The newly discovered Eight
The largest art endeavour of the Pécs European Capital of Culture 2010 project
MúzeumCafé 21.
The art critic Máriusz Rabinovszky, who had earlier published penetrating, sympathetic reviews about the modernism of KUT (New Society of Artists), had completely changed by 1949. In a pamphlet he characterised Lajos Gulácsy as a “moonstruck Goya”, while István Csók was “paddling on the waters of mild kitsch”, József Egry was “embarrassing, only a museum piece” and János Nagy Balogh’s workers looked “like carrots rectangularly peeled”. He seemed to find the seed of progress only in the group known as The Eight, remarking: “When the pre-1914 heritage is analysed there can be hardly any doubt that progress at the time was most markedly represented by The Eight and their circle.” Yet, Rabinovszky perhaps could not have known that for the times he was off the mark, since in the new social system The Eight were not regarded as an example to be followed. Two painters of the group still living in Hungary, Bertalan Pór and Róbert Berény, were willing to adapt their art to the needs of the Communist Party, but that still did not make the early avant-garde acceptable. It was not until 1961 and the 50th anniversary of The Eight’s large exhibition that the Hungarian National Gallery dared turn to the pioneers of Hungarian modernism. The theme and consequently the title The Eight and The Activists merged two groups of artists, which in reality had been separate both historically and aesthetically, with lasting effect. An exhibition with the same title was held in Hungary even in 2005. However, from 2000 substantial volumes about the art of Béla Czóbel, Lajos Tihanyi, Dezső Czigány and Ödön Márffy began to be published in succession. Krisztina Passuth decided to organise a research group among her PhD students to study the beginnings of Hungarian avant-garde, which led to the National Gallery’s exhibition Hungarian Fauves and the volume of essays published as the exhibition catalogue. The centenary exhibition of The Eight as the closing event of Pécs European Capital of Culture 2010 can be regarded in every respect as an organic continuation of a series which began in 2006. The Eight represented the only members of the Hungarian Fauves who actually formed a group of painters. Their first exhibition, which was still held without the famous name, featured the title New Pictures and was organised at the end of December 1909. The 32 paintings displaying bold colours and a world of distorted forms resulted in a national scandal, thus putting the group in the focus of press interest. The artists who had come together spontaneously actually became a school and its members increasingly adopted a similar style. They represented a rethinking of Cézanne’s painting and the process that The Eight went through was similar to the radical change in the art of the French Fauves. Instead of exorbitant compositions rendered in a poster-like plane, Cézanne’s compact use of space became dominant, the earlier bold colours were held in restraint, contrasts were no longer so sharp and mostly earth colours began dominating the paintings. From the early 1910s, with the exceptions of Bertalan Pór and Károly Kernstok, the artists of The Eight painted Cézanne-like compositions of still lifes, yet in turning to monumental Arcadia scenes they brought about something really new. In 1924 from a distance of ten years this was what Ernő Kállai objected to in his study about Ödön Márffy. The consistent development of this trend would have led towards Cubism and Constructivism, which was impossible given The Eight’s experiments with Classicist and Baroque compositions. However, Cézanne was not the only source of the Arcadia scenes favoured by The Eight. In the spirit of “eternal artistic laws” they reached out to Etruscan sculpture, Greek ceramic paintings, the Italian Renaissance and the compositions of Hans von Marées and Ferdinand Hodler, with the result being represented primarily by their vast canvasses and mural work. Recent research has upgraded the Fauve-like art of Béla Czóbel, Dezső Czigány, Róbert Berény and Ödön Márffy, while downplaying somewhat the emblematic works of Károly Kernstok, the former leading figure, and Bertalan Pór. Due to its size, the present commemorative exhibition provides the opportunity to ‘rehabilitate’ their monumental works. The designs for stained-glass windows Kernstok made for the Schiffer Villa in Budapest are particularly captivating. Although the curators could not set out to fully reconstruct the former three exhibitions of The Eight, they consistently selected works solely belonging to the period, unlike previous practice, and included guest artists The Eight had invited in their day, such as Mária Lehel, Márk Vedres, Vilmos Fémes Beck and Anna Lesznai. To illustrate the French parallel, superb works by Matisse, Cézanne, Vlaminck, Friesz and Dufy are also represented in the company of ‘New Pictures’ on the top level of the Gallery of Modern Painting in Pécs. The centenary exhibition featuring nearly five hundred works of art with its substantial catalogue provides a more comprehensive picture of the artists’ group than has ever been seen before.