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 - GYÖRGY SZÜCS: Nagybánya, a Regional Centre

GYÖRGY SZÜCS Nagybánya, a Regional Centre Whether their means of transportation was a horse-drawn cart or a stagecoach, a horse or, following the completion of the railway tracks in the 1880s, a railway coach, all 19th-century travellers setting out on a journey from Budapest to Nagybánya had to pass through Szatmárnémeti. The first ceremonious event of the famous 1896 "procession", which was led by Hollósy and marked the beginning of the foundation of the artists' colony, in fact took place at the town's railway station, where the formally attired members of a delegation led by the mayor, Olivér Turman, welcomed a curious group of Bohemians dressed up in very mixed garments. The majority of the group

—and not just the foreigners among them

—had never before set foot in this remote corner of Hungary, and at best knew about the place only from newspapers reporting on the riches of Nagybánya's gold and silver mines. After having experienced a rough ride in the rickety railway trains, generations of painters were met with a panoramic view of volcanic hills

— some reaching for the sky and some lazily stretched out

—, which was the same that the Hungarian conquerors had encountered centuries earlier: the hills of Morgó, Hegyeshegy, Virághegy and the emblematic Kereszthegy, a constant motif of the paintings, all framed by Rozsály, Feketehegy and the snowy mountain range of Gutin in the distance.

1 Competing with the capricious topographical features were the church spires of numerous settlements that populated this side of the river Zazar. As to the historic past of this free royal mining town once Nagybánya a reslauráll Szenl-Istváu toronnyal. Károly Cserna - Gusztáv Moreili: View of Nagybánya, 1900