Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Emőke Bodonyi: Czóbel's water colours and graphic works
165. Béla Czóbel: A Drawing Dedicated to Mária Modok, 1937. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 166. Béla Czóbel: Annus, 1920s. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 167. Béla Czóbel: Head of a Woman (right side view), 1923. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 168. Béla Czóbel: Facing Girl with Bow, 1920s. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum % A/U Ccfórl&Mjt iqu'b. the widest selection of Czóbel’s graphic works, with all the different techniques, like charcoal and chalk drawings, water colours, lithographs and etchings. Czóbel’s graphic works put on intriguing questions, newer methods of his creative work might be identified with the help of them. Looking over the different types of graphic works might suggest that their appearance could be bound to certain periods of his artistic activity. Early works might be recalled by mentioning a few well known pieces. In 1962 it was rightly stated by Dénes Pataky, that Czóbel’s graphic works of the 1900S were represented only by an etching in the collection of the Hungarian National Gallery.24 He could not have known then about the drawing Standing Female Nude from 1907, acquired in the 1980s (Plate 157), the best representing the artist getting away from academic studies. While the head- and hand studies made in 1902 in Munich show a finer, more picturesque and refined graphic idiom (Plate 1), the prize-winning red chalk drawing entitled Sitting Man made two years later at the Julian Academy (Plate 29) represents the strict, objective manner adequate to the studies there. The unusual posture of the model, giving emphasis to the long, drawn up legs and the right arm loosely let down is anoriginal set out to the skinny and perpendicular character of the body structure. The 1907 female nude drawing is an opposite, with its searching for new ways of expression, forming a largescale, massive figure closed among strong, thick contours. The large size water colour Portrait in Blue (1907), on the other hand, is a brilliant representation of how the water colour technique is fit for monumental effects used by Czóbel (Plate 156). In the case of exhibitions listed earlier, it was quite clear that Czóbel often used water colour, with the advantage of the possibility of easily and quickly covering a surface with colours. The Bistro in Cormeilles (1913) prepared with mixed technique (Plate 83) is getting away with its distinct distribution of space and bulk from the more intimate technique of water colour, with its atmospheric effects. While, the water colours composed around Würzburg, in the first half of the twenties convey the more intimate mood of water colours, and parallel with this the signs of a certain mildness appear on Czóbel’s paintings (Plate 124). Considering not only the well-known paintings, but the Picture in Blue as well, the characteristics of Czóbel’s figurái compositions in the early years become clear. The often quoted lines of György Bölöni also recall these in 1906: “Without the prompting of any nationalist sentiment, I must absolutely induct into the front ranks a young Hungarian painter: Béla Czóbel. His eight pictures constitute the substrata of modernist endeavours. He draws easily with a rough hand, brutally squeezing the character out of his models and their faces. Besides this, he is a great 24 Pataky, Dénes: “Czóbel Béla [Béla Czóbel]”, Művészet [Art], October 1962, Vol. 3, No. 20, p 18. He mentions the etching entitled Sitting Woman. It can be found among others in the collection of the Ferenczy Museum. CZÓBEL’S WATER COLOURS AND GRAPHIC WORKS 113 169. Béla Czóbel: Girl with Needlework, 1923. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum
