Gärtner Petra (szerk.): Csók István (1865 - 1961) festészete - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. A. sorozat 45. (Székesfehérvár, 2013)
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I _______________ ■ 460 RESUME the small girl standing next to an ornately carved Chinese chair. The child's favourite toy stands upon the chair, an example of the then-popular musical animated toy.The girl's au pair is in the background, behind the curtain, teaching English to Züzü. Whereas Csók painted all pictures of his daughter in a modern experimental style in the name of colourful impressionism, the "Réthi girl" has a Diego Velazquez manner with its classic solemnity. Csók prefers placing the situations of his pictures in quotation marks in the last pieces of the Züzü-pictures, giving them a broader art historical association. The family idyll of the present is lifted to settings of the Dutch golden age with the composition of Züzü in front of the Mirror. (XVIII.21 ) The location of Züzü in the Bower (cat. 78) is the Sacred Grove, which demonstrates the youth's exhilaration with a blooming "Hortus conclusus". The painterly problem of synthesis of figure and landscape is raised by the composition of Züzü at the Window (cat. 82) in which the landscape appears behind the profile of the small girl in the window. The Züzü is reading piece is (XVIII.19), from a painterly perspective, the most casual of all of his portraits. This time Csók himself appears in the picture: his stocky figure, donning a hat and a palette, is reflected in the background. The last piece of the series refers to the post-First World War Treaty of Trianon, which resulted in the loss of more than twothirds of the territory of historical Hungary. The portrait of the young Züzü, wearing a national dress, becomes the collective symbol this time: the embodiment of the dream of border revision. In 1927 Csók gave one version of this picture to Lord Rothermere, who supported the idea of the Hungarian border revision. XIX. EMESE RÉVÉSZ István Csók's paintings from Pusztakengyel The works painted in the circle of the Léderer-Ungár family in Pusztakengyel yielded the final masterpieces of an aging painter's long career. The pictures of Kengyel, which exude a gentle delight in life, rank among the finest works of Csók and Hungarian impressionism. Csók spent his summers in the Léderer Castle, in Pusztakengyel, between 1934 and 1944. Approximately 20 paintings can be connected to this friendship, but according to some recollections the number of the "Kengyel" pictures exceeded 30 in times past. The agreement between the parties stipulated that Csók would receive a fixed annuity and could spend some weeks with full board during the summer periods in the castle in exchange for two or three works painted there. The hosts, Anna Léderer and György Ungár, commissioned their sons' portraits as well as some excellent pictures of the hostess herself. The property was stimulating, providing Csók with an ideal environment and numerous themes. The mansion was surrounded by a mighty park with flower beds and bowers of roses. The house was famous for its large swimming pool, in which guests and hosts could refresh themselves in the summer heat. The "sweet life" and middle-class milieu of a bygone world are depicted in the intimate family picture painted in the castle's parlor. Family members express joviality and peacefulness while playing the piano, reading, and playing chess. However, Csók also depicted the wider environment of the property, such as an old apricot tree, land of poppy or rapeseed flower. The final proof of the significance of these summers is Csók's last self-portrait painted there. The ageless artist in his skybluejacket and yellow straw hat is depicted as the guest of the secular Paradise. The organism of the rich vegetation in the garden and the womanly beauty take on a symbolic meaning in this relationship as undiminished vitality, the source of reviving creative power. > (cat. 2,58,105-111) XX. EMESE RÉVÉSZ Variations for the "Big Nothingness" István Csók's pictures of the Lake Balaton The most beautiful example of variations on the same theme unfolds in István Csók's Lake Balaton cycle. The artist developed nearly 50 landscapes over a period of three decades. These individual pieces eventually cohered into a series. This period of Csók's career began in Balatonliga in 1909, after his return from Paris; a steep shoreline with a breathtaking view of the lake was his workshop. Although his first exhibition of these works was in 1911, it wasn't until the'20s that the Lake Balaton landscape pieces began to be taken together as a whole. Their scenery is primarily a light-colour phenomenon for Csók; their autonomic contents include the disembodied fog, mist, and light. Human figures and man-made structures, such as the motifs of sailboats and rowboats, are present but do not dominate the Balaton pieces; rather, those motifs which refer to the water depict a timeless existence. The shaping forces of the feature are the unchanging elements: tempest and thunderstorm. On the other hand, Csók's beach pictures, which were painted during the same period as the Balaton pieces, show holiday-goers reveling in the fruits of the shore with a modern, everyday hedonism. The artist's discovery of Lake Balaton coincides with the period in which his painting became more relaxed. His works of the 1920s lack the vivid colours and experimental expressiveness of the "decade of revolution."This later, more mature period utilized the lake as a medium through which Csók's immense talents could come to light. The scenic elements of his shores are exchanged for the natural evanescent phenomenon of the water's bodiless surface. The titles of the paintings exhibited clearly indicate that Csók's primary interest was to render the atmospheric phenomenon into images. Rather than the
