Open air studios of Simon Hollosy in Tyachiv: their place and role in formation of traditions of Zakarpattia painting in the first half of XX century

Detalii: Categorie: Cultura; Publicat: Joi, 17 Aprilie 2014 07:48; Scris de Lutsenko Ihor Viktorovych; Accesări: 6271

Statement of a problem. The new tasks of art history envelop wider limits not only of historic aureole but also prompt to trace a line around deeper knowledge of artistic historic processes and interdependences. The actual question is the determination of the conceptual position of art phenomena in the first half of XX century in painting center of modern territory of Zakarpattia. The art colony in Tyachiv (1902-1918) was one of the first organized art centers of the region and a lot of artists from different countries practiced in this environment. The dominating methodical principle of the colony was taking plein-air studies. In 1920-40 years a considerable impetus took place resulting in formation of Zakarpattia art school with its curator Adalbert Erdely and Yozsef Boksay.

One of the dominating methods of creative improvement and art education remained plein-air studies. Having common features of art studying, the conceptual creative and methodical postulates such events have to be considered as all-European cultural and art phenomenon. Nowadays a question of investigating regional art centers covers discovering interdependences of creative persons and the analysis of their creative and methodical inheritance.
Investigation of this problem took place in the borders of separate fragments of regional art centers. The specificity of creative persons and their achievements were investigated separately; art events and phenomena were considered. The actual task remains ways of complex studying of tasks set.
Works of S. Hollosy and life of art colonies were worked up the by the following art critics: Lyka Károly, Németh Lajos [7], Szabó Julia, Réti István, Szöllősy Tibor [10], Alyoshina L., Tihomirov A. [5], Ostrovsky H. [3], Pavlov V. From the view of historic and culturological aspects of Simon Hollosy`s life in Tyachiv was enlightened in publications of Selesi T. and also partially in the memoirs of Ternouc B. In this article the first attempt to generalize phenomenon of painting and art personalities which arouse in the region in the mentioned period is made.
   The goal of the article. Discovering peculiarities of creative and methodical specificity of Hollosy`s painting in art colony of Tyachiv. An attempt to determine the role and place of this art phenomenon in painting of Zakarpattia in the first half of XX century.
   Summary of the main material. If dealing with a matter of art colonies and authorical art schools on European territory, it should mentioned that the most activity starts in the second half of ХІХ century and continues to the first half of ХХ century. This period is characterized by displaying of subjectivism of artist`s creative beginning. The ideas of romanticism fill up the art space, it becomes more widely social, art ceases to be elitist. Revolutionary ideas of Barbizon school and then of impressionists built up new approaches in selecting graphic and methodological means, forming the platform of further events and changes in cultural scope of Europe [p.5,2]. Art colonies find their niche to counterbalance orthodox academic postulates. Such private studios spread in art centers of Europe from the second half of XIX century: in Paris - Jullian and Calarosi academy, in Munich - Anton Ashbe and Simon Hollosy school. But later on such schools move to the province, in particular Nagybanya school and also created by Hollosy art colony in Tyachiv. Such system of private schools was applied at the end of 1920-ies by Erdely A. and Boksay Y. in Uzhhorod [p.3,4]. The tendency of creating such school-colonies causes significant art resonance and later leads to reforming and becomes the successor of academic education in Europe.
   Starting from 1902 Simon Hollosy together with his students comes to open air studies to Tyachiv. In this time of creative activity the author represents himself in landscape painting the most dynamically. To the considerable extend the stimulus for removal to Tyachiv was that for some reasons the painter broke his relations with the art colony in Nagybanya which was founded in 1896. Misunderstanding between Simon Hollosy and some participants of Nagybanya colony, in particular Karoly Ferenczy and Istvan Reti determined the way of Hollosy for the subsequent years in Tyachiv. The final reasons of Hollosy`s breaking from Nagybanya colony are not known to a certainty although some facts testify to ideological divergences including the ones between Holossy and his student Reti to which testifies the thesis from Hollosy`s letter to Reti: “…now human factor in painting is more important for us. To feel and not to paint” [p.180,9]. Previously a student, then a friend and associate, Istvan Reti becomes an opponent of Hollosy and later on gives biased assessment to the artist`s works. But he does testify that for some time Hollosy was one of the three best in Hungary [p.117,5]. Divergences on point of principles that lead to creating of the art colony in Tyachiv became the main lever for determining creative and methodical approach in painting followed by Simon Hollosy. Local landscapes and provincial characteristic types attract the artist. The artist takes plein-air studies working with his students on suburbs of the town. In the province of Zakarpattia Hollosy stays isolated from artistic life of Hungary. Not taking an active part in exhibitions, working in the environment which was different from Nagybanya and Munich he surrounds himself with new students from different countries [p. 136,5].
