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

Szücs György: Nagybánya - változó időben

Zola's L'Oeuvre, published in 1886, whose central character vacillated between creative brilliancy and confusion. Frustrated by his problems, Zola's Claude Lantier was widely recognized as the personification of Cézanne. Lantier was the first to exhibit a painting titled Plein air in the Salon des Refusés. "It was one of his theories that the young painters of plein air ought to hire the ateliers the academic painters rejected, the ones that are visited by the flame of the sun's rays."

3 (The book was read by Ferenczy, Réti, Glatz, Csók and perhaps also Hollósy, and the unvarnished naturalist representation of the artists' life impressed them deeply.) Béla Lázár depicted a far more promising future perspective in his novel, realistically portraying an initial zeal and firm commitment unshaken by the millenary upheaval. "In the chaos of national intoxication," Réti wrote in 1909, too, "in the midst of selfcelebrations looking back into our past, we felt that our faces were turned forward, our enthusiasm was addressed to the future which we were going to fight out for ourselves, for our ideals."

4 There should be no illusion that with the centenary at hand, we shall be able to knead all the Nagybányarelated problems and autonomous interpretations into Réti István édesanyja (Huszthy Mátyás felvétele). 1900 körül Die Mutter von István Réti / István Réti's Mother (Photo: Huszthy Mátyás) ca. 1900 (MNG Adattár I Archiv I Archives) a "definition", but one thing is sure: the juxtaposition of the multitude of images, the emphasis on heretofore neglected aspects, the disregard for political, sentimental or pious considerations may contribute to the changing of a static Nagybánya concept. For the time being, however, details cannot be dispensed with. It compounds the problem that systematic source research need be conducted in a positivistic manner, Nagybánya theorems need be formulated and critical art history written - all at the same time. It is distressing, that on one hand, we do not know a single picture by a great many artists who studied at Nagybánya while on the other hand several painters whose oeuvres owe their significance to works painted in Nagybánya are not registered among the artists working there. In the centenary exhibition, the art of the pace-setting personalities has been given clear emphasis, and the curators have tried to select from as broad a material as possible. Let there be a tiny instance quoted here, however, to illustrate the incompleteness of Nagybánya research. There was a witty and informative statistic in a 1914 issue of the paper Nagybánya about how many pictures were made in a season in Nagybánya: "The painting school has some 78 memA fénykép hátlapja Die Rückseite des Fotos Backside of the Photo