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

Paul Gauguin: Cavaliers sur la plage I, 1902 Museum Folkwang, Essen The Hungarian Fauves in Paris In our analysis of the activities and artistic achievements, novel concept and artistic practices of the Hungarian Fauves, we can use various approaches. One, rather obvious approach would be to study their place and role in contemporary Hungarian art." Another approach, one that has not yet been explored fully, would be to find the place and significance of the Hungarian Fauves within the French movement, with a comparative study establishing the parallels and differences as well as the specific traits of the national branches. Naturally, it would also be possible to compare the Hungarian Fauves with their counterparts in the international scene. However, in view of the poor state of research in this area, we cannot undertake the latter task. As we have mentioned earlier, the assortment of Hungarian Fauves did not form a coherent unit; therefore, their achievement should be discussed either by treating each artist individually or by outlining the groups within their ranks, or by selecting one aspect for an analysis. The aim of what follows here is to look at the Hungarian artists primarily in comparison to the French Fauves. Also relevant to our study is the Bohemian lifestyle that these young painters usually led, as it provided the social framework of their activities. The wretched and comfortless

—and occasionally also remarkably picturesque

—studios, for example, those located in Cité Falguière or in Grand Chaumière, also form part of our story, as they provided temporary shelter, often without the basic amenities, to our artists. On the other hand, because of the crowded conditions, these studios functioned as meeting places. Béla Czóbel lived in the same neighbourhood as Modigliani, and for a period of time Rezső Bálint shared Modigliani's flat.

1? To escape from their depressingly cramped quarters, and in search of each others' company, the artists regularly met in the cafés, which became wellknown around that time as the Bohemian meeting places of artists and art dealers from the United States, Germany and Central Europe. On Saturdays, the Hungarians, like the other young artists of Paris, visited the salon of Gertrude Stein, where they had a chance to meet with the representatives of the art and literary elite while studying the paintings by Matisse and Picasso hung up on the wall. If they were really lucky, they could even run into the afore-said artists themselves and listen to them as they discussed their own work. Indeed, they witnessed the birth of Fauvism and Cubism in statu nascendi, so to speak. Fortunately, the Hungarian artists resisted the temptation to establish Hungarian "ghettoes" in Paris. It is true that Tibor Boromisza, at that time still set on a sculpting career, temporarily shared a flat with Ferenc Medgyessy, but this was quite irrelevant, considering that, instead of seeking each other's company, they plunged into the buzzing social life of Paris. Smaller circles of friends occasionally emerged, such as those centred around Sándor Galimberti, Valéria Dénes and Alfréd Réth, for example, but an exclusively Hungarian group was never formed, not even when presumably many of the Hungarian artists (Vilmos Perlrott Csaba and Géza Bornemisza evidently among them) had already frequented Matisse's studio. As the relatively late date of opening the school (1908) indicates, this act merely set the seal on an already existing movement's persistence or

—in Matisse's case

—on the conclusion of a much earlier process. By the time the estimated number of 120 students (mostly Americans, Scandinavians and Germans) enrolled in Matisse's school, the first and also the most important phase of Fauvism had already come to an end. For this reason, those Hungarians (probably including Róbert Berény and Valéria Dénes), who presumably visited either the school or the maestro at the academy or in his home (for example, Károly Kernstok, Ödön Márffy, Béla Czóbel, Vilmos Perlrott Csaba and Béni Ferenczy) had been acquainted with Matisse's concept already long before 1908. Therefore, they cannot properly be called Matisse's students. Unlike the Americans, the Scandinavians and the Germans, the Hungarian artists visiting Matisse did not form a separate community. Their career histories and changes of style were all added to the common melting pot of French and international art movements in Paris. From 1904 onwards (but most notably between 1905 and 1907, in other words, during the period that was marked by the explosion and culmination of the French movement), they executed most of their paintings and drawings in Paris. All those in Hungary, or more precisely at Nagybánya, who had not encountered Fauvism earlier in Paris, could learn about it firsthand from Czóbel within one year after the first appearance of the Fauves in 1905 in Paris. The French Fauves The best discussions of Fauvism, both by French or by other authors place different arguments in the foreground. Our approach to the subject primarily follows those applied by Jack D. Flam, Alfred Barr, Philippe Dagen, Pierre Schneider, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, Ellen C. Oppler and others. Naturally, we have also relied heavily on such crucial works as those written by Robert Goldwater, Jean Laude and William Rubin, which had opened an entirely new perspective on the period in question many decades ago. They introduced new viewpoints the influence of which has been tangible ever since in research and in the relevant literature whether their works are referred to or not.

13 In Judi Freeman's opinion, Fauvism owed its origin to the landscape genre and to the landscape itself which was the same French landscape that had previously been captured by the Impressionists with such great affection.

14 And of course, when the colours came alive around 1904, it happened not just on the beaches in the South of France, but also at Chatou on the Seine near Paris, hardly a Mediterranean place. Derain and his much more instinctive friend, Vlaminck, applied the pure and brilliant colours to their canvases raw, straight from the tube. Still, it appears that it had all begun a little earlier, in the city, far from the waterfronts and the light, and also far from the pleasures that only water can provide. In order to discover all that, and to be able to express them-