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 - Nóra VESZPRÉMO: A Virtuoso Dancer at the Masquerade. On József Borsos' Style

from the inside and the outside at the same time, so as to repeat the act of reflection in an endless loop with the help of tiny details that keep reinterpreting the scene. These works provide excellent illustrations for the definition of Biedermeier given by Virgil Nemoianu in 1978, according to which the Biedermeier should in fact be seen as the late stage of Romanticism, or the "taming" of Romanticism, in the course of which the mysterious, philosophical elements of Romanticism are assimilated by everyday experiences. One of Danhauser's characteristic studio genre scenes is entitled The Sleeping Painter (one version: Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern; mezzotinto by Andreas Geiger, ill. 52). It shows an artist who ignores his work, which is thus completed by his children instead. The theme became popular, so József Borsos, along with many other artists, produced his own version of it (Cat. No. 92, ill. 53). As a result of the artist's decision to place the children in the foreground, the originally message a reflection on the artists'way of life - was effaced by a "tender" charm. In these compositions, the mysterious child of Romanticism was tamed and became the well-behaved toddler of the Biedermeier. And if we were to compare one of Borsos' best-known paintings, The Dissatisfied Painter (Cat. No. 97, ill. 25), with Danhauser's studio scenes, we would find two important differences: Danhauser was mostly concerned with the existential problems of contemporary painters, while Borsos turned to the past on the one hand; and Danhauser was usually ironic, while Borsos was sublime and serious. The latter used the popular schemes that had been favoured by romantic artists pining for the fantastic and the exotic - in an age when people already learned how to poke fun at such gestures (for example, Adolf Schrödter: Don Quijote, 1834. Nationalgalerie, Berlin, ill. 26). The studio in Dissatisfied Painter is lavishly furnished: the depicted character was already modelled on the category of artists who worked in princely surroundings, which (or the ideal of which) became characteristic in the second half of the 19th century. The first such artist in Vienna happened to be Amerling. The critical reviews of The Dissatisfied Painter fa\thfu\\y illustrated how meaningful and fluid the category of lyricism could be at the same time. Some critics rejoiced over the strong lyricism of the painting, while others lamented the lack of it. Borsos depicted the romantic artist without showing any emphatic irony for him, in a manner that alienated his character: he represented him as an emblem that could be placed in any age and in any environment. If the complaints about the lack of lyricism referred to the excessive materialism, than the judgment of the discontented critics should not come as a surprise: the theme, all too familiar for them by then, was invariably executed in exguisite details against a historicizing background, which formed a major component of the composition and yet was interchangeable with the backdrop of any other age - in other words, it was not a spiritual component. The metaphor of taming can no longer describe this phenomeno: a masguerade of historical styles, which began in the Biedermeier age and became rampant in the following decades. Supporters of a broader and, at the same time, more elaborate definition often argue that the historicizing tendencies also form part of the Biedermeier. One of the most important of these tendencies was the Neorococo, which had a first wave, often referred to as the "second Rococo", beginning in the 1830s and lasting until 1860. During this period, the Rococo forms gained in popularity in the areas of interior design, applied arts and fashion, which was at the expense of the"simple", classicizing Biedermeier, despite the two being closely inter-related. As an excellent illustration, we ought to mention the fact that one of the most important Rococo designers was a Biedermeier painter, Josef Danhauser, who continued to manage the furniture factory that his father had founded, right until his untimely death. The walls of Neorococo salons were freguently decorated with Biedermeier paintings, while Neorococo furniture often appeared in Biedermeier paintings, for example in Danhauser's salon scenes, which in turn greatly inspired Borsos. This became one of the most important genres for Borsos in the 1850s: genre scenes set in the milieu of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. These paintings already had very little in common with Danhauser's style or characteristic themes, even though it was Danhauser who steered Borsos in this direction. Although there are countless publications dealing with the applied arts of the second Rococo, painting appears to be a largely uncharted territory. Neorococo - it is more like "18thcenturism", really-not necessarily forms a separate movement within painting, as we are in the age of late Romanticism and early historicism when painters revelled in the depiction of various historical ages and Rococo was only one of them. Still, this was the most directly experienceable age for the contemporary audience, not only because this was what they were most likely to encounter in their everyday lives, but also because this was the closest in time for them. Contemporary authors analyzing Neorococo - and guite often displaying animosity toward their subject matter - appear to convey a feeling of ambivalence towards Rococo: something that belonged to the past and yet was organically linked to the present.Two different, and seemingly antagonistic, associations are related to Rococo: on the one hand, the 18th century was viewed as a comprehensible age that carried the glory of the past, and on the other, it was seen as an age of hedonism and pretension. The erotic works of the Biedermeier period often drew inspiration from the 18th-century French genre scenes and popular lithographs, and also from the motifs of the 19th-century graphic artists continuing the same tradition, which also reinforced the link between Rococo and frivolity in contemporary culture. During the 1850s, József Borsos painted several genre scenes, which can be interpreted in this framework. The best known of them is Girls after the Ball (1850, Cat. No. 91, ill. 29), which divided the critics: some of them were enthusiastic about it, while others chastised the artist for basing his composition on frivolous French lithographs that belonged to realm of the low culture. The theme of idle, and therefore immoral, women did, indeed, have an 18th-century schematic representation, which closely corresponded with Borsos' work: the women are dressed in untidy, homey clothes, stretching themselves voluptuously, and apparently reading books and watching pictures that were considered improper for girls in those days.The girls in Borsos'painting, for example, are thoroughly engrossed in studying lithographs - existing and identifiable ones, actually -, which show "ill-matched