A considerable part of works for Tyachiv period is lost but taking the available ones painted in this period and preserved mostly in the museums of Hungary, Romania and private assemblies one can substantiate its artistic and stylistic qualities. Taking into account compositional and coloristic achievements we can trace how the artist complicates own tasks and that becomes the characteristic feature of many landscapes. The majority of themes for works are landscapes of Tyachiv suburbs and its architecture. The manner of author`s painting acquires certain stylistic modifications. He deals with naturalistic treating of landscape art using means of impressionistic building of colour correlations. Active and dynamic touch of “Tyachiv” landscapes acquires more expression. Comparing with works of previous years they are built on genre painting, for example “In tavern” (1888), “Dancers” (1895), “Admirers” (1880-ies) and kept with a little bit well-balanced palette colors without unnecessary expression of textures. Compositional principles on which an artist builds landscapes testify to moderateness and strict coordination of forms, squares and colors. Expressive, etude completeness of his works is characterized by notional and compositional dominant. The painter demonstrates such postulates as in landscape work “Yard”, painted in 1912. The following elements of landscape painting are built fragmentary: part of a house, a cart in front, background is completed with generalized fragment of landscape on background. Composition of the work is built bias, in the format close to square of picture what strengthen the dynamics of the work which is divided bias in two. But the compositional task solved by the author due to colour balance of vibration of celestial body and shadow falling on the house, created “airly” due to blue and violet gradations. Dynamics of tonal contrasts on the painted cart is balanced by the means of activity of fallen shadow and light onto a house, by this the painter balances compositional space of the picture. Deciding of complicated imitative tasks put forward by the artist defines Hollosy not only as a good pedagogue but also witnesses about masterly practitioner painter. By his work “Autumn mood” (1916) the artist also proves his workmanship where frontal placement of three plans of painting conditionally divides the scope of the work and with compositional dominant – contropenwork depiction of a tree - unites the work compositionally, paying attention of a spectator to the contrasting active center. In a color vision searching for nuances of supplementing values is typical. Considerable amount of silver-green shades and softness of put touch ensures lyrically melancholic mood of the work which corresponds to its name.
As for the creative method Simon Hollosy to some extend imitates the principles Claude Monet used, referring to the single motif several times. The characteristic thing for Simon Hollosy is fine tuning of his work at plein air during several stages unlike impressionists who tried to finish the work under first impression. The painter watched an object for a long time before he started writing the work [p.121,7]. Painter`s keenness of observation is the way of consideration over compositional methods which are to be used in the work. The peculiarity of compositional structure in works is balance and integral monumentality. A painter often enough pays attention to composition structure in landscape where the main part of canvas is sky panorama. In that time he decides the question of deepness of spatial plane. Such a method of building composition structure is realized by a painter in multifigure compositions of “Rakotsi march”. Although dominating course of work in Tyachiv is landscape painting but here the author continues creative search of the theme of his whole artistic life – the work “Rakotsi march” [p.5.10]. A considerable part of drafts for this work is self-sufficient both in compositional and coloristic plans. For today conventional incompleteness in this draft groundwork became one of perfect painting works of the artist`s inheritance. In Tyachiv the painter looks for appearances and types of Slavs shown in numerous variants of this work. During his staying in this town Simon Hollosy determined the main goal of his artistic vision in the letter to one of his students: “Now I think about Tyachiv only. Till this time I painted here mostly landscapes, I need this for learning color. But the principal treasure is hidden in people who live here”.[p.106,7]. Tyachiv period is search and deepening of internal content of painting, an attempt to find his own creative method, differing from previous periods. The painter mainly focuses on showing inner state of nature by means of color vibrations. About 1910 Hollosy changes a little bit his artistic language of the last creative period. This becomes apparent in his landscapes, numerous autoportraits and draft for “Rakotsi march”, where typical monumental simplicity, sometimes heavy flatness and color unity are visible [p.122,7]. Similar features are inherent to his works “Autoportrait” (1916), “A girl in a large green hat” (1900) and “Empty” (1912). Here the author applies the maximum compositional loading of flat, separates the portrait from environment by means of generalized color spots and tonal contrast thus creating a monumental entourage of a picture. Color values and dynamic expressive touch remain uniting means of compositional environment.
