also a small farm here. On warm, sunny days the artist spent his time outside painting under the shade of the trees in the park. Here was born the mosaic-like painting stvle depicting idyllic nude scenes created in a lively manner, humorously termed by the artist his „cornfield” style. Today, Rippl-Rónai’s house functions as a memorial museum. Dr. Róbert Martyn, one of his adopted sons, conscientiously preserved many of the original pieces of furniture, objects and relics. The artist’s brother, the art collector Ödön Rippl-Rónai, and experts from the Kaposvár Museum assembled an important collection of paintings which are on display in the memorial museum. The furniture is positioned as it was when Rippl- Rónai lived here, and the paintings are displayed in these appropriate surroundings. József Rippl-Rónai Memorial House (Róma-villa, Kaposvár)
