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 - ZOLTÁN ROCKENBAUER: The Fauves by the Danube, or Could Nyergesújfalu Have Been Hungary's Collioure?

preferred to work all by himself, and it seems that the evening conversations were mostly dialogues conducted with his host, rather than debates about art and politics in a larger company. "I spent a good many summers at Nyergesújfalu, and had long conversations with Kernstok. He was an outstanding man not only as an artist, he had extraordinary intelligence and broadly based knowledge, even outside artistic matters. We rarely saw each other during the day, as we worked separately; but we had long talks after dusk, during our extended walks along the Danube. These were enjoyable hours, because he had a broad range of interests in all aspects and manifestations of life."

13 Another passage of the same letter seems to indicate that the Kernstok-villa actually housed a workshop for artists engaged in finding solution to artistic problems. "There was a certain intellectual bond between the painters coming to Nyerges. It was not so much the landscape that captivated the artists here, but the fact that they all shared the same concept of art. To briefly characterize this shared concept of art, one should point out that this group of artists had turned their backs on the kind of subjective, instinctive painting that was fashionable in Hungary at the time, to replace it with a painting governed by the eternal laws of art. Perhaps the best way to describe this shared or related artistic concept would be to point out that the artists tried to build up their paintings according to strict principles, by emphasizing the composition, the construction, the forms, the drawing and the essence."

14 What Márffy seems to be suggesting here is that the artistic principles of Nyolcak had, in fact, been crystallized at Nyerges. However, at that time the place still did not function as an organized artists colony. It was only later, during the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, that a short-lived free school was started at Nyergesújfalu.

15 According to the evidence of the available sources, the artists visiting the place in the second half of the century's first decade worked more or less in isolation from one another, with each of them being connected only to Kernstok. Still, it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of Nyergesújfalu. Károly Kernstok was undoubtedly the man who stood at the focus of Nyolcak's intellectual orbit. Although his painting may not have been the most emblematic, through his intellectual powers he became the undisputed leader of the group that was to be formally established soon. Nor can we ignore the artistic interaction that emerged between Czóbel, Kernstok and Márffy at Nyerges. There can be no doubt about the fact that Czóbel's Fauvism imported from Paris had a profound effect not only on the Neos, the young painters of Nagybánya, but also on the slightly older Kernstok, who had, by then, been considered a mature artist. Miklós Rózsa, the future head of Művészház (House of Artists), wrote the following about the modernization of Kernstok's painting: "[Kernstok], who began to pay attention to the first stirrings of new art during his friend, Béla Czóbel's stay at his estate in Nyergesújfalu, decided to join the movement only after he had had personal experience of the works of the chercheurs (Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, etc.) on a visit to Paris, concluding that nothing could stop the spread of the new art."

16 This was when Kernstok completed his insightful portrait of Czobel (Cat. No. 145), and also when Czobel finished his excellent painting of the yard of the Nyergesújfalu estate (Cat. No. 110). It is worth noting that, although it was rooted in French Fauvism, the Fauvist period in both Kernstok and Márffy's art attained full maturity not in Paris, but in Nyergesújfalu. It was evident not so much in landscapes as in human portrayals and, most notably, in the genre of nude painting. It was at Nyerges that Márffy first took a serious interest in nude painting, and in his decision he could heavily have been influenced by the fact that through Kernstok he had easy access to inexpensive models. Some of the compositions Kernstok painted during this period showed a remarkable similarity to Márffy's style. With regard to linear composition and colours, his large-scale Female Nude Standing (Cat. No. 146) is very close to Márffy's Boy and Girl on Green Bench (Cat. No. 169), while one of the period's emblematic work, Kernstok's Nude Boy Leaning against a Tree (Cat. No. 148) is reminiscent of the monumental composition of Márffy's Girl from Nyerges (Cat. No. 168). Nevertheless, Kernstok was much more cautious in his choice of adjacent colours than either Czóbel or Márffy, who were literally intoxicated with lights. The striking feature of his nudes, just as his peasant portraits, was their colourfulness. Among his best Fauvist compositions are Colourful Female Nude (Cat. No. 167) and Female Bathers (Cat. No. 170), which were both painted in Nyergesújfalu. The latter composition provoked a scandal at the introductory exhibition of Nyolcak, entitled Új képek (New Pictures). The other, frequently mentioned principal work of the exhibition, Károly Kernstok's Youth was also made at Nyergesújfalu. However, Kernstok soon abandoned his experiments in colours in favour of his monumental, classicizing compositions in brownish-red, depicting riders by the Danube. These works later constituted the emblematic compositions of the 1911 exhibition of Nyolcak. Before long, Márffy also turned his back on Fauvism, moving closer to Constructivism, although he continued to go back to Nyerges right until the end of the decade in search of inspiration for his brilliant colours. Notes 1 Besides the landlord, five of the painters of the group Nyolcak definitely visited Nyerges at some point (Czigány, Czóbel, Márffy, Orbán and Pór), no data has proven yet whether Berény and Tihanyi have been there. From among other guests in Nyerges, Vedres and Lesznai were invited to exhibit together with the Nyolcak, while Ady, Jászi, Lukács, Marcell Nemes and Pál Relie were among the intellectual supporters of the group. 2 Károly Ferenczy's letter to István Réti, 29 April, 1907, MNG Archives, 8270/1955, in: András-Bernáth 1997, 144-145; He voiced similar ideas in a letter written two weeks earlier. See: Károly Ferenczy's letter to István Réti, 18 April, 1907, MNG Archives, 8271/1955, reprinted ibid., 144. 3 Bertalan Pór's typed letter to Iván Dévényi, Budapest, 20 January, 1956, MTA M Kl Archives, MKCS-C-l-1

