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

FROM PARIS TO NAGYBÁNYA - PARIS - GERGELY BARKI: From the Julian Academy to Matisse's Free School

7. The façade of Académie de la Grande-Chaumière today Photo: Attila Batár 8. Memorial plaque on the façade of the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière. Photo: Attila Batár who attended drawing classes there around 1906-1907, the same time that three French Fauves, Derain, Marquet and Manguin, also spent time there making sketches.

11 Braque, who also visited the evening classes to draw nude models there, described Humbert as a place "where

—similarly to the other academies

—the professor was of no importance and the students were all amateurs, but the atmosphere was very good on account of the Bohemian spirit that prevailed there."

12 Standing out in importance among Paris's private schools at the time was Académie de la Grande-Chaumière. (Fig. 7) According to the accounts of both Géza Bornemisza and Max Weber, Henri Matisse often showed up for the evening drawing classes around 1906-1907.

13 Therefore, Matisse had made use of the opportunities offered by private schools for drawing nude studies even before he opened his own academy. At this school, and around this time, a small Hungarian group began to coalesce. In recalling the names of Hungarian artists visiting the place, Bornemisza listed Berény, Czóbel, Csáktornyai, Ervin Körmendi Frim, Mikola and Perlrott, adding that Kernstok had also attended the institute for a while.

14 Perlrott also revealed that the other corrector besides Steinlein

—whom Bornemisza also mentioned

—was Lucien Simon;

1s on the other hand, he made no mention of Castelucho, the Spanish-born painter who was among the teachers of GrandeChaumière at the time, i.e. around 1906-1907.

16 (Fig. 8) Nevertheless, Castelucho's name shows up in the catalogues of the 1907 exhibition of Salon d'Automne, next to Perlrott's and a few other Hungarian artists' name.

17 The expression "chez M. Castelucho" in the above mentioned catalogues probably serves to indicate that the listed artists attended Claudio Castelucho Diana's school, or rather, that he was the one who corrected their works at the Académie de la GrandeChaumière during the period in question.

18 In his extensively quoted essay published in 1908 under the title Liberté épuisante et stérile,^

9 Maurice Denis expressed his view as follows: "Both M. Castelucho and M. Matisse have their own academy,"

20 which is, of course, not the same as to say that Castelucho's name is synonymous with Académie de la Grande-Chaumière; it would be rather more appropriate to say that a group was formed around him; in other words, he also "created a genuine school."

21 Denis described the work of the Castelucho-group as mediocre and pitifully tradesman-like. In his reading, the members of the group considered art as some kind of a sporting activity, being convinced that the study of painting merely involved the emulation of brushwork. The author was similarly critical of Matisse's "school".

22 He wrote the follow9. Max Weber: The Statue of Apollo at Matisse's Academy, 1908 Forum Gallery, New York