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 - GYÖRGY SZÜCS:Dissonance or New Harmony? The Art of the Nagybánya "Neos"
The Catalogue of Művészház's international Impressionist exhibition with Daumier's painting, 1910 Poster of the jubilee exhibition of the Nagybánya artists' colony designed by Károly Ferenczy, 1912 Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest István Réti 's card containing the list of "neos and half-neos", 1940s Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Archives of the Nagybánya artists, we would find that, due to the different conditions, characteristics, periodization, etc., all the ready-made categories found an adequate expression in the actual works even less in Hungary, than they did in France. Of course, the term "Neo-lmpressionism" in Félix Fénéon's interpretation had been unavailable since 1886, 48 but Fauvist painting, to some extent due to the friendship of Signac and Matisse, could be interpreted as an improved, or even overblown, variant of it. The books on such a relationship suggesting an organic continuity could fill a library, 49 which had the result that Fauvism, understood in a broader sense and also including the versions prefixed with the qualifiers "proto-" and "pre-", can be interpreted as the closing phase of "Impressionism" extended to the entire art history. 50 In Hungary, Miklós Rózsa made it possible for the public to study the various movements parallel, when he staged an international exhibition of Impressionism in 1910 in Művészház, the institute he himself had founded. Judging from his selection of foreign material, he was also responsible for the systematic presentation of the Hungarian tendencies drawing on the art of their forerunners from earlier times. 51 In Room VII reserved for the works of the "Neo-lmpressionists, the Synthetics and those concerned with decorative effects," in other words people, like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Denis, Cross, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, etc., he hung paintings by Iványi Grünwald (Landscape, Bathing Women), Kernstok (Nude, Portrait of Béla Czóbel) and Rippl-Rónai (Yellow Flowers, Red Wall). Even more important was, however, the "second act": the international Post-Impressionist exhibition held in May 1913, which was designed to present, in a large structural unit, the contemporary French, German, British and Russian materials in juxtaposition with the related Hungarian tendencies. 52 Saying nothing about the fact that with his exhibition in 1910 he actually preceded the Brit, Rózsa was the "resident" Hungarian representative of the concept of modern art, which came to be associated with the name of the painter and critic Roger Fry following the heated debates that two exhibitions had generated. Entitled "Manet and the Post-Impressionists", 53 the first one was opened in November 1910 in London, where painting by the Fauvist artists Manguin, Puy, Valtat and Vlaminck were shown, and the other exhibition of Post-Impressionist art was held in 1912. 54 The acknowledged principals of both exhibitions were Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, although by 1912 the rising prestige of Picasso and Cubism had been noticeable. Incidentally, Fry initially suggested the term "Expressionists", before deciding on the label "PostImpressionists". 55 It appears, however, that Rózsa found the latter expression to be applicable to all the other "hyper-modern" movements in Hungary, which he —along with Sztrakoniczky at one point —had previously placed under the protective umbrella of Impressionism: "the new Impressionism (Neo-lmpressionism) is merely the latest turn that the vehicle of progression took, which —we cannot repeat it often enough! —has also taken a turn around itself while moving forward." He accepted the various innovations as modifications of the same principle and, for the same reason, he rejected the term "antiImpressionism" and regarded the term "Neo-lmpressionism" as meaningless, while preferring the word "Post-Impressionism" for its temporal reference. 56 In summary, we can conclude that the modernist tendencies in Hungary between 1906 and 1914 were collectively covered by the admittedly misleading category of "Neo-lmpressionism", and Matisse was not the only, albeit crucial, actor in this story. However, there was simply not enough time for the substantially more accurate term "Post-Impressionism", which became fashionable in the 1910s and could incorporate the influence of the Nabis and Rippl-Rónai as well, to gain broader acceptance before the First World War. Let us return to Nagybánya and its founder, István Réti, the painter who had a penchant for theorizing. Among the artist's "major opuses" was a book entitled A nagybányai művésztelep (The Nagybánya Artists' Colony), 57 which came out only after the artist's death, and
