Barki Gergely et al.: Czóbel. A French Hungarian painter - ArtMill publications 5. (Szentendre, 2014)
Gergely Barki: Czóbel from Paris to Paris 1903-1925
THE NETHERLANDS ( 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 1 9 ) 66 With the outbreak of the World War I, Czóbel had to face the fact that no matter how much he wished to remain in Paris, as a Hungarian citizen, he would be interned. The legend that Czóbel “fled from France to Holland on a bicycle”67 could only be partly true, since from other sources we know that he arrived in Brussels by train. As the Czech Cubist, Emil Filla recalls, Czóbel and he sat together on the same train, their company, among others, including Adolphe Basler - whom he knew earlier from the Café Dome, but who was journeying further to America.68 The Filla couple and Czóbel remained in Brussels, but they soon had to leave. On 5 August, they went by train to Antwerp, where more trials awaited them. They were interrogated, threatened with death sentences, then somehow released. They proceeded by train to the border, and from Essen, they crossed the border into Holland on foot. They found pitiful lodgings in Rotterdam for a brief time, still dressed in summer clothes as winter approached. Czóbel remained in the city until mid-April 1915, undoubtedly working hard just to stay alive. Still, we have no knowledge of his work from here. 92. Eugene Delacroix: Christ on the Cross, 1853. London, the National Gallery 93. Béla Czóbel: Golgotha, around 1916. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 94. Béla Czóbel: A Ruisdael Copy, 1916. Szentendre, Ferenczy Museum 66 The most thorough research on Czóbel’s period in the Netherlands has been conducted by a Hungarian art historian living in Holland, Virág van der Sterren. This chapter of my present study relies primarily on her publication. I especially thank her for sharing with me other results of her research during the writing of this study and for her enthusiastic support of our exhibition project. 67 KraTOCHWILL 2001, p 25. 68 Filla, Emil - Hajsman, Jan: Hlidka ceské mafie v Holandsku [The Czech Mafia’s Hideout in Holland]. Prague, 1934. Special thanks to Prof. Vojtéch Lahoda’s monograph on Emil Filla, which drew my attention to some sources regarding Filla and Czóbel. AMSTERDAM On 16 April, he moved to Amsterdam, the centre of the country’s modern art life at the time, where he lived for more than two years, until May 1917. Up until that period, he spent much time with his Czech colleague, but concluding that the local pro-entente artists scorned Filla (though not him) on account of his Monarchist origins, he soon broke every contact with him. Strangely, like many homeland colleagues - including the painters ofThe Eight - Czóbel also turned to the old masters as a source of inspiration during the years of the World War. Nonetheless, in terms of his disavowal of artistic conventions and his results, his work was a far cry from his compatriots’ classicizing techniques. In Amsterdam, he found masterpieces worthy of study such as Ruisdael’s work entitled Winter Landscape (Plate 95). From this, Czóbel fashioned a small study, a forerunner of his later, distinctively darktoned paintings (Plate 94). This is by no means a copy. Ruisdael’s work is a mere springboard for Czóbel like any natural spectacle, model or object. Every constituent element in the picture is thoroughly transformed. What appears to be the most spectacular and inventive ‘alteration’ is how the original’s picture field with hues of uniform heat is replaced by extraordinarily sharp contrasts in cold and warm tones. This gives rise to a sight that is far more internalized and intense. 95. Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael: Winter Landscape, around 1665. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum 68 CZÓBEL, A FRENCH HUNGARIAN PAINTER
