Hungarian Art Nouveau [antikvár]

FOREWORD Meditation on the past and faith in the future, tradition and modernity, complex and contradictory feature are all comprised in the painting of the Hungarian Art Nouveau. Contradictions not only in the works of artists, living side by side, but in the oeuvre of a single artist, are evidences of new trends, initiate and realization of modern art. Due to these variences was the artistic aspect of the end of the last and this century so multi-coloured and were the artists of the age disregarded for some decades. However in Hungary, just as all over the world, Art Nouveau initiated to break radically away from everything backward and old-fashioned in human surroundings. In this task painting - all along with architecture and applied arts - got an important role, too. In Hungary - because of evolutional disturbances - Art Nouveau had overtaken Impressionism. Rippl-Rónai had worked with the "Nabis" in France when the first group of Hungarian impressio- nists, the artist's colony at Nagybánya was formed. The painters of Nagybánya — when aiming at portraying the connections of Man and Nature in severe "plein-air" principles - enriched Hungarian art with many works conceived in Art Nouveau style. During a decade of existence of Art Nouveau in Hungary, parallel and all along with it, several other trends subsisted, often influencing one another, sometimes inseparably attached to symbolism. The thirty paintings - that will be shown at this exhibition - duly represent the great variety of this style Károly Ferenczy, István Csók and Béla Iványi Griinwald are representing the Art Nouveau trend in the art of the painters of Nagybánya. The impact of this style is manifested through their pictorial method of stylisation, colour experience that appears in plane patches, traits that are typical for the Art Nouveau phase of their activities.