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

Gergely Mariann: Huszár Vilmos és Nagybánya

mostly via descriptions and black-and-white photographs found in the artist's bequest in the Netherlands. Self-portrait with a Hat, which Huszár probably painted in the summer of 1904, testifies to the direct spiritual influence of his master. In the image of the young painter completely absorbed in the trance of creation, we can easily recognize a youthful and naive embodiment of Hollósy's ideal of the romantic artist. Another example of Huszár's artistic output from the summer of 1904, discovered in a private collection in Budapest, is an oil painting entitled Women Doing Needlework. In the picture, which presents an intimate scene from rural life, one can detect the traditions of the Hollósy school. At the same time, the painting, which has a predominantly Naturalistic style with a few Impressionistic effects, also testifies to the influence of the Nagybánya masters. Huszár had probably seen István Réti's lyrical interiours or Károly Ferenczy's studio scenes, where similar compositional principles were employed. The summer Huszár spent in Nagybánya in 1904 thus proved to be a very productive period for an enthusiastic student in search of a path of his own. Although he had already proven himself as a promising talent, his work was basically still influenced by the eagerness of a student trying to follow the directives of his masters. Huszár's period of study at Nagybánya was briefly interrupted by his first trip to the Netherlands. While still in Munich, he had befriended a young artist from The Hague, Anna Egter van Wissekerke, who was also studying in the Bavarian capital, and it was on her invitation that he went to The Hague and stayed there for four months, beginning in late 1905. Being at home in the Dutch art world, Huszár's young friend introduced him to a large number of interesting people, many of whom came to play an important role in his later life. Huszár visited, among others, Jozef Israels, whom he greatly admired; and presumably it was on the old painter's advice that he interrupted his journey home at Duesseldorf in order to try to gain admission to the famous although somewhat conservative academy of that city. He was not admitted to the academy, however, and therefore spent the summer of 1906 working in Nagybánya again. It shows the intellectual openness of the anxious young artist that a few months after the Duesseldorf incident he actively participated in the local "art revolution" that broke out in Nagybánya. It is a well-known fact that, upon his return from Paris in 1906, Béla Czóbel's paintings were causing great excitement among the young generation of the Nagybánya school. With its brilliant colours and freeflowing contours completely enveloping the forms, and also with its casual dismissal of established visual conventions, the Fauve style, which had been imported from the French capital, brought radical changes and gave an entirely new direction to certain painters' lifework. In Huszár's case, too, the result was dramatic: as if a cataract had been removed from his eyes, he suddenly came to see everything in a completely different light. With new perspectives opening up for him, he realized that he had to discover his own distinctive style by completing his own journey of discovery. It was as if the works he painted at that time had been done by a different person. We find no trace of the hesitations characterizing the earlier paintings in the Nagybánya style. We see thoroughly composed, finished and mature works. The harmoniously composed clips of nature scenes continue to recall the traditions of the Nagybánya school. However, the organized arrangement of the motifs is not due to the actual scenery but reflects rather a deliberate composition. In contrast to the earlier practice, the figurai representations had become a great deal more objective, which meant a fundamental change in the artist's conception. The figures are combined to form a group of uniform colour effect, subordinated to the compositional order of the pictures. The swiftly and steadily executed surfaces, which are broken up by strong colour-contrasts, are delineated with definite contours. The dynamic facture of the pictures is due to the summary effect of light and energetic brush-strokes. Four paintings are known from the artistic output of the summer of 1906: Breakfast in the Garden, which is in a Dutch private collection, and In the Garden, owned by the Jannus Pannonius Museum of Pécs, can be regarded almost as a pair. Old Woman with a Pram, which is in the possession of the Hungarian National Gallery, is the most mature piece of the series. The young rebels, Vilmos Huszár included, decided to stay away from the summary exhibition of the Avant-garde summer of 1906, so as to express their turning away from the Nagybánya traditions. The joint exhibition of the "Young Generation", held in 1907 in the Kálmán Könyves Salon of Pest, came too late for Vilmos Huszár, who had left Hungary in December 1906 to take up permanent residence in the Netherlands. In the next few years the pace of events in Huszár's life accelerated remarkably. After a six-month study trip to Paris and London, it was already his chosen country, the Netherlands, that he returned to; he established himself there and was attracted to the circle of progressive artists. As one of the founders of the group De Stijl, he came to participate in the latest Avant-garde movements, moving on to the voluntarily accepted puritanism of geometrical abstractism. Having been converted to the principles of Mondrian's art philosophy, he adapted them to suit his own personality. As a result of his versatile visual fantasy and dynamic temperament, his coloured glass windows, stage designs and interiours represent a distinct artistic value and a unique component in the group's work. The question is whether Huszár made the right choice in following the course of visual reduction, thus rendering superfluous the very virtues of his art which had formerly been his strongest points. His main talent lies precisely in the fact that, having experienced the essence of modern thinking, he chose to mobilize his artistic skills so as to emphasize a more complex artistic approach at the expense of the traditional values of painting.