Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: Vaszary János (1867–1939) gyűjteményes kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2007/3)

Tanulmányok: - GERGELY MARIANN : „Kelet és Nyugat". Vaszary János művészete a húszas-harmincas években

MARIANN GERGELY "East and West JÁNOS VASZARY'S ART IN THE TWENTIES AND THIRTIES In his fifties, János Vaszary worked withdrawn in his country home. The experiences of the First World War and the ensuing social and moral collapse profoundly shocked him. Full of doubts, the distresses of forced isolation and heart-searching, he went through extremely difficult years. Inflamed passions were at work in him, and he found respite only in artistic creation. It was his powerful will to live, his desire for beauty and novelty and his belief in meaningful art that helped him start anew. He held on to his principles, and kept away from the events of the 1918-1919 revolutions and from internal strife. He interpreted the historical situation and possibilities of Hungary as a liberal European intellectual. He envisioned it his duty to uphold his Western cultural attitudes, and help the reconstruction of the country through his theoretical and artistic labours. His wrought-up mental condition released fervent powers to create, which manifested themselves in the dynamic painterly gestures, the glowing colours and the animated pictorial surfaces of his paintings. The expressionistic mode of his dramatic war compositions came to a fulfilment in the first half of the twenties. Obviously, the erudite, muchtravelled artist drew on what he had experienced in former years. Nevertheless, he followed with attention the trends in contemporary art, and interpreted its various tendencies. In spite of his Francophile predilection, he was naturally fully aware of the work of German expressionists; after all, he had had the opportunity to see their work at several exhibitions in Budapest in the pre-war years. Naming any direct individual influences in discussing the characteristics of his expressionist period is difficult. It would be more justified to say that he passionately shaped his painterly visions from his encounters charged with powerful emotions and affections and the lessons he drew from his personal artistic experiences. He worked restlessly, regularly exhibiting his newer and newer works. Apart from a handful of war pictures and depictions of Christ, he mostly produced nudes, figurai compositions, still lifes, landscapes at this time. He was principally interested in the sensual expression of the beauty of a sight. His true self manifested itself in his great facility, in virtuoso performance, the confident use of determined gestures. In his newer pictures, he began to use the so-called black-prime technique, applying a layer of pulsating colours with powerful brushstrokes on a thick layer of dark grounding. His pictorial surfaces are covered with colourful groups of spots in undulating sweeps. Their layers of pigment turn into clots of paint bustling to interact with one another, and the plastically shaped forms of individual motifs can almost be perceived as abstract compositions. His virtuoso-technique still lifes with flowers of the early twenties are his most popular pieces. In several of these pictures, he has Buddha figures mysteriously loom out from among the colourful bouquets neatly arranged in vases (Cat. Nos 124-125). His interest in Oriental teachings was related to Western cultural phenomena seeking to create a new synthesis in the wake of the break up of the traditional system of values. As a result, oriental and occult mysticism captured middle-class salons; and the symbolic objects of Eastern religions, Buddha statues or sculptures of Buddhist monks (bonzes) found their way into the knick-knackery of parlours. The painter alluded to this middle-class openness toward the exotic when he painted statues of the Buddha in his richly resplendent still lifes. One of the most puzzling paintings of this period, Circus, is a fruit of the depressive period following the war, when looking back was painful, and looking to the future was far from promising (Cat No. 131). Apparently, it is not a living circus performance we see, but more like a scene of figures at a wax-works exhibition, where costume-wearing casts doomed to motionlessness appear conjured up from a vanished period. Pictures whose subject matter was theatre with various settings and characters followed the series of circuses. The one entitled Finale (Stage Scene) has every single detail in motion (Cat. No. 132). The colourful cavalcade on a light-flooded stage surges in the dynamic concert of whirling layers of paint applied in broad sweeps. This is the first composition in the period where the gravity of black seems to ease, the background, surrounded by fiery colours, lightening up. By the mid-twenties, Vaszary appears to have overcome the difficulties of the strenuous years, he was looking forward to an existentially and artistically more relieved, even joyful creative period. Nearing sixty, Vaszary's financial situation consolidated; in 1925, at long last, he could spend a longer period in Paris. He sought both physical and intellectual refreshment. Ready to espouse new impulses and exciting artistic experiences, he was open to anything; fashion, traffic or amusement. Shop windows, the roar of taxis, the music gushing from the depths of bars or advertisement lights enthralled him. This was no longer the Paris of the Fin de siècle he had reminiscences of. The metropolis of the twenties had now to meet the challenges of a consumerist life-style. This jarring mode of life produced its own eclectic style know as Art Deco. Europe wanted to forget; instead of pondering the past, it chose the present, seeking affluence, ease and pleasure after the years of war and distress. Vaszary was fascinated by this new Paris, and was looking for points of orientation. He ceaselessly made sketches, watercolours, drawings in ink; he studied the city indiscriminately, recording anything that caught his sight - a wanton gesture or movement. Later he made use of these impressions sketched with effortless brushstrokes in his oils. In these, he applied diluted oil in thin layers on white bases with the facility of water-colouring. Ably placing liberally shaped spots of colour, he painted pictures with wide horizons to vivify the mundane life of Parisians. He noticed the technical innovations of the city, sensed the difficulties of increasing traffic, the bustle of a changed life style. He experienced crowdedness even in theatres: the auditorium of the Palace is packed, the play can hardly be seen from the gallery seats. The spotlights are dazzling, men wearing top hats block the view to the stage, and the square shapes of the boxes obstruct vision (Cat. No. 137). Life in this novel Paris is to be lived differently than formerly; masses rush about, and one has to take up its rhythm to be able to appreciate it. Vaszary was drawn to nightlife; and he immersed himself in the whirl of sights, visited all the cabarets and night-clubs, and improvised colour-pencil or water-colour sketches of guests. He had always been exhilarated by spectacular stage scenes, loved to watch the concentrated movements of actors in spotlights. He had been to music halls in Budapest, and now painted Mistinguette, the celebrated star of the Casino de Paris, both at work and privately (Cat. No. 265). In his watercolours of revue scenes, the procession of slender figures in huge feathers and glittering headdresses fills the stage. He