CSONTVÁRY KOSZTKA, Tivadar

Csontv�ry was about 50 years old when he painted this picture. His style was changing at that time: objective portrayal of nature was substituted by naive expressionism. He was in search of grandiose motifs of nature and history where grandiosity was not only a tool of expression, but a symbolic meaning as well.

The picture shows a small town at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. There are houses on the right, a bay on the left and Mount Vesuvius in the background. Water fills the picture up to two thirds of it. Water which appears to be calm has wild crests along the shore. There is a long breast-work along the road, projecting a sharp shadow on the cobble stones of the road. A cart with a donkey is standing crosswise on the road as if the animal had jibbed on seeing the wild waves. The waggoner is sitting indifferently in the driver’s seat. A man is standing with his back to the load that is on the cart. A horse can be seen on the side of the picture. A figure is standing on the balcony of a house and is keeping watch. A cyclist can be seen somewhat away from him, his shadow is projectedon the wall. There is one more figure in the picture: a man sitting in a boat. There are no more signs of human beings around. The line of workshops and factories is continued by houses. The shape of the cloud follows the direction of the smoke. Two sailboats are gliding towards the coast one of which has the words, “Castellammare di Stabia, 1902” written on it.

The balance of the picture, the unity of town and nature, water and hill are perfect. The colours of the picture are bright. Houses are orange and pink, the water is royal blue and white. The sand is black with a strip as red as lava. The sailboats are orange and purple. The sky is a mixture of blue, grey, light green and greenish pink. One cannot help feeling the elementary power of nature. View becomes vision.

This painting foreshadows Csontv�ry’s later visionary works. Against a background of blue sea looms an ominous figure with rough hewn features - a survivor of some sort, perhaps a fisherman of the Adriatic.

The way Csontv�ry saw nature, was summed up in “Baalbek” (1906). Although he was still interested in nature, he went new ways in art. After the exhibition in Paris in 1907, his pictures with cedars painted in Lebanon, which were full of symbols and visions, started a new period.

Trees are referred to in the mythology of almost all nations as symbols of fertility or those of knowledge. In the case of cedars, Csontv�ry did not only want to portray a motif of nature, but he connected his message to a well-known and universal symbol. Art historians and psychologists involved in the Csontv�ry-literature identified “The Lonely Cedar” with the lonely Csontv�ry, while the “Pilgrimage to Cedars in Lebanon”, its counterpart, was identified with the artist celebrated by others and himself. The latter work may be a symbolic repetition of his early “Self-Portrait” but in this picture the artist symbolizes his own self in the cedar tree.The truth of the statement is supported by Csontv�ry’s writings, he mentions the tree as a symbol of his own person.

The order, the composition and the colours of the picture are subordinated to a world full of symbols. The double trunks of the tree in the axis of the picture arrange and hold together events with their branches growing upwards in a sophisticated pattern. A celebration recalling ancient rituals takes place around them. The whole picture is interwoven by experiences with nature and the presence of “energies” in different shapes, which Csontv�ry thought to be important. The complicated symbols of the picture carry different contents, but they are “manifestations of Csontv�ry’s magic concept of the world, and as such, visual realizations of symbols arising from the depth of the human soul” (Lajos N�meth).

The angular figure of the Saviour is standing in the middle isolated from everything and everybody. He is raising up his hands as if praying or preaching. The group of the twelve apostles are looking out of the picture. Dr. Rezs� Pertorini, author of the Csontv�ry pathogaph, grouped them as people shouting, “Crucify him,” as if they were a choir in a Greek tragedy. Faces are suggestive, those of the Saviour and Moses are expressive.

The picture condenses events. Moses is standing with stone tablets on the left. The silhouette of a town can be seen in the background, it is Jerusalem. On the right, there is a slim tree with a block of stone at its foot with two black figures tumbling on it. Behind the tree, there is a modern church which is lit: it can be approached on a steep slope. Next to it, there are three columns with winged sculptures and a domed building on the left. A group of people are approaching the church. The picture has a complicated and symbolic message, in fact, the painter attempted to sum up the history of christianity. He portrayed the Old Testament on the left and the New Testament on the right: the former being represented by Moses and the tables of the Testament, and the New Testament by Jesus’ sermon, payer, and desciples, the tree symbolizing the cross, and the mourners with a stone suggesting a grave.

There are symbolic objects and scenes on both sides. The background stretches out to the distance. Thus, the painter emphasizes the main characters. The composition is balanced. The connection between time and space, and the suggestivity of tools with expressive power are in harmony with one another.

Csontv�ry visited Herzegovina in spring 1903 when he painted “Roman Bridge” and “Arrival of Spring in Mostar”. The picture shows the small Balkan town with the bridge over the Neretva in the middle. The bridge is considered to come from Roman times although it is much younger than that: it was built in the 16th c. during the Turkish occupation.

On both sides of the river, houses with peaked roofs line winding streets. Behind the houses, one can see a hill: it is sharply silhouetted against the sky. Csontv�ry’s picture reflects the view but he rearranged it to make the composition more impressive: he emphasized important motifs and abandoned less important ones. He united two views in order to emphasize characteristic features. The town appears to be desolate and lifeless, the vast silence is a major component. The pellucidly clean greenish water is flowing in a stately way and the glimmering water is surrounded by rocks as if lazily lying animals. Colours of the picture are bright, yet subdued and velvet-like. This is no longer the world of the small town in the Balkans, it is a part of Csontv�ry’s dream world.

This picture, an important milestone in Csontv�ry’s development, as a painter, is connected to the Munich studies in colours, and recalls G�cs in interior where he used to work as a pharmacist. It is not cleared, however, when and where the picture was painted. The style of painting proves that Csontv�ry had a good training: shades of purplish green recall Holl�sy, Csontv�ry’s master. The face indicates strictness, firmness and determination, he looks at us the same way as he saw himself or he wanted to be seen. The composition supports awareness with the logical order of space, colours and light. Although “Self-Portrait” is an early picture of Csontv�ry’s, it reflects a rare artistic attitude.

By 1902-03 the years of preparation were over and Csontv�ry started to paint his series of major works. In his landscapes and city-scapes he struggled with the representation of the complex problem of lighting and colours at dawn. The dramatic contrast between natural and artificial lights, between light and shade in Nature appeared in his compositions as a demonic battle. This painting is also a peculiar mixture of dream and reality. The figures, houses, lights and shades do not belong to the sphere of reality, they constitute a part of Csonv�ry’s personal world.

A descriptive picture like this is highly unusual in Csontv�ry’s oevre. The picture can be considered as a preliminary study for “Baalbek” (1906). It was seriously damaged during the war. Restoration failed to recover its original atmosphere.

The painting evokes the atmosphere of the narrow streets of southern Italy, and was probably made in Naples. The motif of the simple bare-footed young painter drawing a dancing woman on a wall is reminiscent of the young shepherdess of Greek mythology, who draws a portrait of her lover in the sand. This is, perhaps, indicative; Csontv�ry admired the humility of the craftsman more than the arrogance of professional painters.