Gosztonyi Ferenc - Király Erzsébet - Szücs György szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 2002-2004. 24/9 (MNG Budapest, 2005)

STUDIES - Éva Bajkay: The Classicizing Trends of the 1920s and their Beginnings in Pécs Tradition and Modernity in the Pécs Arts Society

5. Henrik Stefan: Samaritan, ca. 1920. Hungarian National Gallery painting. György Klug, Mihály Nagy, Linkeus Popper and Erna Baiersdorf are now as little remembered as Lajos Dabasi Kovács, who had studied in Budapest and worked in Kecskemét as well, and exhibited academic paintings on his fourth display. Ernő Gebauer is now recognized solely as the creator of frescos commissioned by the church and the state from the 1930s on

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. At around 1920, perhaps under the influence of his brother, Gusztáv Gebauer, a lawyer and journalist who had an interest in modern aesthetics, he was momentarily fascinated with classicizing modernism. His brother was the secretary of the Society, while Dobrovics was the president and Jenő Gábor the controller. It is thus little surprise that Ernő Gebauer's was to be the first exhibition. According to a review, his drawings, especially those representing motion - like the Dancers (Fig. 4) - were of a more modern attitude than his 'languid, mythological' oils (Pompeii Scene; Apollo and Pythia, etc.). His nudes followed the classic ideal in more subdued tones and with less flexible lines than those of the expressionists. He is to be remembered in the ranks of the Pécs Arts Society for his nude studies.

28 It was a sign of the coexistence of various trends within the Society that parallel with Gebauer's exhibition, Hugó Johan and Henrik Stefan presented their own works in their studio. The display opened on December 20, 1920, when the two had already had a joint exhibition at the Women's Society, in October 1919.

29 Hugó Johan, who in 1914-1918 had worked in the town as a volunteer chemist, was the closest disciple of Dobrovics, though he soon departed from the harder, more plastic style of his master, one that united the influences of the Renaissance, Cézanne and the Cubism. As he himself explained: 'the search for the 3rd dimension, for the cosmic connection, the organic coexistence of natural phenomena will lead you to cubism. It teaches you how to draw. A unified and cosmic vision of the objects of nature does away with their myriad intimacies, the objects hold your attention with their relations to one another, and receive accordingly a monumental tone in my pictures. They are characterized by a uniform, independently treated light, which, like an infinitely fine fluid, permeates the cosmos, and connects objects to one another, and all of them to the space in which they live'.

30 After a period of predilection for Berlin blue, Johan based his compositions on the contrast of warm and cool colours. Also exhibiting in Budapest as a member of the Society of Hungarian Aquarelle and Pastel Painters, this painter's aquarelle landscapes, classic compositions featuring Pécs, reveal an individual, lyrical sensibility

31 It was a review by Dobrovics that first called attention to this peculiar conjunction of tradition and modernity, claiming that 'a cosmic, monumental art is in the making here, which is mightier and richer than that of the Greeks. Though they are each other's origins, they keep raising the tower of human genius according to the continuous rule of life. The past as a whole emerges here, anticipating the future with all its goals'.

32 The leading mind of the movement obviously praised what he saw as the realization of his own goals, in the work of artists who followed the Greek and Renaissance tradition with varying degrees of intensity and expressivity. In Pécs Hugó Johan shared a studio with Henrik Stefan, an expressive artist of explosive powers, a man of rustic origins, who studied to be a teacher of arts.

33 After subtly coloured portraits of family members, he went on to produce works with classic mythological subjects (e.g. Venera) and nude compositions; the whereabouts of the latter are unfortunately still unknown.

34 Only one of his richly coloured, bright pictures can be found in the Hungarian National Gallery. This large canvas, the Samaritan (Fig. 5)

35 is a good illustration of how he adopted the cosmic colour painting of the German expressionists (Franz Marc) in an individual manner, and bound it with quasiRenaissance solutions for the bodies in a composition that suggests he learnt the lessons of both traditions. After the lost war, uncertainty ruled in Germany, where expressionism had its reflorescence and classic form was much in demand. Mythology, religion and abstract ideas became the haven of artists seeking solace, joy or a secure foothold. Journals contained biblical orations