Nagy Ildikó szerk.: Nagybánya művészete, Kiállítás a nagybányai művésztelep alapításának 100. évfordulója alkalmából (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1996/1)

Szinyei Merse Anna: A nagybányai festészet plein air előzményei

together constitute such an exciting achievement that they should have received more publicity. Intensive colourism could be encountered in the works of the Spanish artists and of Frank Buchser, the much-travelled painter of Switzerland. The same can be said about the young Hodler's landscapes. At the end of this European panorama, which had to be narrowed down for the limited space provided by this catalogue, we must return to one of the most important locations of maturing Hungarian art: Germany. Just as in Italy, the local schools were segregated before the unification of the country. The large exhibitions in Munich gave the greatest impulse to Hungarian artists. Several generations marvelled at F. v. Lenbach's early Realist Shepherd Boy beginning in the 1860s. The objectives of Leibl's circle, which at the beginning were rather uniform but later became manysided, as well as Leibi himself, inspired Hollósy in his painting Corn Huskers. The German master's paintings, which became more lavish and spacious after 1890, were interesting for Ferenczy and his colleagues. The pure painterliness of K. Schuch and the wide brush-work of W. Trübner were also enlightening. M. Liebermann, who was influenced by Munkácsy and by the Dutch artists, and the more Naturalistic F. v. Uhde also provide some analogies. Later on the general tendency became exactly the opposite: while Ferenczy and his friends were attracted to the stylizing simplification of forms and to synthesis, Slevogt and Corinth became even more ethereal and Impressionistic. During the comparative analysis of similar tendencies it became apparent that similar works had been produced in different historical, economic and cultural circumstances. This time, unfortunately, we are unable to delve into the constantly occurring assemblage of concrete analogies. Only a large volume could convincingly comprise the variations of the related handling of related topics, their typology, iconological and stylistical analysis. At the same time, when comparing the various materializations of forms, we may surprisedly and proudly conclude that our painters were very much the children of their own time, who strongly contributed to the diversity of the European panorama and did not become epigons. This statement is true both in the case of the early plein-air results around 1870 and in the case of the developments which took place in Nagybánya after 1896. Moreover, even the Hungarian examples of Naturalistic style, produced during the decades in between, were regarded highly in the international value system.