Passuth Krisztina – Szücs György – Gosztonyi Ferenc szerk.: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya 1904–1914 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/1)

FROM PARIS TO NAGYBÁNYA - PÉTER MOLNOS: Budapest: The "Paris of the East" in the Hungarian Wilderness

Sándor Ziffer: Baross Square, 1908. Cat. No. 274. While it is true that Budapest played only a minor part in the history of the individual artworks

—with the exception of Sándor Ziffer's views of Baross Square (Cat. Nos. 274, 275), neither the theme nor the place of origin of any items in the current exhibition can be linked to the Hungarian capital

—, we can still find several details both in the artists' careers and in the subsequent history of the artworks, which authenticate the method of topographical approach suggested in the study's title. Although neither the artists nor the art writers who backed them up exercised any restraint in criticizing Hungary and Budapest with great linguistic ingenuity, it was nevertheless here (among other places) that they studied; it was here that they rented studios and exhibited their works; that they applied for scholarships and founded their short-lived associations. They were hanging out in the Budapest cafés and read the

—usually scathing

—articles about themselves in the Budapest papers. And finally, it was mostly in this artistic milieu that they tried to find buyers

—mostly without success

—for their compositions. In my essay, I attempt to take stock of these locations, the scenes where the artists tried to introduce modern Hungarian painting to the market

—not easily marketed commodities exported from Paris

—, making efforts to prove that for the pioneers of new Hungarian painting the road "from Paris to Puddle City" perhaps constituted less of an irredeemable fall as suggested elsewhere.' The Schools The irresistible dynamism, which drove the Hungarian artists of a more innovative spirit to Paris, can partly be traced to the conservative attitude prevailing in artists' training in Hungary. For a good thirty-five years after its foundation in 1871, the country's only art academy, Országos Magyar Királyi Mintarajziskola és Rajztanárképző (National Hungarian Royal Drawing School and Drawing Instructor Training Institute) tried to force the 19th-century style of the art academies in Vienna and Munich onto its students.

2 The Director Gusztáv Keleti, notorious for his strict and pedantic conservatism, was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as well as being the director of the Fine Arts Society and the government's expert. As