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

AT HOME AND ABROAD - KRISZTINA PASSUTH: Wild Beasts of Hungary Meet Fauves in France

KRISZTINA PASSUTH Wild Beasts of Hungary Meet Fauves in France French Fauvism burst into life on the beaches of Collioure, under the blazing southern sun, apparently within a single season. It was almost as if the quiet bay of Collioure had kept some secret in reserve for those who, not content with the pleasures of swimming in the swelling sea, went there in order to recreate, behind the wide-open windows of their makeshift studios, the unique experience of soaking in the Mediterranean sun. The summer season of 1905 turned out to be an unusually long and glittering one. It was not only the blue sea and the fleshy plants that profusely radiated with light, but the figures also seemed to vibrate in the simmering heat. They were filled with colours that were nothing like those one could find in the city studios, where the dusk dissolved the pure contours and covered both the figures and their settings, the streets and the intimate corners of Paris, in an evenly spread mist. Exploring the banks of the Seine at Chatou near Paris, André Derain was already painting outdoors, while Henri Matisse was still working inside his studio on Quai Saint Michel in the heart of the metropolis, with his windows also looking onto the Seine. The colours on Matisse's palette at that time still lacked the transparency and weightlessness of his later works; instead, the dark shades and patches lent to his paintings composure and dignity, rather than brilliance. However, in 1905 not just the landscape, but also the sea itself tinged with red, as if the sun had illuminated it from the inside. One year later, during the summer of 1906, in Hungary, too, an entirely new art movement suddenly sprung into existence. The Transylvanian town of Nagybánya (now Baia Mare, Romania), an old mining town sorrounded by hills and unspoilt countryside, was no Collioure. The painters who worked there had to make do without the sea and Mediterranean sunshine but they also painted plein air. Since 1896 they had spent each summer at the town's artists' colony and the associated free school. Still, what was unfolding in those months in front of their eyes surprised not only the masters, but also the young artists. Apparently, they were developing their own brand of Fauvism. Legend has it that it was Béla Czóbel who brought them fresh evidences of the stylistic revolution of the Fauve painters in Paris, most vividly illustrated View of Collioure with the lighthouse View of Collioure Archive photograph Archive photograph by Czóbel's own paintings that he had already exhibited in Paris. In that same spirit, several examples of "Hungarian Fauvism" were born on the spot in Nagybánya. And all this was supposed to have happened without any preliminaries, both in Collioure and Nagybánya, coming out of a clear blue sky. (To cap it all, we have no clues as to what particular compositions Czóbel had shown to the others at Nagybánya.)' Is this really how it happened? The French and the Hungarian narratives naturally differ; at certain points they link up, with the threads running parallel now and then, and occasionally even becoming one. The picture only begins to clear up gradually, with the emergence of several details, compositions, contemporary correspondences, critiques, recollections and memoirs by the artists, but above all by comparing the actual works. It then becomes clear that the story of French Fauvism did not start in 1905, for that matter: it had begun much earlier. It was a protracted process, a maturation interrupted by changes, until a certain situation suddenly elicited the artistic approach that appeared to be revolutionary and unexpected to everyone. There were a number of independent, or almost entirely unrelated factors, which together came to play an important part, such as the discovery of French so-called "primitive" painting, accompanied by the remterpretation of the notion of primitivism itself; the practice of copying the old masters' works in the Louvre; the elevation of African sculpture to the status of high art; the independent activities of the painters'