Mazányi Judit (szerk.): Egy aranykor modern mesterei. A Ferenczy család művészete - Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, C. sorozat: Katalógusok 1. (Szentendre, 2013)
Genthon István: A Ferenczy családról
ON THE FERENCZY FAMILY It is relatively rare in the history of arts that artistic talent is passed on through subsequent generations within the same family. We may quote examples like the Dürers and the Bachs, or refer to the family of Thomas Mann. The best-known example in Hungary is that of Károly Markó whose four children: Károly, András, Katalin, and Ferenc chose the painter's career and although they could never quite compete with their father's qualities they were successful enough. Another very interesting example is that of Károly Ferenczy and his family. As early as 1925 Lipót Szondy related the problems of hereditary artistic talent in a lengthy paper. He pointed out that the parents of Károly Ferenczy had also painted with pleasure even if only at an amateur level and that his wife, Olga Fialka, who had been a qualified painter had achieved successes at exhibitions in Vienna prior to her marriage. Thus, Valér, Noémi, and Béni belong, in fact, to the third generation. "The exceptional accumulation of the homogenous family chromosomes, the artistic genes resulted in the fact that artistic talent was passed on uninterrupted to the third generation and re-emerged in a dominant form in all its three members", Szondy says. Consequently, my chief task hereafter is to place the four significant members of the family in the history of Hungarian art. Károly Ferenczy's starting point was "fine Naturalism" from which he evolved his unique and personal achievement. He became the leading figure among the artists of Nagybánya giving much more to his contemporaries than he received from them. Later he joined the stimulating art life of the Transylvanian Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, in Rumania) and Budapest yet always without being influenced by any of his fellow-artists. As to his achievements, he depended merely on himself. This is the reason why he proceeded forward in such pain and agony and why his plein air pieces seem even less actual than the early achievements of Pál Szinyei Merse (1845-1920). Nevertheless, in the case of art of such an outstanding quality with a much wider horizon than the academic plein air such delays cannot be condemned. All the more so, because when summarizing features started to dominate his late style, he managed to achieve modernity by his own effort, thus giving an individual tone to Post- Impressionist endeavours. His crystallized approach of general validity and the unparallelled moral foundations of his art enabled him to start a uniquely Hungarian tradition. The authenticity, the moral mission, and the solemnity of painting as well as the local tradition on which Hungarian art was built were all established by him. Owing to his oeuvre, Hungarian painting which used to be based on foreign influences got firm roots in the Hungarian soil. The formation of a team, which pondered on and solved local yet actual problems while keeping pace with foreign achievements were also the result of his activities. This is why Károly Ferenczy is so important in art history despite the fact that he never equalled the momentary actuality of the mentioned Szinyei Merse or the genius of Mihály Munkácsy (1844-1900). Outstanding among his colleagues, he rendered the most considerable service to the artists of his homeland by accomplishing the important task of cultivating the Hungarian "Waste Land" regularly. Some of the members of the generation succeeding the founders of the school of Nagybánya met in the Café Gresham in Budapest and came later also to be known as the Post-Nagybánya Group (the so-called Gresham Circle of Artists). Not accidentally, two of Károly Ferenczy's children: Noémi and Béni belonged to them. The eldest son, Valér, showed extraordinary talent but apparently his oversensitive nerves could not bear the tension, and his talent was exhausted within a few years. After a long disease he experimented with various graphic techniques and, having been embittered, painted smaller, insignificant landscapes. A proof of the imperative force of talent is the case of Noémi Ferenczy who never studied the representation of figures or objects systematically, nevertheless, was able to create her own specific forms. Her art is related to the decorative endeavours of Post-Impressionism just like the last big nudes of her father. As to the genre of the Gobelin, she is unique in Hungary and we may as well say, unparalleled also abroad. The sculptures of Béni Ferenczy which enrich architectonic formation with the beauty of the surface are likewise connected to Post-Impressionism, similarly to the forms of Maillol and Despiau whose oeuvre is related to Bonnard and his fellow artists. The father's faith in the mission of art is clearly visible in the masterpieces of his children. István Genthon 7
