Gyergyádesz László, ifj.: „Csavargó”. Mednyánszky László élete és művészete (Kecskemét, 2007)

Ülő figura Sitting Figure

late and studied in a private way. ‘Here in Nagyőr be lived in a real world of tales for years. (...) ...our parents bad a boat made for him and put it on the Poprdd flowing at the end of the garden in Nagyőr. We spent whole days on the water, somewhere under the trees close to the riverbank, we observed the dragonflies playing above the high grass. We spent the happiest years of our childhood totally isolated from the world and the people, László’s bright fantasy created a world of tales around us, we lived in it, it was reality for us. ’ Luckily his early affinity towards arts was let develop freely. Two biographical moments could encourage the young Mednyánszky’s interest for a painter’s career. Around 1864-65 e.g. Thomas Ender (1793-1875), the

old painter of landscapes was a guest of the castle of Nagyőr, who was commissioned by János Waldstein to go around the Felvidék (Northern part of Flungary, now belongs to Slovakia) and make water-colours. The master from Austria discovered Mednyánszky’s talent and taught him drawing and after returning home he sent him plaster copies of antique statues and Mednyánszky’s mother sent the drawings to Vienna for correction. However, Ender influenced our artist mostly with his landscapes thus giving him further incentive to study and to observe indirectly the High Tatras and the area below the Tatras. The other person who also encouraged Mednyánszky was Bozsena, the Polish governess who arrived in Nagyőr at the end of the 1860s after having studied painting in Düsseldorf, and she told stories about her experiences there, and especially about Jan Matejko (1838-1893), the famous compatriot, who later became a well-known painter of historical topics.

In 1870 due to his mother’s poor health the Mednyánszky family went to Switzerland, where László could start his engineering studies at the Polytechnic in Zurich after a year’s preparatory course. Luckily a year later, when they stayed with László’s godparents in their land in Banski Dvor, Croatia his father agreed that László could start his studies at the Fine Art Academy of Munich on the 1st November, 1872. In Munich where besides the most famous master, Karl von Piloty three Hungarian professors (Gyula Benczúr, Sándor Liezen-Mayer and Sándor Wágner) also taught, and it was the main gathering place of the talented Hungarian artists of that era. Besides the earlier mentioned professors Sándor Brodszky, Károly Telepy, Gusztáv Kelety, Bertalan Székely, Géza Dósa and Pál Szinyei Merse were also here for a shorter or longer period. In the first year Mednyánszky attended Strähuber’s preparatory class where they first of all copied antique plaster figures in order to achieve as perfect drawing skills as possible. In spite of a vulgar error Mednyánszky (together with Ödön Kaczián, Lajos Réthi, Imre Greguss and Ferenc Paczka) started the 1873-74 academic year also in