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: Frlm, Szigeti, Ziffer, cca. 7907. Cat. No. 718. Tibor Boromisza with Uncle Csorba's portrait, 1910 Caricature, Fidibusz, 1911 self a student studying at the colony, was led by a tactical consideration: to guarantee the public's acceptance of the exhibition. Despite all these contradictions, the exhibition could be regarded as the first public showing of the "Neo" artists in Nagybánya, as Ottó Mezei claimed in his crucial essay on the subject.

17 In early 1907 the inevitable finally happened, when Lajos Fülep concluded his visit to the spring exhibition of the Nemzeti Szalon (National Salon) with the remark that "a beautiful period in Hungarian painting has come to an end"; then, standing in front of Károly Ferenczy's works, he made another, hardly flattering comment about "modern academism" in the context of finality, with Rippl-Rónai and Kernstok being the only exemptions.

18 That was when the Neos' flight from Nagybánya began, followed by the presentation of the initially halfhearted attempts to the Budapest audience. The centre of gravity was, therefore, shifted to Budapest, where the members of the Nagybánya generation advocating the new spirituality, Boromisza, Czigány, Perlrott, Réth and the others, began to make an impression at the various exhibition venues (for example, Ifjúság [Youth] exhibition, Könyves Kálmán Szalon, 1907). This rapid "dispersion" gave rise to certain demands for institutionalized forms. Around 1908-1909, the search for synthesis by the various representatives of early modernism who followed very different courses (Pál Szinyei Merse, Károly Ferenczy, József Rippl-Rónai) led to the establishment of MIÉNK (Society of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists), by virtue of necessity an extremely diverse group; this was followed by the creation of Mdvészház (House of Artists), which wanted to foster the new trends and conferred on the old masters the dubious title of "honorary" members. By contrast, the desire to effect a political/philosophical and generational separation was on the minds of the founders of the artists' group Nyolcak (The Eight), who mostly came from the ranks of the former Neos of Nagybánya. It was not just the Nagybánya intelligentsia who followed the news about the young artists' successes both in Budapest and abroad with close attention; in retrospect, the leaders of the artists colony, István Réti and János Thorma, also took note of their achievements, accrediting these to the school's success. Their only disappointment was that the young artists emerging from the school exhibited their works individually, rather than collectively under the label of "Nagybánya". "The only inexplicable mistake by the exhibiting artists was their failure to reveal their Nagybánya past as a group, despite the fact that at least half of them came from there; since they failed to inform the organizers of the exhibition about this, neither the press nor the public had access to this information," Réti concluded in connection with the exhibition held in 1907 at the Könyves Kálmán Szalon.

19 The founders' faith in the integrative power of Nagybánya took a serious blow in the autumn of 1909, when one of them, Béla Iványi Grünwald, was lured by better work conditions to Kecskemét, taking along some of the students, including Vilmos Perlrott Csaba. Under the impact of the shock, the leadership of both the artists colony and the town reassessed the situation: to stop the rot, they initiated development plans (the construction of new studios) and structural reforms (the formation of the Association of Nagybánya Painters). Nevertheless, these efforts were not accompanied by a change in attitudes, with the result that the running of the school and the practice of artistic training remained essentially unchanged. The accomplishments achieved merely upheld the protection of the same principles that had been laid down at the Hollósy school and also legally confirmed the founders' rights. Around 1910, the number of students enrolling in the school still remained high, although in comparison with the 1906 figure (78 students), when attendance peaked, it was essentially down by fifty percent. Some of the earlier students were already working "outside the school," in the spirit of Fauvism; nevertheless, when they had the opportunity, they often drew after models or had their works corrected (Tibor Boromisza, József Kornai, Sándor Ziffer). Erzsi Fejérváry, whose works were also shown in Paris, attended the school since 1905, while Márta Ferentzy first went there in 1909. Both of them became Matisse's students later, according to Károly Lyka.

20 In 1911, József Nemes Lampérth, who had produced still-lifes with heavy impasto already during the previous year, also had a taste of life and work at the artists' colony for a few weeks. There were others, however, who dropped out of the artists' colony. One of the period's most influential artists, Lajos Tihanyi, for example, stayed away for some unknown reason, which may have had to do with some implacable hostility or petit