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

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - SZINYEI MERSE Anna: Rippl-Rónai Franciaországban és kapcsolata a Nabis csoporttal

AN MA SZINYEI MERSE In the spring of 1887, Rippl-Rónai arrived on a small grant in Paris. Seeing his excellent draughtsmanship refined at the Munich Academy, Mihály Munkácsy hired him as his assistant and disciple. At the famous soirees of artists in the luxurious Munkácsy palace, he could make important contacts and via his master's American collectors, he also received some commissions. That was how he got to Pont-Aven for a short time in 1888-89, where international companies had gathered for decades in the artists colony created by the Americans. That, however, had nothing to do with synthetisme developed by Gauguin and his associates in Pont-Aven. Rippl first met the works of the latter at a special show of their works in Cafe Volpini, as a fringe event to the World Fair of 1889. It must have been here and at various other venues of the extensive panorama of art that he realized that his genre scene admitted to the exhibition of the Salon for the first time in 1889, had several shortcoming, and that he could not continue to paint in Munkácsy's manner any longer. The myriads of new impressions from exhibitions, reviews and books, as well as from conversations with his slowly expanding circle of friends must have matured by around 1890. A more thorough analysis of the Paris exhibitions staged in the 1890s is necessary to show up the important facts for Rippl-Rónai from the sea of documents concerning the work of hosts of artists living there and of foreigners appearing regularly. That was the real time and place of a stylistic pluralism. In Paris, the old and new and the latest were all living side by side, and we discover to our surprise how keen a sense the Hungarian painter had for picking the most up-to-date, and within that, those features that he found compatible with his character. These sources are nearly all identical with the ones advocated proudly by Maurice Denis in his writings, with some shifts in the points of gravity: that is why he could soon turn into the "Hungarian Nabi". The rest of his models in painting - Whistler and Carrière, Manet and Degas - were the great discoveries of the age with homogeneous and significant œuvres that the open-eyed contemporaries could not overlook. Contemporary French critics referred to RipplRónai's early pastels as "dream-faced", praising the primitive subtlety of his summary handling. Then came the Woman in a white-spotted dress with slight reminiscences of Whistler, followed by the great leap, the Woman in bed (1891) which applies in a sovereign way the practice of cloisonnism. This is the point where the principle of equivalence so central in the thinking of the Nabis and their predecessors enters his œuvre, together with the fundamental importance of the line. He no longer needs props. Preparing for his first independent show, he plunges into work with great zeal and produces a row of the great works of his early period. The slightly melancholy, lyrical beauty of his slender female figures rendered with elaborate simplicity asserts itself through the autonomous artistic devices of the painter (Woman with a bird-cage). The lustreless, reserved colour scheme of some other pictures conveys the peace of everyday moments of relaxation (Bowlers). His debut in 1892 attracted quite some interest on the part of the public and the press alike, but his presence with some pictures a year at the Salons made little stir between 1889 and 1899. The unusual puritanism of My Grandmother (1894), however, made his name known among the artists, too. Gauguin invited him to his atelier, his old friend Alfred Jarry planned to write a book about him following his appreciative criticism, and the Nabis coopted him. In 1888 Rippl visited the Julian academy for some time, so he knew most of them. The buyer of his early pictures, Coquelin Cadet must also have been a connecting link. In 1893, he was also invited to take part in their regular exhibition at Le Bare de Boutteville. However, the friendship between the Nabis and him can only be traced back to 1894 from which date they kept visiting each other. Rippl-Rónai fostered the closest ties with Vuillard, Bonnard and Roussel, and he soon introduced his old friend Maillol into their circle. Rippl began to produce his tapestries, which were quick to stir some sensation, upon Maillol's encouragement, while Maillol was persuaded by his Hungarian friend to change over to sculpture for good. Through Thadee Natanson, Rippl was a frequent visitor at the editorial office of La Revue Blanche, and when he was making lithographs for the journal, he got into closer contact with ToulouseLautrec. He was involved in the exhibitions of LArt Nouveau from its onset, and in 1897, Bing organized his second one-man show in Paris. He could participated in the Salon des Cent of Galerie La Plume in 1894, in Vollard's exhibition and album of Peintres-graveurs in 1896, and even in the shows of La Libre Esthétique in Brussels in 1895 and '97. In short, he was actively involved in the musters of the new artistic efforts. He Rippl-Rónai in France and his relationship with the Nabis