Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: Borsos József festő és fotográfus (1821–1883) (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2009/4)

BORSOS JÓZSEF, A FESTŐ / JÓZSEF BORSOS THE PAINTER - Eszter BÉKEFI József Borsos'Painting in the Light of the Biographical Facts

it came to the artist's academic history, the more we investigated the more hesitant we grew. A number of people have been mentioned as his first master, although none of them was actually confirmed as such by documentary evidence: Lénárd Landau, a teacher at the Pest Instutite of Drawing, József Schoefft, who belonged to a large family of painters, and Miklós Barabás who was his senior by 11 years. What the archival sources did confirm was the fact that on November 3, 1840 Borsos enrolled in the Viennese Academy, in Leopold Kupelwieser's class. Nevertheless, Borsos' works show no traces of any influence the latter teacher might have had on him. What they reveal instead is a strong influence by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Josef Danhauser and Friedrich von Amerling, who were all his masters in some - presumably informal - manner. Unfortunately there are no direct sources to confirm this, either. The case for his personal acquaintance with Amerling seems best documented.The article contains a separate chapter on speculations concerning Borsos' study trips abroad.The claims about his alleged trips to Holland, England, Germany or Paris are refuted one after the other, along with the legend that Napoleon III offered Borsos the position of a court painter in Paris, but the artist turned down the invitation. Borsos kept in close contact with the art scenes of both Vienna and Pest. This is confirmed by a number of portraits his friends made of him. He was a member of several art societies, both in Vienna (Genossenschaft bildener Künstler Wiens, later Albrecht-Dürer-Verein, Die Eintracht) and in Pest (Pest Műegylet, Országos Képzőművészeti Társulat). He developed an especially close friendship with Karl August von Pettenkofen, who painted three oil paintings and one aquarelle of Borsos. Between 1845 and 1848 the two artists shared a rented studio, and once even worked together: in 1848 they jointly made a lithograph about the ceremonial opening of Parliament in Pest. According to Arpad Weixlgärtner, Pettenkofen's biographer, for a brief period Borsos exerted a strong influence on the Austrian painter - a unique situation in Hungarian art history, as it was invariably the other way around. The other artist who allegedly played a central part in József Borsos' social life in Vienna was Friedrich von Amerling, a close friend of his - or so it appears from the evidence of a number of indirect sources and also from the existence of a portrait of Amerling by Borsos. Amerling regularly entertained companies of artists in his home: other painters with whom Borsos shared this privilege were Tivadar Alconière, Albert Tikos and even Josef Danhauser. As a complement to the biographical information, we have arranged in chronological order a select number of compositions, which - to the best of our present knowledge - seem to constitute the major milestones in the artist's career, and which can also help us determine the specific circle of his clients. The youthful works Borsos completed still before his studies in Vienna form a separate group within his oeuvre. At the age of 16 and 17, the artist was interested in mythological and historical themes, producing compositions that can safely be described as amateur works. They are all copies and they are all closely linked to the genre of printed or lithographed drawings. Borsos probably came by these commissions through his father. Interestingly, neither the mythological nor the historical themes characterize Borsos' mature compositions. Unfortunately, all the works Borsos completed during his academic study have been lost. His next, positively dated compositions come from 1841. From studying the surviving early pictures, we can conclude that his style was still immature at the time, while he was already set in his ways concerning genre selection: portraits, still lifes and genre scenes. He came by his first real customers through his father, Márton Borsos, who was the editor of the paper of the aristocracy's conservative party. His first commissioners were Hungarian magnates who spent a considerable portion of their time in Vienna. They included such eminent art collectors as János Nepomuk Keglevich or Edmund Zichy. In 1843 Borsos completed Zichy's portrait, which received the title The Emir of Lebanon (Cat. No. 5). This composition provides splendid evidence that by this time the painter was already in possession of most of the artistic skills that later rightly earned him such renown. He was not content with seeking the aristocracy's favour, either. Demonstrating good business sense, he painted the portraits of a number of celebrities so as to attract attention. For example, in 1844 he created quite a stir, when he exhibited the portrait of the Brassow-born Karl Filtsch (Cat. No. 9) - a virtuoso piano player frequently refered to as the Hungarian Mozart. Thanks to his aristocratic patronage, good press coverage through his father and some clever promotional strategies, by the second half of the 1840s he had established the reputation of an active and successful painter. The study assigns special attention to the works Borsos completed in 1848-1849, the years when Hungary was awhirl with revolution and the war of independence. It is unlikely that the painter, who lived in Vienna but visited his home every year, remained indifferent to the Hungarian events. The portrait Home Guard (Cat. No. 28, ill. 11 ) became an emblem for the war of independence.The dynamic and passionate treatment of the subject-matter seems to read like a political statement by the painter, even though it is more likely that the portrait had been commissioned by the sitter, rather than inspired by the fight for the nation's freedom. Our predecessors often assigned symbolic meaning to the works Borsos painted in the 1850s, suggesting that they concealed references to the crushed war of independence (for example, The Widow (Cat. No. 101) or After the Battle (Cat. No. 104) - in our view, mistakenly. In connection with Borsos' depiction of the Parliament's ceremonial opening, we contend that this composition was the political demonstration of the conservative movement, which, although still wielding some leverage during the revolution, had been at the peak of its power earlier, during the Reform Period. The composition was probably executed in the summer of 1848, at a time when there was still hope for settling the conflict between the Court and the Hungarian government peacefully. Incidentally, through his newspaper, Borsos' father, too, provided a platform for the most influential representatives of the group that favoured development through modest reforms: people who recommended partial reforms while wishing to preserve the existing political establishment. These ideas primarily resonated among the aulic magnates, who remained loyal to the throne and the court in Vienna. This was also the circle of people, who were likely to provide our painter with commissions.