While the previous periods of Hollosy`s searching (studying in Munich and teaching in his own school) transferred into ways for realizing motives where the theme is accented on creating romantic and everyday life scenes with national Hungarian types the period of staying in Tyachiv almost entirely turns into the process of cognitive personification of nature by what the artist motivates his creative process. Hollosy identifies specificity of nature with such terms: meaning of life, “nature that creates” and human`s subjective “nature is created”. In Tyachiv colony the painter demonstrates manifestations of post-expressionism which is consciously weighed between working with landscapes and figurative compositions [p.123,6]. The form of new esthetic measure in Hollossy`s works were previous periods of working in Munich. They became the stages of evolution of European postmodernism as realized regularity of creative evolution. A prevailing part of works in this period is presented in Hungarian and Romanian museums although a considerable number of works were lost due to different reasons. In spite of existing practice the painter exhibited his own works seldom enough in the time when active exhibition processes took place. However he participated in group exhibitions in Nagybanya (Baia Mare) in 1897, 1899, 1900, 1907 and 1901 and also in 1912 (on the anniversary of the colony). In 1922 his three works were represented on the Venice Biennale [p.123,6]. Existing three works prove artist`s achievements appealing to general theme of landscape and deciding complex matters of art. On the basis of these characteristic principles one can compare ways of realizing artistic and educational concepts in artistic school founded by Adalbert Erdely and Yozsef Boksay in 1920-40-ies. As an example the following phrase of Erdely should be mentioned: “…with a little I want to express a lot”, which he declared as his own principles and views on the problems of solving creative process [p.235,11]. While studying in Budapest Adalbert Erdely was a student of Bela Ivanyi Grunwald and Karoly Ferenczy which at some time were adherents and friends of Simon Hollosy and to our opinion this could have an affect on creative thinking of the artist. It should be mentioned that the colony which existed in Tyachiv till 1918 played a very important part in developing plein-air painting as the regional artistic phenomenon which between 1920-1930 became an example for developing of this genre in the art of Zakarpattia. The evidence of this is the quote “at the end of XIX – on the beginning of the ХХ century a process of creating and strengthening of national art schools which opposed themselves to parlor art took place in painting of many countries. The example of Nagybanya school was before our eyes [p.3,1]. The famous figure of the artist-pedagogue in European artistic circles allowed a lot of artists to take his creative methods into account both in artistic and educational processes and in building and searching for own ways of artistic self-actualization.
An artistic life in Zakarpattia in the first half of XX century turned out in such a way that from the painters which work in the region the local authors appear. In many cases the most of them study mostly in Budapest and others in Munich. Their tutors become known Hungarian pedagogues-artists including Imre Revesz, Simon Hollosy, Karoly Ferenczy, Bela Ivanyi Grunwald, due to whom formation of fine art in Zakarpattia took place in the first half of XX century. Gyula Virag studies in Munich and his teacher was Hollosy; Karoly Iszai, Emilian Grabowsky, Yozsef Boksay, Adalbert Erdely studied in Budapest. The latter being a 4th year student worked in Kecskemet artistic colony not far from Ivanyi Grunwald. In 1918 in Nagybanya colony Emilian Grabowsky took his practices [p.53,3]. Exactly this generation of artists had to be in the beginning of forming regional artistic school. But it should be mentioned that first and foremest merit both high-principled and generating belongs to much extend to Erdely and Boksay. Under guidance of these authors the first cohort of artists appears which later traced a line of the own creative method in traditions of folk art, taking into account high, coloristic and figurative aspects. In this case parallels should be drawn concerning high creative groundworks of Simon Hollosy in art colony in Tyachiv where the artist also addresses to the peculiarities of local landscape coloring and folk types putting lyricism and own ingenuousness to picture environment [p.341,8].
Conclusion. Thus summing up the mentioned above it is important to single out achievements of plein-air education by Simon Hollosy in art colony in Tyachiv. Creative method of the artist is singled out in the ways of cognitive perception of nature in plein-air. Together with plein-air studies the artist appeals to looking for local types which he embodies in images of multifigural compositions. The ways of building an artistic method of artistic, educational and creative principles of Simon Hollosy were applied in 1920-40 years by Adalbert Erdely and Yozsef Boksay who organized artistic studies which later formed regional artistic phenomenon in Zakarpattia school of painting.
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