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 - GYÖRGY SZÜCS:Dissonance or New Harmony? The Art of the Nagybánya "Neos"

Béla Iványi Grünwald: Design for a poster, 1903 Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest described Ferenczy as the most important representative of the socalled 'Nagybánya artists' colony', the present exhibition, in which Ferenczy's works have been selected so as to reflect the entire development of his art, could at the same time be considered as the culmination of the Nagybánya movement," the critic of Egyetértés summed up his view.

7 In 1906, the new spirit and the changing habits of bourgeois society in cultural consumption were already reflected in the unexpected success, at the exhibition of Könyves Kálmán Szalon and at the subsequent auction of József Rippl-Rónai, who after his return from France followed an artistic course independent of the Nagybánya artists.

8 "We are about to embark upon a new 'era'. This state of affairs will help many modern people. The road has been completed, but it must not be ruined," he summed up the lessons in a letter to his brother, Ödön. In the post scriptum, he then added the following comment in connection with Béla Iványi Grünwald's retrospective exhibition at the Nemzeti Szalon: "Grünwald had no success. This is not success."

9 Rippl-Rónai's brief observation registered the changing mood of the art-buying public who set their eyes on modern art that was "more up-to-date", and who considered Iványi Grünwald's earlier completed Impressionist and plein-air paintings outmoded in comparison to Rippl-Rónai's work, despite the fact that the former was the most open-minded artist among the founding members of the Nagybánya movement. In precisely the same year a symbolic event took place at the Nagybánya artists' colony: Béla Czóbel showed to the young artists of the colony a dozen of his works, which he had completed already under the influence of Fauvism. The colourful, poster-like paintings, which screamed out for attention, naturally provoked a heated debate among both the masters and the pupils. But the one thing they all agreed upon was, however, that it would be very difficult to continue working in the traditional manner, relying on the old reflexes. Czóbel, of course, developed the "wild" style of his latest pictures after a long period of gestation, inspired by the exhibitions he had seen in Paris (Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh) and in full knowledge of Matisse's painting, which was antedated by an almost unconscious youthful impression related to a Rippl-Rónai composition: "I was still at school, when I already had this craving to see Paris," Czóbel recalled. "Rippl-Rónai made a contribution to enhance this desire. I went to see his exhibition held in the Hotel Royal almost daily. It was on my way from our home on Teréz Körút to the Barcsay Grammar School."

10 Although Czóbel never became the official "anointed" heir to Rippl-Rónai, who was older by a good twenty years, there are a few tiny biographical details and comments in his correspondence, which suggest the visible existence of some traces of a certain artistic respect between the accomplished master and the young artist. "Dear Sir, please find enclosed my Matisse reproductions; I'll send you more, as soon as I get access to them. How do you find them?", Czóbel wrote in a letter he and Kernstok jointly sent to Rippl-Rónai in 1908.

11 Czóbel's symbolic gesture, which remained a one-off stunt on his part, nevertheless sufficed to boost the morale of the young Nagybánya artists who had already visited the French capital around 1905-1906 on the one hand, and to shake the confidence of the students with firm views, who remained loyal to their masters, on the other. "The power of the new movement

—especially at the beginning

—upset more or less every young man, stirring some restlessness inside even those whose conviction had been built on firmer foundations initially. An anxious anticipation overcame people's soul: What comes next, what new values will art gain? The hard facts of art history during the past fifty years made people cautious about new phenomena in art. Nagybánya had put the freedom of art on its banner, therefore its representatives could not turn against the disciples of the new faith, but nor could they yield to it, because they had not been convinced," István Réti recollected Czóbel's appearance on the scene.

12 In this way, therefore, the narration of the story, in other words the historical approach that arranges generations and the new movements automatically in a chronological order, fails completely, as the team of students growing up in free schools were

—regardless of their open-mindedness and age

—sharply divided over the acceptance or rejection of the masters' principles of teaching. Therefore, the fault line lied only partly between the masters correcting the works, namely Ferenczy, Réti and Thorma, and the students working away at the easel; nevertheless, the evolution of the artists colony, the life of which abounded in debates and internal rebellions

—even without Czóbel who was no longer there

—, led to open confrontation only in 1911-1912. Unfortunately, contemporary sources about the way in which Czóbel's paintings were received in 1906 are not available either to confirm or to deny the unique and revelatory aspects of Czóbel's appearance as being epoch-making, the claim often made later by various art historical treatises. The articles published in contemporary newspapers reveal that in the public's eye the leaders of the Nagybánya artists' colony, Ferenczy, Thorma, Réti and "our very own Grünwald",

13 were considered to be the established artists, whose names were men-