Nagy Ildikó szerk.: Nagybánya művészete, Kiállítás a nagybányai művésztelep alapításának 100. évfordulója alkalmából (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1996/1)

Bereczky Lóránd: Előszó

Unsere zum hundertsten Jahrestag der Gründung der Nagybányaer Künstlerkolonie veranstaltete Ausstellung und die sich an sie knüpfende Publikation kann aufgrund der obenerwähnten Umstände notwendigerweise kein großes, zusammenfassendes, einen endgültigen beruflichen Standpunkt veröffentlichendes Unternehmen sein. Es kann nur das berufliche Niveau der aus dem Kreise der zu dieser Zeit und auf diesem Ort entstandenen Werke auserwählten künstlerischen Produkte dokumentieren, es kann die Beschaffenheit der jetzigen Auswahl dokumentieren; und sogar jener Vorgang, kann aufleuchten - mit Rücksicht auch auf die sich aneinanderknüpfenden Kunstausstellungen -, zur weiteren Forschung dessen diese Jubileumsveranstaltung als Beitrag dienen kann. Es ist jedoch unbestreitbar, daß die international bekannten Werke von hervorragenden Meistern, die Lehren einer mehr oder minder bekannten künstlerischen Ereignisserie, im geschichtlichen Zusammenhang bezeugen können, daß es sich nicht auf Grund von Absichten, Parolen, sondern nur auf Grund von Tatsachen lohnt über Europäität, über nationale Kultur, über Mensch und Kunst zu sprechen. Januar 1996 Lóránd Bereczky Generaldirektor Preface "No kind of human union might have an other aim, than to establish and to facilitate the most charitable interaction between the individuals." (J. G. Herder) It seems to be a fruitful task for a museum to bow with an exhibition before the centenarian history of the artist colony and school of Nagybánya, before the art of the masters who once upon a time had worked there. We have to present with the help of works being of incontestable worth a well-known period of modern Hungarian fine arts, bearing a fundamental importance, a period which has been already many times and from many standpoints elaborated. The collecting of the works of Hollósy, Ferenczy, Réti, Thorma, and the row of the names might be continued, works which are figuring at the permanent exhibitions of museums, may assure already for itself the success of the exhibition. Beside the effectual sight also the background of thought is given, why the reviews of high level presenting Hungarian fine art of our century are starting that what they have to say, one after another, with reference to Nagybánya. Nagybánya has become in the cultural public way of thinking and often also in the professional manifestations the emblem of modern Hungarian fine arts. Sometimes as a word recalling a nebulous content, but mostly as a notion expressing a certain creative attitude, respectively an art-theoretical approach. The complexity of the notion and the richness of its contents is announcing already for itself, that this bowing exhibition - which wants to speak always about the whole - has only restricted possibilities. They are restricted, because the exhibition cannot undertake to show up the whole in the part through the thorough elaboration of a part-problem, since such not comparable factors should be merged in a simplified way, like - among others - history, aesthetics, art-theory, educational programs, cultural policy. They are also therefore restricted, because if the exhibition wanted to give a look about the whole "from a bird's-eye view", then it would only repeat the already up till now inveterated "Nagybánya-picture", loosing those results, which have enriched, on the basis of more new researches, our knowledge about this great venture of the turn of the century, especially about its afterlife or about its furtherliving. The question might be posed accordinply, whether it should be permitted to organize a bowing exhibition, if the result does not be settled admittedly, but it induces discussing, seeking approaches? We may state with conviction, that it is not only permitted, but it is necessary too! It is necessary from the point of view of the documentation of the binding to the universal, respectively more restricted community of history and culture, from the point of view of professional research, and from the points of view of the honesty of research, as well as of the responsibility of this research, alike. 1996 is the year of the evocation of history in Hungary. In this process the hundred years of Nagybánya are forming on account of the shortness of time, and their territorial narrowness compared to the entirety of life, essentially only an episode. But this episode is bearing in itself almost all moments of the "plancing" at history, of the contemporary intentions expressing character of the feast of history. The artist colony of Nagybánya is bearing in its starting a European conception: it forms the "withdrawal" of the renewal seeking art of the turn of the century from the ramparts of the restricting tradition, as it happened also elsewhere in the sign of break with the traditions. But Nagybánya is bound also to the place and to the community, as this town was situated in every respect far from Paris, München, Budapest. There existed also an universal and to a place bindable specificness in that fact, how by the side of the artist colony the program giving school arose, and how the attractiveness has let the way seeking starters of career to travel to this place from several regions of Europe. The