Passuth Krisztina – Szücs György – Gosztonyi Ferenc szerk.: Hungarian Fauves from Paris to Nagybánya 1904–1914 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2006/1)

HUNGARIAN FAUVES CASE STUDIES - GERGELY BARKI: The Evolution of Czóbel's Fauvism in the Mirror of his Early Portraits

26. Béla Czóbel: Le Moulin de la Galette, cca. 1907-1908. Unknown location with colours, or rather with dense, gypsum-like paint, in the manifest hope that they would never turn into lively colours. There are no colour values here, only the separate islands of garish, raw colours, of which it is impossible to tell why they are chosen in particular, instead of some other colours; also evident is the pain-staking effort to cover every tiny area with a colour that is different from the one an academic painter would have chosen; therefore, what we do have here is the inverse of kitsch, and what we do not is the organic unity of drawing and colours, without which, unfortunately, there is no art."

63 We know that Czobel painted several portraits during the year 1907, yet we cannot find a single one dated from 1907 among his works available to researchers; these are all in hiding, and we know very little about them. One of the compositions that have been lost for decades is Portrait of György Kosztolányi. Only mentioned once by Béla Horváth,

64 the painting could provide us with interesting information, if it ever turned up. In a conversation with Béla Horváth, Czóbel recalled the circumstances of the portrait's birth as follows: "Kosztolányi Kann came out here [to Nyergesújfalu] every year. I painted a portrait of his son, I have no idea of its whereabouts."

65 "I painted the portrait of Kosztolányi's son at Nyerges in 1907, during my 1

st or 2

nd stay there. [...] The S. Datom [sic!] refused the portrait of Kosztolányi's kid, I sent four, two of which were ... [illegible word]. They also refused one of Braque's works, in response to which he withdrew all of them."

66 Therefore, the rejected Portrait of Kosztolányi was completed at Nyergesújfalu, on Kernstok's estate, which Czóbel first visited in the spring of 1907.

67 During the summer of the same year, Kernstok finished a portrait of Czóbel, in connection of which the sitter made the following comment: "KK began my portrait well; I liked it at first, but then he over-exaggerated it."

68 In the summer of 1907 Czóbel shunned Nagybánya, despite the fact that in the spring, shortly after his arrival at Nyerges, he had received an invitation to teach at the artists' colony.

69 Apparently, he was working hard together with his doyen, Kernstok, whose company seems to have helped him restore faith in his own artistic development. Following the few months he had spent at Nyerges, and upon his return to Paris, he continued to spend a great deal of time with Kernstok, who had moved to the French capital with his entire family to live there for an extended period. We do not know the works Kernstok painted in Paris, although one of his paintings

—assuming (as Béla Horváth did) that it had been completed

—would probably have commanded considerable attention, in view of the fact that the sitter was none other than Léda, Endre Ady's love.

70 We do not know for sure whether Kernstok actually painted a portrait of Léda; the only clue that we have about the direction in which Kernstok's art developed during his stay in Paris is Sketch for Léda's Portrait, a drawing owned by Béla Horváth. During this period, Czóbel visited the home of the Kernstok family almost daily. "People around here regard the boy very talented, expecting great things from him. Now he spends the evenings at our place;