A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 45. (2006)

Szabó Lilla: „Átfordítások és keresztezések” Gondolatok Mednyánszky László „művészetelméletéről”, valamint müveinek francia párhuzamairól

INVERSIONS AND INTERSECTIONS (FRENCH PARALLELS TO LÁSZLÓ MEDNYÁNSZKY'

S ART THEORY AND WORKS) This study was originally written for the catalogue accompanying the exhibition presenting László Mednyánszky

's oeuvre in 2003-2004 organised jointly by the Hungarian National Gallery and the Slovak National Gallery, but it was not published at the time. The current version is complemented with the results of research conducted in France during 2005 with a Klebelsberg Kúnó Grant. I would here like to thank the Klebelsberg Kúnó Grant Committee, the various French institutions and my colleagues who generously helped my research. I am greatly indebted to Alexander and Marie-France Bonay, both of whom were most generous with their time and graciously shared their knoweldge with me. The expression "inversions and intersections" in Mednyánszky 's diary was chosen as the study's title because his life and work is an adequate reflection of the historic, social and artistic turning points and issues characterising the period between the mid-19th century and World War 1 in Central Europe. These issues also preoccupied Europe during the same period, after which mankind irrevocably entered the 20th century, a more modern and dynamic epoch than the earlier ones. Baron László Mednyánszky the artist and his art are representative of these transformations and the gestation period in which the new epoch was conceived. His very life is a metaphor of the disregard for earlier conventions, the vibrant ambivalence between "departures" and "arrivals". His life and art are a series of "inversions and intersections" running parallel to the historic changes of the period. He pursued each path of artistic, social and individual achievement. His aristocratic background did not exclude sensitivity towards social problems. His dramatic paintings often portray social outcasts, vagabonds. Towards the end of his life, when he served as a war correspondent, he painted a series of dramatic pictures of the battlefields and the wounded soldiers. He was at home throughout the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (in the Uplands, in Hungary proper, in Budapest, Vienna and Croatia). During his travels, he visited southern Germany, Italy and France several times, settling and working there for longer periods. His life and work can be set against the historical tapestry of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: the 1848-49 revolution, the Compromise of 1867, the millennial anniversary of the foundation of the Hungarian state, World War 1 and the dissolution of the Monarchy. The major tendencies of European art history, from naturalism to expressionism through realism, symbolism and post-impressionism can be traced in his works. The study discusses three main issues. Mednyánszky's personal theory of art is evoked through excerpts from his diary, the philosophical background of his oeuvre and the French parallels to his painting. The main purpose of the latter is to kindle our French colleagues' interest in László Mednyánszky's art and his many works painted in France by outlining his artistic development and the many impacts on his art. His oeuvre, as well as the entries in his diary, contain many conceptual parallels and striking similarities, whose sources can be traced to literary and philosophical, as well as historical and the occasional political economy studies (and, in some cases, in the illustrations to these studies). His own artistic principles form a coherent theory, which reflect a pantheist Weltanschauung. The recurring elements of this theory are nature, the landscape, atmosphere, light, colours, the finite and the infinite. The "descriptions" in his diaries can be traced to the artistic principles of John Ruskin (Modern Painters: Lecture on Art). The similarities between Mednyánszky's ideas and Ruskin's views on nature and art are even more striking in the light of the Turner and Ruskin illustration. Many correspondences can be noted between the ideals set down in Ruskin's Unto this Last and the social views professed by Mednyánszky and his friend Zsigmond Justh. Mednyánszky was a well-read person, familiar with the newest works. He was undoubtedly influenced by the period's fashionable ideas. In addition to an interest in theosophy, his philosophical ideas were shaped by Friedrich Nietzsche's works on suffering and freedom, and the latter's views on artistic creativity. His "fascination" with natural catastrophes and war can perhaps be better explained by these than his natural inclinations (homosexualism), as well as by the role played by 353