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 Czóbel: Painters Outdoors, 1906. Cat. No. 108. Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou © Photo CNACI MNAM Dist. RMNI © Philippe Migeat tioned with patriotic pride by the town's citizens, whenever their works were put on show in Budapest or at international exhibitions. On the other hand, the public call issued in a newspaper by an attorney named Gábor Ajtai Nagy in the summer of 1906 indicates some kind of an anomaly; he appealed to the sensitivity and honest conservatism of society in his call to reject the "toxic vapours of hypermodern movements," along with "caricature" and "nudity unjustified by artistic content," as manifested in some of the paintings produced at :he artists colony.

14 In his answer to the assault, János Thorma emphasized artistic freedom and the achievements accomplished so far;

15 nota bene the assault was delivered by the same Gábor Ajtai Nagy, who two years later would start a campaign for radical reforms at the Nagybánya artists colony in the newspaper Nagybányai Hírlap (obviously on the influence of his relative, Tibor Boromisza); and it was repudiated by the same Thorma, who would go on trying to save the future of the artists colony from the "Neo-modern" spirituality for decades to come. Occasioned by the chief county administrator's visit to the town, a larger exhibition was held in István Réti's studio one month later, at the end of August. According to a report published in the local paper, "the Neo-lmpressionists absented themselves from the exhibition completely, but most of the others, the Naturalists, displayed their works. "

16 The reference to the absent artists meant Béla Czóbel, who exhibited at the Salon d'Automne of Paris, and a lesser-known painter, who was nevertheless quite influential at the time, Ervin Körmendi Frim. What is more surprising, however, is the fact that the author mentioned Tibor Boromisza, Dezső Czigány, András Mikola and Perlrott Csaba among the "Naturalists". Not knowing what particular works they exhibited, and merely relying on the list of their compositions dated from the given year instead, we can assume that the influence of contemporary French painting at the exhibition remained at a level that was just tolerable in the eyes of spectators trained on Naturalism; the other possible explanation could be that, in his decision to group the material under the reassuring label of Naturalism, the author Ervin Plány, him-