Szinyei Merse Anna: Szinyei Merse Pál (1845-1920) (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai)

Swiss friend's memory also seems to haunt his Lady in Violet (1874). This is a picture of dignity, similar to Feuerbach's. Here he utilized the colouristic possibilities of the portrait when placed into a landscape, based on complementary colours combined with the classical skill of portrait painting. The soft, airy atmosphere of the previous years has, however, become harder and cooler on this solemnly beautiful woman's face. His impressionistically compact The Artist's Wife in Yellow Dress (plate XXXIX), which he painted somewhat later, was left unfinished - like several other similar initiatives. These works, painted between 1878 and 1880, show the temporary recrudescence of his creative power. It was sufficient, not only for family portraits of intimate beauty (The Artist's Wife Wearing a Bonnet, 1878), but also for attempting earlier themes and nature studies. His inner conflict is demonstrated by the fact that he neglected his own ideas, only finishing the portraits and a Centaur and Fauns composition (1878). With this he said farewell to Böcklin's mythology, and he never let it come back into his painting again. The world of sunshine colours appears once more in one of his most original ideas, the Balloon (about 1878 - plate XLI), and later in the somewhat too detailed Skylark, which was painted in Vienna. He promised himself a lot from his one-year stay in Vienna, but his hopes were not fulfilled. The imperial capital was living under the spell of Makart and historism, and it did not accept the exotically colouristic Hungarian who, disappointed again, shut himself once more into his country solitude. At home, he painted some other nature studies (Felix Angling, 1883 - plate XLIII), and Melting Snow (1884, finished 1895 - plate XLIII). The strict, simple realism of the latter demonstrated that Szinyei Merse was still capable of renewing himself. Yet, in his unbalanced state of mind, he stopped painting for ten years, and he took over the remainders of his small estate which, up until that time, had been on lease. He did not continue his artistic work until 1894, when he was persuaded by a young painter to complete his unfinished works; these finally found success at the Budapest exhibitions. At the time of the 1896 exhibition, when Hungary was celebrating the millennium of its existence, the young painters endeavouring to renovate Hungarian art, to their surprise, they discovered that Szinyei Merse was their predecessor. Doe to this acknowledgment, he enthusiastically joined in the artistic life. In 1897, as a Member of Parliament, he advocated the modernization of art-teaching in the Academy. He attempted to implement the modernization at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was director from 1905 until his death the 2nd of February, 1920. From 1908 to 1910, he was a founder member of the Circle of Hungarian Impressionists and Naturalists and beside, Károly Ferenczy and József Rippl-Rónai, he was also a leader of this circle. Collective exhibitions were organized in Budapest in 1905 and 1912, and at the Galerie Heinemann in Munich in 1910. In the meantime Szinyei also kept on exhibiting. His significance as a pioneer was discovered abroad: in 1900 he won a silver medal at the Paris World Exhibition, in 1901 the grand gold medal in Munich, a silver medal at the Saint Louis World Exhibition in 1904, a gold medal in Berlin in 1910, and a grand prize in Rome in 1911. In his last naturalistic-realistic period, beginning in 1894, he was not able to achieve the spontaneous brillancy of the pictures of his youth any more. Nevertheless, among the works of that time, a few exquisite examples can be found. These show the old master's attempts to renew himself once more (e.g. Autumn Landscape, 1900 - plate XLVII). The Self-Portrait of 1897 (plate XLVI), wich is one of his less frequent figurative pictures, is now at the Portrait Gallery of the CIffizi in Florence. At that time, the landscape was his chief genre (e.g. Poppies in the Field, 1902 - plate XLVIII and Capri, 1903 - plate LI.). Around the year 1908 these became more and more strictly constructed, and they came near to post-impressionistic tendencies (Field, plate LVI). Szinyei Merse's spiritual exactitude was accompanied by the healthy vital impulse of a person of Epicurean serenity, determined to enjoy life in its completeness. This harmonic awareness of life and the search for beauty and goodness, along with his optimistic cheerfulness are expressed in his entire life-work. His career, spanning over several decades and artistic periods, was highly instructive, even for his contemporaries. His younger friends and admirers founded, forty days after his death, the Szinyei Merse Society (1920 - 1949). The aim of this society was not only to keep Szinyei's memory alive according to his merit, but also to support the further development of Hungarian fine arts. This they did by promoting young artistic endeavours, in order to avoid repetition of Szinyei Merse's and the other 19th century progressive artists' cases - namely, their careers' had been impeded for decades owing to the way in wich their work was mis-