Imre Györgyi szerk.: A modell, Női akt a 19. századi magyar művészetben (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2004/2)

Tanulmányok / Studies - Imre Györgyi: A modell / The Model

duties that crush their personalities their natural genius, which is greater than or at least equal to that of men, they would break forth with vehemence.' 'Székely [...] did not paint from nature for about fifteen or twenty years,' continued Róza Feszty Jókai, 'instead he invented something incredible. He made out of wire small skeletons onto which he applied muscles from never-drying wax pulp

—cooked, I think, according to old recipes

— and draperies from wet rags. He could then twist, turn and group the small figures and compose his big historical paintings. He only worked from live nude models in his old age and even then rarely.'

226 Székely was regarded by his contemporaries similarly to Jean Clair's diagnosis of the era where 'the present has lost the definiteness with which it was endowed', where 'the certainties of perception have been dealt a severe blow' and where 'the feverish activity of the modern spirit is aimed at the infinite decomposition of the corpus universalis of art.'

227 At Székely's memorial exhibition Sándor Nagy, a pupil who much admired the painter, was also perplexed by the nude paintings of this Hungarian 'Frenhofer'

228

: 'He, who possessed not even as much eroticism as an ascetic, painted a whole roomful of Ledas. [...] The Leda-era was the bleakest period in his life, the time of lifeless theory which contained no emotions, just the well-activated logical clicking of the thought machine. [...] Leda was unable to attain nature's shining leaves that tremble with thousands of reflexes, [...] and, not reaching the great light of plein air, became trapped in the darkness of the clair-obscur.'

229 In these studio works Bertalan Székely attempted to lay objective foundations for the rules of the visual portrayal of the theory of colour, the study of forms and motion. His aim with it was 'to be able to observe with complete objectivity' by 'creating a great excitement in the activity of the observing mind and practically nothing in that of desires and emotion'.

230 The further developing of Muybridge's experiments in the photography of motion and the methodological applying of Helmholtz' optical atlas elevated Székely's experimental method of education from the bonds of his historicising painting and endowed it with independent life. The organiser of Székely's 1992 exhibition on studies of movement said the following in retrospect: 'The exhibited material appeared to have already lived an independent and active life of its own: besides the mentioned isms, Surrealism, Constructivism and the forms of the Bauhaus were identifiable on certain pages, acting undoubtedly as a revelation in the case of a painter branded as a representative of Academism and technical reference books serving "outmoded" artistic principles and ideals.'

2

" József Rippl-Rónai's Time Junctions In Munich in 1865 Gyula Benczúr and Pál Szinyei Merse created competition works after the same model. These works are unique in Hungarian art. (Cat. VI-12-13) Due presumably to the degree of exposure, which was unusually naturalistic for Hungary, the two paintings were only rarely exhibited together: in 1925 at the Nude Exhibition assembled from Lajos Ernst's and Marcell Nemes's collections

232 and in 1954 in the Károlyi Palace at a private nude exhibition organised exclusively for artists. The latter was not recalled by many, as it was open only to those who had artists' passes.

233 Most recently the two pictures were exhibited in 1990 at the Pál Szinyei Merse retrospective exhibition. It is more difficult to state with any certainty, however, that the sketches which survived from the artist's studio were made after nude models and were not the result of the artist following his 'inner vision'. Pál Szinyei Merse's all-recording hand depicted an erotic seduction in distracted outlines beside a composition sketch for Heine's Faust and on its companion piece. (Cat. VI-37) These drawings may have been made between 1865 and 1869 but we do not know whether they were created after living models or from the artist's imagination. Few nude drawings by Mihály Munkácsy have survived. In his sketchbook containing drafts for a ceiling piece for the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Cat. VII-14) there are a few drawings of female nude models and other allegorical figures in imaginary studios. In a drawing made with disorderly lines and a more elaborated picture of a reclining woman (Cat. VI-23-24)

2iA the artist depicts the nude models with the spontaneity of the moment

—something that was extremely important for artists at the end of the 19th century. Munkácsy probably painted them when in 1887 he first received József RipplRónai in his studio in Paris. T, the young man with neither name nor fortune,' wrote Rippl-Rónai in Memoirs, 'encouraged by a few young painters living in Paris at the time [...] visited him [...]. I took along with me a pile of drawings, mainly nudes detailed with charcoal done in the Munich school, just in case he was not only willing to see me but also wanted to look at my work. For whatever reason - "the world is only a state of mind" - I was allowed in, he saw me and I was even able to show him my drawings. He was sitting in front of the draft of his great Vienna ceiling piece. "Where do you come from and what brings you here?" he asked. [...] During this we were interrupted by a visitor. On seeing the visitor's business card, the master hurried out, led his guest inside and started explaining his ceiling piece sketch to him. [...] Perhaps, looking at my nudes while designing nudes himself for the ceiling picture, he thought I might be able help him with the details.'

235 Three years later, Rippl-Rónai was still using Munkácsy's studio. However, his ink drawings were showing a new aesthetic concept in relation to pictures, termed by him 'the principle of simultaneous painting'. (Cat. X-8) At his first retrospective exhibition in 1892 at the Palais Galliera in Paris Rippl-Rónai showed pastel female heads expressing different emotions. These pastel heads, moving away from the anatomical forms of works of art, expressed aesthetic emotions rather than the physiognomy of emotions.

236