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
lated to copying in the collections of the Louvre. In this catalogue JeanPierre Cuzin examines the connection between copying and creating, also raising the problem of openness in every direction. 45 In his opinion, the method of copying the old masters is inseparable from the process of learning and practising. The beginner starts with replicating drawings, and later proceeds with three-dimensional objects (antique sculpture, moulage). Naturally, a sculpture cannot be reproduced in two dimensions as faithfully as a drawing or painting could be. The right technique, the adequate point of view and the best lighting must be selected, etc. The making of the copy helps the student in getting to know the chosen master's technique, forming a composition, etc. At the same time, these activities also facilitate interpretation or reinterpretation —sometimes even making them unavoidable. The copying artist selects a technique; he may choose only one fragment of an artwork, and he may even choose to reduce the scale of the composition: in other words, he unavoidably makes alterations. Besides providing an occasion for learning and practising, the novice artist's work may be commissioned by the Louvre, or it may be exclusively for his own purposes, so that he become familiar "with the entire depth" of a work of art. Consequently, copying can be a condition of understanding, it can be a citation, or it can constitute the use of the original in a new context, its deformation, its mockery, and, finally, creation itself, a new work of art, can be interpreted as a copy of what has laid long buried under consciousness as memory. 46 In this way, the copy becomes an integral part of creating something new; but after it has been finished, someHenri Matisse: L'homme nu, cca. 7900, oil on canvas, 99,3 x 72,7 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Kay Sage Tanguy and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Funds. Acc. n.: 377.1975. Digital image © 2006, The Museum of Modern Art I Scala, Florence, © Succession H. Matisse I HUNG ART 2006 times even the artist himself does not care about it any longer, not mentioning the art dealer, and thus the copy sinks into oblivion. This may explain why it is so hard to come by any copies today, although, being a part of the obligatory education in academies and ateliers, they were produced by the hundreds in the beginning of the century. The most interesting methods of copying from our point of view are the least traditional and the most creative and interpretative ones, which were really mastered by the French Fauves. The painters, whom contemporary critics branded "incoherent" and "wild", actually considered the works of old masters and their compositional devices as points of reference. For years they put a great amount of energy into becoming acquainted with them before finding their own ways of expression. It is possible that this stemmed from an inner uncertainty besides the respect towards their masters. Or perhaps they were simply searching for the visual devices in which they could best express themselves and they found it not in their own times, but in the past, in the masterpieces on display in the Louvre or in the works of the "Primitifs français. " They were looking for something, which they ended up finding somewhere else, not in the Louvre, but perhaps in the landscape of Collioure or Chatou. Between 1893 and 1905, Matisse, Marquet and Manguin produced numerous copies with great patience; Marquet drew copies of Fragonard's paintings, Matisse of Delacroix's; Derain produced sketches after Mantegna, Delacroix and Titian and a painting after Biagio d'Antonio; Camoin prepared drawings based on Courbet's work. Derain first discovered the two most important traits of Fauvism, a simplification in modelling and the use of simple, full colours, in the Louvre during this period. 47 Indeed, it was primarily for Matisse and Derain, for whom the practice of copying became indispensable. It was a lifelong activity so to speak, which they started at a very young age 48 and continued throughout their career. 49 In 1930, Matisse remembered painting a copy after Chardin: "Cézanne was in the background of La Raie, which I tried to paint in planes." 50 The copies produced by the future Fauves differed quite a bit from the originals, at least in the opinion of the Louvre's jury. The original was always placed next to the copy so the degree of similarity could be better judged. "Our copies were accepted only because of their [the jury's] benevolence," remembered Matisse later, "or on the occasions when Roger Marx acted as our advocate." 51 Beside Matisse, Derain was the most enthusiastic copier: "I was obsessed with the Louvre and hardly any day passed without me setting foot in it," he remembered in an article written in 1942. 52 The best proof of the above statement is a sketch book containing 311 copies of Delacroix, Rubens, Titian, etc. produced between 1904 and 1906 (during the Fauve breakthrough). 53 The most famous copy by Derain was an oil painting, although the original for it was not made by Ghirlandaio, as people believed it at the time. Modern research has since then revealed that it was actually Biagio d'Antonio's Christ Carrying the Cross. Derain's picture uniquely combines the traditional composition of the altar painting with bold, Fauve colours, summary forms and the expressive, even grotesque faces. "I was copying Ghirlandaio in the Louvre and thought it necessary not only to add more colour, but also to strengthen its expression. They wanted to throw me out of the Louvre considering this as an attack against beauty," recollected Derain. 54 "Even the visitors demanded that I should not be allowed to caricaturize the pictures," he recalled elsewhere. 55 Preoccupied with developing his own Fauve idiom, Derain was less concerned with achieving close similarity, than with finding his distinctive style. 56
