Nagy Ildikó szerk.: Rippl-Rónai József gyűjteményes kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1998/1)

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - PLESZNIVY Edit: Örömök és szenvedések földjén. Rippl-Rónai József franciaországi helyszíneinek és képi motívumainak nyomában

EDIT PLESZNIVY ^\ decisive station in Rippl-Rónai's life and oeuvre was his stay in France to which he was tied by threads of his profession, by friends and kinfolk. The paper retraces in chronological order the venues in France, illustrated by pictures, letters and documents after a trip in 1997, which were sources of inspiration for his art. The clew is not Rippl's stylistic development but the geographic places and their artistic, visual reflections that were decisive for certain periods in his life. THE SECOND HOME: PARIS Rippl-Rónai arrived in Paris in 1887. He first lived at no.

4 Rue Aumont-Thieville, close to Mihály Munkácsy's atelier. After a brief period adjusted to Munkácsy's style, not only a new leaf turned in his art marks the departure from the master but also his withdrawal in space. He hired a house with his companion Lazarine Baudrion and his Scottish painter friend, James Pitcairn Knowles in a workmen's suburb of Paris, in Neuilly, at 65 Rue de Villiers, where he lived from 1890 to 1900. By today, this area has completely merged with the centre of Paris, without any trace of the suburban atmosphere so typical of the turn of the century. His Paris home is evoked in the painter's memoirs and by his letters. In the row of his many exhibitions in France, the two most salient ones were the first show of his collected works in 1892 at Palais Galliera (Rue de Babylon, today Hotel de Matignon) and his one-man show at Siegfried Bing's Art Nouveau gallery at 22 Rue de Provence in 1897. unfortunately, only archive photos can give an inkling of the secessionist interior of the latter today. MA1LLOLS HOME: BANYULS-SUR-MER Prior to his return to Hungary, and as an epilogue to his stay in France, in 1899 he spent some months in South France, at Banyuls-sur-Mer, the native town of his sculptor friend Aristide Maillol on the shore of the Mediterranean. The experience of that landscape inspired a new period in Rippl-Rónai's art: the space opened out in his pictures, and after his many pictures of states, he painted dozens of landscapes. The varied scenery, the sea, the steep cliffs, the mountains resplendent with the colours of autumns, the vineyards and olive groves confronted him with new problems of painting. His Banyuls pictures attest to a riot of colour, compared to his former black period. The sculptor's house is still there, in the street carrying Aristide Maillol's name today, on the balcony of which Rippl painted his friend's well-known portrait, today preserved at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Having identified the motifs of the paintings made in Banyuls-sur-Mer, the oil pictures can be paired with photos taken on the spot. A SUMMER TRIP TO THE NORTH: THE WATER-FRONT OF OSTENDE In the course of his 1901 journey to Belgium, a multitude of ethereal pastels captured the typical Ostende seaside. In vain does the traveller of today look for the row of hotels behind the bustling crowd of elegant holiday-makers, along the promenade. This typically 19th century architectural setting was laid havoc to in the world war. RETURN TO PARIS. STATIONS OF INTERNMENT: ISSY-LEVÉQÜE, MÂCON, LE PÜY, CHARTREUSE In 1910, it was family duty that took Rippl-Rónai to France. They adopted Anella, the daughter of his wife's deceased sister. They put up in Montparnasse and visited the major exhibitions as well as all their old friends, Vuillard, Bonnard, Sérusier, Thadée Natanson and Denis in Saint Germain-an-Laye. The next trip to France was only four years later, in June 1914, but he met with no hospitality this time. This trip had tribulations, humiliations in store for him and his family, because of the outbreak of the war. History and politics confronted them with many bitter conclusions, encountering hostility both in global politics and on the part of the simple people as well. Full to the brim with aesthetic and professional experiences gained in Paris and with the memory of meeting their friends, on 25 July they went to the native village of their foster daughter and Lazarine, Issyl'Evêque in Burgundy. They arrived for the noted holiIn the land of joys and torments RETRACING JÓZSEF RIPPL-RÓNAI'S VENUES AND PICTORIAL MOTIFS IN FRANCE