Veszprémi Nóra - Jávor Anna - Advisory - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2005-2007. 25/10 (MNG Budapest 2008)

NEW ACQUISITIONS, NEW RESULTS - Anna SZINYEI MERSE: Pál Szinyei Merse's Two New Sketches at the National Gallery

roundings depicted with self-restraint. The tension-ridden dynamism of the figures, which seem to slide down from a steep rock protruding among green waves with white crests, and which are arranged in a multiply diagonal composition, as well as its dramatic power concentrating on the tragic dénouement ensure the picture a distinguished place in Hungarian painting, which is otherwise lacking in wildly romantic invention. Displayed at our permanent exhibition, it is an almost textbook example of the fact that the importance of romanticism extends far beyond the middle of the 19

th century, and that the themes of world literature have had a continuous presence. However, no similar work is to be found in the oeuvre of Szinyei himself: the autonomous painter was always stimulated by newer and newer artistic problems; he sought to find individual ways, preferably different from others. This is equally true of the other new acquisition, the rather minute, though all the more significant On Green Grass, which had changed owners several times, but which we fortunately never lost track of, thus, whenever we could borrow it for an exhibition, it could be reproduced in colour at home and abroad.

3 (Colour Plate IX) With a composition similar to that of Picnic in May but a lighter general tone, and a female figure in a violet dress in its centre, Szinyei painted this sketch in his best period, in the spring of 1873, when he had just completed his masterpiece, and was contemplating the possibilities of going on further. According to Edith Hoffmann, "this sketch is an excellent promise after Picnic in May - a purely plein-air picture. Had he painted it back in Munich, he might have produced a masterpiece equal to Picnic, for its idea points beyond it, it is more modern, even more objectless, even simpler. It is genuinely like a plcin-air by Renoir."

4 On a cardboard without priming, the picture sketched "alia prima" has an ethereally fine cloudy, blue sky overlay the loose mass of fresh, green grass, while the sandy colour of the unpaintcd part of the cardboard in the top right-hand corner asserts itself through the rags of cloud painted on it. Szinyei Merse produced a genuine colour sketch, being interested in trying the harmonies of colour choices totally unusual in the period, rare even in respect of light saturation. The vivid rose-coloured spots on the top of the grassy mound could mark, for example, wild flowers. In their colour effect, they have an important role in connecting the blue sky, the green grass and the violet dress, and, together with the brown dress, the yellow and red spots of the hat of the hardly perceptible reclining figure, they soften the somewhat cold impression of the picture. The colour contrast of violet, yellow and green Szinyei experimented with here is what he would apply a year later in Lady in Violet, but without the fresh immediacy of the sketch. Thus the link between Picnic in May and Lady in Violet is this very much French-like little picture. NOTES 1 Formerly owned by Félix Szinyei Merse, then Dr. Ferenc Völgyessy. Exhibited: Pál Szinyei Meise Exhibition, Ernst Museum, Budapest. 1912, cat. no.: 22; Pál Szinyei Merse Memorial Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 1948, cat. no.: 4; Auction No. 105, Nagyházi Gallery, Budapest, 2004, cat. no.: 168; Auction No. 121, Nagyházi Gallery, Budapest, 2005, cat. no.: 229. 2 For a detailed discussion see: Szinyei Merse, Anna. "Bildgattungen und Themen im Jugendwerk von Pál Szinyei Merse. Ein ikonographischer Ausblick." In: Acta Históriáé Artium 17.3-4 ( 1981 ) pp. 298-303.; and idem. Szinyei Merse Pál élete és művészete (Pál Szinyei Merse. His Life and Work). Budapest: Corvina Kiadó-MagyarNemzeti Galéria, 1990, pp. 31, 146, 149, 183 (cat. no. 43). 3 Previously owned by several private collectors. Exhibited: Pál Szinyei Merse Exhibition. National Salon, Budapest, 1905, cat. no.: 64; Pál Szinyei Merse Memorial Exhibition, Museum of FineArts, Budapest. 1948, cat. no.: 35; Selection From Private Collections, HNG, Budapest, 1981, cat. no.: 179; Pál Szinyei Merse and His Circle, HNG, Budapest, 1990, cat. no.: 14; Plenair Malerei in Ungarn (Plein-Air Painting in Hungary). Kulturgeschichtliches Museum, Osnabrück. 1994, cat. no.: 6; In the Impressionist current. Hungarian Painting 1870-1920, Palace of Art of the Society of the Friends of Fine Arts, Cracow, 2000, cat. no.: 65. 4 Hoffmann, Edith. Szinyei Merse Pál. Budapest: Országos Magyar Szépművészeti Múzeum, 1943, p. 27. For its further analogies see, Szinyei. "Bildgattungen.. ." op. cit. (see Note 2). p. 345; and Szinyei. Szinyei Merse.

.., op. cit. (see Note 3), p. 83.