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

AT HOME AND ABROAD - JACK FLAM: Fauvism, Cubism, and European Modernism

Henri Matisse: Nu bleu (Souvenir de Biskra), beginning of 1907 The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland, BMA 1950.228 © Succession H. Matisse 1HUNGART 2006 exist within more than one realm at the same time. All of these tropes of course, depend on the notion of subjects that are both revealed and subsumed by the language of form. As we shall see, the basic idea of such a plastic language, and the kinds of metaphors that could be created with it, were eventually appropriated by the Cubists and used in a very different way. 2. In 1905, the Fauves were responding to an historical "situation" that had to do with how the innovations of the artists we now call the Post-Impressionists could be assimilated. That preceding generation, as Matisse later remembered, seemed to have blocked the way for the younger artists and created a situation of impasse. This situation was described, if not actually defined, by a questionnaire about the current state of painting that the symbolist poet and critic Charles Morice sent to a number of artists in June 1905. Some 57 artists responded, and the results were published in the August and September 1905 issues of Mercure de France. So, by a curious coincidence, Morice's survey was exactly contemporary with the creation of the first Fauve canvases.

8 And those canvases seemed to respond to many of the issues raised by the survey. Morice's survey is of particular interest because it gives tangible evidence that, among artists, a paradigm shift was generally anticipated around 1905. In his introductory essay, Morice asserted his own sense that "Il est manifeste qu'à l'époque présente les arts plastiques hésitent entre les souvenirs et les désirs." Fully cognizant that "Nous sommes au lendemain de quelque chose," he posed the question: "Sommes-nous à la veille de quelque chose?"

9 Morice's own feeling was that the "possibilité d'une nouveauté en art [...] timbre et colore étrangement l'heure qui sonne." On the basis of the responses to his questions, he felt that a revolution in art would be based on a return "aux principes," and that through the new art "l'espèce affirma plastiquement sa pleine réalisation spirituelle et sensible."

10 Indeed, a number of the artists who responded felt that this was a moment of transition, in which art might well take another direction; and most of the artists felt that Impressionism

—considered to be an art based on direct visual perception

—had indeed already played itself out. Many artists expressed a special enthusiasm for both Gauguin and Cézanne. And there was a general consensus that although the artist needed contact with nature, he should rely on his own feelings rather than on direct imitation. Rouault's remark that the artist "doit dominer la nature et ne pas être asservi par elle," was fairly typical.

11 So was Desvallière's statement that "La nature n'a jamais été qu'un moyen de réaliser une pensée; j'entends par pensée un mouvement de l'âme."

12 Many artists expressed a desire for a more conceptual kind of art; but the precise way in which this might be accomplished was left open. There was also general agreement that the Post-Impressionists offered specific models for both spirituality and seriousness. Desvallières, for example, remarked that the new painting would consist of "Un effort vers la Gravité et le Style, dont l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts nous éloigne et