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"

Sándor Ziffer: Self-portrait, cca. 1908. Cat. No. 283. a view to realizing this."

41 At that time Lázár still stopped short of introducing a precise category, but within a few years he set an example, when he attached the label of "modern primitivism" to Matisse's art. He reminded his audience that both painters had been frequent visitors of the pre-historic museum located in Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Maurice Denis' home and, furthermore, that primitive art had exerted an influence on Matisse from the earliest time in his career. "He wanted to see through a pristine, naïve eye. He wanted to see directly as primitive people or children do. He wanted to be simple, content to express only what was essential and vital. He wanted to be rid of every convention that had stuck to human perception during the millennia."

42 Lyka, on the other hand, was concerned with neither the origin of the word, nor its usage in Hungarian, correct or incorrect; he was merely interested in the group of phenomena in itself. He tried to sort out the common features of the new art, which in 1913 he was able to do

—if we may add

—already after the appearance of Cubism and Futurism, in full knowledge of the consequences, such as the monumental murals executed in Kecskemét (Béla Iványi Grünwald) or the art of Nyolcak (Kernstok, Berény, Czígány, etc.). He was aware of the fact that his comments reflected the conditions as they were at that moment, accepting the incompleteness and continual changes of art movements: "We may take it for granted that anything we now consider to be a valid statement about Neo-lmpressionism will be irrelevant tomorrow in the light of subsequent works of art, and will be relegated to being an episode as an outmoded view the day after tomorrow."

43 Lyka's extended system essentially stood the test of time: all those aspects he emphasized

— monumentality, the narrowing of themes, two-dimensionality versus Vilmos Perlrott Csaba: Portrait of Sándor Ziffer, cca. 1907. Cat. No. 203. plasticity, the subjective distortion of the human figure

—truly characterize the majority of the compositions completed in the given period. The third art historian I would like to mention besides Lyka and Lázár for venturing further than merely describing the mood of the various paintings is Károly Sztrakoniczky, who later went on to work for the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts. In 1909, presumably still under the influence of the formation of MIÉNK, he wanted to tackle the questions raised by modern art in the context of "Impressionism" taken in its broadest sense. "By now, Impressionist painting is no longer a doubtful or debated movement. I would go even further: there is not a single modern artist who is not an Impressionist. Today the only alternative is to create something new and original within the framework of Impressionism. "

44 At the time, he was still of the opinion that the most important achievement of Impressionism was the emergence of artistic subjectivism, which could be realized either in the breaking up of the colour patches or in the creation of large colour fields; as a result, we can talk about analytic and synthetic art.

45 In 1912 Sztrakoniczky already came to revise his views, declaring Impressionism to be outmoded: "Impressionism has outlived its usefulness; it failed, it disappeared and the new art right now faces the serious problem of how to get rid of Impressionism."

46 In his view, however, a firm worldview and a "new spirit of the age" had not yet emerged, on the basis of which a genuine, new art could be built. "Quite probably, when we shake off the yoke of the 20

th century, a new type of idealism will take root in the world. And that will be the first new painting, in which this new idealism finds expression," Sztrakoniczky pushed the arrival of modernism further out in the future.

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