Szinyei Merse Anna: Szinyei Merse Pál (1845-1920) (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai)

a sketch of his Faun. However, due to his teacher's direction, these became more and more conventional and academic. Thus during this time, and for his own pleasure, he painted surprisingly fresh small landscape cuttings: Sailing Boat on Lake Starnberg and Apple Study (plate VII.). These were followed by the Bathing Hut with Boy (1868 - plate X). In this work the young art student hit upon what was to be the chief message of his life work - namely, the uncovering of the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. This message was demonstrated in a naturally simple yet sublime manner of expression. Although he had already designed similar things in his drawings, Bathing Hut with Boy was the first painting in which he put aside historical clothing, and depicted „modern" figures of his own age. Here the human figure and the landscape around it are drawn harmoniously together by pearly grey tones in the diffuse lighting of the cloudy weather. The decisive step towards his chief works was taken in his Mother with Her Children (1868-69 - plate XIII). It was the artist's aim to paint a fine, yet everyday scene, reflected in realistic, light, clear colours. As sunshine suited his joyful nature most, he placed the figures depicted in the painting in sunlit scenery. Thus he could not avoid looking for a new idiom to match the novel topic. The strong glowing of the green and red complementary colours make the young Szinyei's pictures magically fresh, and such an approach was even unknown in France at that time. Although his Munich friends had told him about the 1867 Paris World Exhibition, Szinyei Merse did not go to Paris before 1908. He had never seen any pictures similar to his own and thus it is true to say that he found his style by himself. The Mother with Her Children is a transitionary work, an important stage towards the conquest of the plein-air. At the same time it is a step towards his masterpiece, the Picnic in May. However, in the artistic interpretation of the chief figure, there is still a struggle to achieve classical perfection. Also, due to the air-perspective which is applied in the work, the far-reaching scenic background is handled more compactly and more softly than the figures that occupy the entire foreground. This is evident in their plastic corporality. In his ingenious sketches, The Swing and Drying Clothes both painted in 1869, Szinyei Merse eliminated the difficulty he had struggled with in Mother with Her Children. By not opening the view towards the horizon, he was able to ensure a complete unity between man and nature within the area of the picture. The figures are in perfect harmony with their surroundings: The Swing (plate XVI), gleaming in its opalescent colours, is the most beautiful early Hungarian and Middle-European example of the impressionistic unitary way of seeing things. Here it is not one dominant tone that guarantees the unity of the picture, but the equal intensity of the various colour patches, glowing in the diffuse light under the foliage of the trees. This valeur problem, wich had become so decisive in the further development of European painting, was discovered by the young painter on his own: his sketch was already standing on his easel when he first met with French paintings at the international exhibition of the Munich Glaspalast. Yet even there he could not see a similar solution. With Drying Clothes (plate XVIII) he went further still: the fully-lit, clear colours glow like gems in the shadowless setting. This pleinair composition is based on complementary colours. In doing this, he managed to achieve a homogeneous optical reflection, in a manner that was entirely modern. With his sketches, Szinyei Merse was in the front line of European painting. However, he had no idea of this and thus he sometimes became uncertain of himself. This was because he failed to get any encouragement in Munich, and he was not appreciated in his own country. On the contrary he was derided for the fashionable clothing and livid colouring of his figures. He longed to go to Paris, and although he was invited there by his friend W. Leibi, he had to paint saleable pictures in order to achieve this. This is the explanation for his return to mythological topics (e.g. Bacchanalia, 1869). Nevertheless, before the opening of the great exhibition, during his vacation at home, he also practised realistic tone painting wich he had never seen before, (e.g. Horse-Chestnut-Tree Study); later in Munich, he painted the Evening Star, a simple yet poetic composition. Perhaps the success of Courbet's tonal realism should have strengthened his belief in the truth of his endeavours. Yet Szinyei Merse was not a persistently fighting type, added to this fact, he needed money. Due to his somewhat confused situation, he therefore left his great composition, The Swing unfinished. Instead he painted the replica of Mother with Her Children, and then the Pair of Lovers (plate XIX.). This implied a certain retrogression compared with his previous results. He made further progress in his technical media, and the colours wich delicately unfold in the equal illumination of the diffuse light are remarkable. However, the