Nagy Ildikó szerk.: Rippl-Rónai József gyűjteményes kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1998/1)

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - ORVÁTH János: A Róma-villa egykor és ma

JÁNOS HORVÁTH It was always decisive for Rippl-Rónai's art where he lived. His stylistically innovative outlook of a direct, essential nature is also manifest in the artist's attitude of not necessarily painting in a studio. He would seize any social situation not only to plan but also to execute a picture. He did not know the labours of creation. Two characters were combined in his personality: a Transdanubian patriarch and a middle-class individual one with its closed, the other with its open spirituality. As a sign of his patriarchal sentiments, he purchased a medium-sized estate in his native town Kaposvár, on Rome Hill, from the yield of his successes at home. On this estate, he boosted - not farming, which was not his cup of tea, anyway - but his painting. He bought the new home in 1908. His former lower-middle-class flat in Kaposvár's Main Street offered themes of an intimate, quiet existence for his painting. His new home called Villa Róma (Rome) allowed his love of a fine home to unfold. The park around the house with all its Watteauesque hide-outs tightened his contact with nature. He himself explained the revival of his painting in the following words: "It is most probably my present state of mind that requires all that riot of colour. My environment being like that, it influences me in this way. Such colour surround us in my new Kaposvár home and garden. I am fascinated, besides the scarlet sage and the red simple geranium, by the pure white flowers, and even more by chromium yellow zinnias. I don't know a warmer - or hotter - colour than this yellow. I am looking for, nay, collecting these colours now for my flat, on objects, kerchiefs, walls. Of all the wall colours, this light yellow is my favourite: my studio with all windows on one side is also painted in this colour, and I even sleep in a room like that. Then, of course, all these colours find their way into my pictures." The harvest of wheat, picking of maize, blossoming of the sour-cherry tree, the animals around the house, the guests drinking wine by a table in the shade, nude models among the tall tree trunks, the furnishings of the villa and the interior of his studio - all served as themes for pictures. The entertainment of guests was frequent: mainly notes writers and painters arrived from Budapest. Music-making, singing was not missing, either. Sometimes they made merry by Gypsy musics: Rippl-Rónai hired virtuosic fiddlers and tárogató players. The villa was the "shrine". In its music room, a talented pianist from Kaposvár played Grieg, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt. An 18-year-old English girl, Fanella Lowell, was the guest of the villa for months, after a sojourn in Paris. She mediated the life-style of bohemian young artists gathering in Montmartre, singing classical and folksongs, accompanying herself on the guitar or the piano. She also posed for Rippl-Rónai's nude pictures. The hostess, the painter's French wife Lazarine Baudrion attracted the guests with her cuisine. She was assisted by her niece also from France, Anella Paris, who was brought up by the couple as their own child. The first half of the 1910s was overbrimming with happiness. Once or twice they went to see friends and relatives in France. Rippl-Rónai was close friends with Maillol and Vuillard. This valuable cultural contact was torn apart by World War I. Rippl-Rónai did not meddle with politics. For him, the peace of the home, the freedom of the spirit and art was the vitalizing force. He fitted out the rooms of his house with special care, in an exquisite taste. In the rooms with walls painted light yellow or blue, a few pieces of old furniture were placed. He did not overcrowd the rooms but place an Empire or Biedermeier secretaire or sideboard in points of salience, as if they were shrines. These peculiar accents can be detected in several pictures. He constructed his interiors from flat forms of a decorative colour palette, outlined with thick contours. He applied the colours by stamping the brush on the canvas, so as to evoke a droning, vibrating life-like quality. He labelled it his "maize-like" style. He painted in this idiosyncratic, Fauvist manner for ten years, until 1919. The Villa Róma tided over the passing of the time. After generous renovations on two occasions, the onetime state could be restored suggestively. It has been open as a museum since 1978. Several of Rippl's major works can be seen there, surrounded by his original furniture, as if he were still living in the house. The Villa Roma then and now