59/1191c 4 Dezső Orbán's handwritten letter to Iván Dévényi. Sidney, 16 June, no year [1968], MTA MKI Archives, MKCS-C-l-1

59/1152 5 Zsiga, Imréné, "Czigány was there", Béla Horváth's interviews, 35, Mrs Imre Zsiga to Béla Horváth, n.d. [1957. ?], manuscript; "Oszkár Jászi was there, his wife: Anna Lesznai liked my mother very much. Márffy very often, Czóbel, Czigány spent entire summers, rented rooms." Béla Horváth's interviews, 36, Masa Feszty to Béla Horváth, n.d. [1957. ?], manuscript. (The original in the collection of Attila Rum.) 6 Márffy stayed in Florence from November 1906 until January 1907, where a smaller intellectual circle had formed around Lajos Fülep: among its members were Márk Vedres, Elza Kalmár, Renée Erdős, Erzsébet Héczey, Georg Lukács and others. They were also expecting József Rippl-Rónai, but because he was too busy organizing the first exhibition of MIÉNK, finally he was not able to join them. 7 Iván Dévényi quotes Márk Vedres in: "A nyergesújfalúi Kernstokvilla életéből" [From the Life of the Kernstok Villa in Nyergesújfalu.] Komárom-megyei dolgozók lapja, 11 February 1956, reprinted in: Bodri 2000, 51-52. 8 Kernstok, Károly, "Vallomás" [Confession], in: Bodri 2000, 41. 9 Dévényi, Iván, "Márffy Ödön levele a Nyoicak törekvéséről" [Ödön Márffy's Letter about the Objectives of Nyolcak], Művészet 1969, No. 8, 10; Szőnyi and Pál Bor visited Nyergesújfalu much later, after 1918. 10 Besides Ferenczy's letters from 18 and 29 April, 1907, see also the memoirs of Czóbel: "After 1907 I often went to work in Nyergesújfalu to Kernstok's." Czóbel, Béla, "Találkozások Adyval" [Encounters with Ady], quoted in: Bodri 2000, 69; and: "In 1907-1908 he spent 2 summers at Nyergesújfalu." See: "Czóbel Béla festőművész közlései. A Művészeti Intézet megbízásából" [Information from Béla Czóbel, Painter. Commissioned by the Archives of the Art Institute], MTA MKI Archives MDK-C11-144 - the information is not exact in one respect: he visited Nyergesújfalu also in 1913 together with Endre Ady, and perhaps also on other occasions. 11 György Bölöni's letter to Itóka, around 26 April, 1907, in: Bölöni 2005, 39. 12 Ödön Márffy's typed letter to Iván Dévényi, 7 January, 1956, MTA MKI Archives, MKCS-C-l-158/973a, reprinted in: Dévényi, op.cit. (Note 9), 10. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 With the participation of Imre Czumpf, Gyula Derkovits, Mária Goszthonyi, Emil Róbert Novotny, József Haranglábi Nemes, János Nyergesi and others. About this issue see the selection of articles by Ferenc Bodri: "A forradalmak napjai és a nyári szabadiskola Nyergesújfalun" [The Days of the Revolution and the Summer Free School in Nyergesújfalu], in: Bodri 2000, 109-139. 16Rózsa 1914, 265. (The quote reprinted in: Bodri 2000, 42.)