Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

STUDIES - Éva Bajkay: The Classicizing Trends of the 1920s and their Beginnings in Pécs Tradition and Modernity in the Pécs Arts Society

of geometric design. Instead of the pronounced spatial effect of landscapes, the space is open towards the infinite, shadowing contrasts are reduced to a minimum in the case of the figures. Those experimental, technically uneven engravings which give up on the support of the rules of Renaissance art reflect his search for the metaphysical essence, are peculiar vesels of the substance of man and space. At a time when the notion of artistic value became unstable, Farkas Molnár as an innovative modern artist chose to travel not the road of Dadaism, destruction and denial, but the one of constructiveness, rationality and objectivity. He did not immediately give up the traditional practice of pictorial representation. His choice of form was theoretically motivated, and the classic, Arcadian idyll of man and nature gave way to the vision of endless space, the prognosis of a future ruled by technology. He continued to produce graphics until 1925, and he developed the idea all along. The figures and the architectonic elements are equally mechanical. Molnár eventually arrived, through architectural design ideas (town, U-Theatre) at purely functional architecture. Interestingly, however, in October 1924 he gave voice, in a questionnaire he answered in Pécs, to his conviction that the classic tradition and modernity are reconcilable: T felt the same enthusiasm for the Italian masters of the early Renaissance as for the architects of American skyscrapers. They have one thing in common, and that is the conscientiousness and professionalism of their work'.

50 Neoclassicism became again prominent in Farkas Molnár's activity in the 1930s, this time in his architecture, under new historical circumstances, with the passing of the heyday of modernism. The modernist reminiscences were included in works that served the current regime, just as the activity of Henrik Stefan and Hugó Johan at the time was associated with Aba-Novák's works, which also had activist origins but were of a Novecento monumentality Ernő Gebauer's later career as a painter of churches had a similar though less powerfully executed programme,

51 characterized by not so much modernism as a topical and opportunistic recycling of the tradition. The study was written in the framework of the Ministry of Education research project 'Art in the Inter-war Period'. NOTES 1 András Zwickl: Neoklasszicizmus a 20-as évek magyar festészetében (Neo-Classicism in Hungarian Painting in the 1920s). Ars Hungarica XXI (1993/2), p. 204. 2 György Sümegi: Kecskeméti Művésztelep (1909/12-1944) és Alkotóház (1957-) (The Kecskemét Artist Colony and Arts Home). Új Művészet Könyvek 9., Budapest, n.d. [1996], pp. 40-49. 3. At the 1916 Spring Exhibition of the National Salon they presented their works together. In 1917 Gulácsy, Perlrott and Uitz were replaced by Géza Csorba, Andor Erős and Armand Schönberger. Cf. Éva Bajkay: Uitz Béla. Budapest, Budapest, 1987, pp. 14-16. 4 Boris Groys: Derűs monstrumok (Serene Monsters). Balkon, March 1995, pp. 4-7. 5 Studying at the Epreskert free school, István Szőnyi, still a young man, came under the influence of Uitz. Cf. Ernő Kállai: Új magyar piktúra (New Hungarian Painting). Budapest, Amicus, 1925; Lajos Végvári: Szőnyi István, Bernáth Aurél. Miskolc, Well-Press Kiadó, 2003. Farkas Molnár seems to have absorbed the influence of Dobrovics and Uitz. Farkas Molnár, Andor Weininger and Vilmos Aba-Novák must have met at the Technical University, where the former two were studying, and the latter was appointed lecturer of the Drawing Department in 1918-1919. 6 András Zwickl (ed.): Árkádia tájain. Szőnyi István és köre 1918-1928 (In the Land of Arcadia. István Szőnyi and Friends, 1918-1928). Exhibition catalogue. Budapest: Hungarian National Gallery, 2001. 7 There were a number of Rembrandt shows and publications all over Europe. In Hungary exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, writings by Zoltán Farkas and others were responsible for popularizing the Dutch painter. Cf. e.g. Ferenc Zsákovics: A rézkarcoló nemzedék 1921—1929 (A Generation of Etchers). Miskolc, Miskolci Galéria, 2001, pp. 30-34. 8 Cf. e.g. Georg Simmel: Studien zur Philosophie der Kunst, besonders der Rembrandtschen. It was discussed by Emma Ritoók in her Esztétikai dolgozatok (Aesthetic Studies). In: Éva Karádi, Erzsébet Vezér (eds.): A Vasárnapi Kör. Dokumentumok (The Sunday Circle. Documents). Budapest, Gondolat Kiadó, 1980.

pp. 161-162. 9 Adolf Hildebrand: A forma problémája a képzőművészetben. (The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture). Budapest, Politzer Zsigmond és Fia, 1911. 10 Petar Dobrovic. Exhibition catalogue. Zagreb: Muzejski prostor, 1990. György Várkonyi: Festő a szigeten. A festő, publicista és művészetszervező Dobrovics (Painter on the Island. Dobrovics: Painter, Journalist and Arts Organizer). Jelenkor XL (September 1997), pp. 848-856. 11 Péter Dobrovics: Elmélkedés (Reflections). Alföld (Kecskemét) I. (February 1914), pp. 43-44. 12 Várkonyi, ibid. 13 György Várkonyi: Dobrovics Péter a magyar képzőművészetben (Péter Dobrovics in Hungarian Art). JPM Évkönyv 36 (1991). Pécs, 1922, pp. 69-278. 14 Éva Bajkay: From Medieval Cathedral to the Modern Mechanical Stage. (Stations along a Road of Search, on the Basis of New Acquisitions of the Collection of Prints and Drawings in the Hungarian National Gallery). In: Annales de la Galerie Nationale Hongroise 1989-1990. Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 1993, pp. 32-46. 15 Hungarian National Gallery, Graphics Department, Inv. No.: F 2003. 5-11. 16 Albums, reproductions, books were circulated. Weininger is known to have made copies after a reproduction of Correggio's Jupiter and lo, issued by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, as well as studies after Titian's Sacred and Profane Love and Tintoretto's Bacchus and Ariadne. Heinrich Wölfflin's Die klassische Kunst. Eine Einführung in die italienische Renaissance (Munich, 1898) is also certain to have influenced the Pécs artists. 17 Tibor Tüskés (ed.): A Krónika (1920-1921) repertóriuma. (Krónika