FÉNYES, Adolf - b. 1867 Kecskemét, d. 1945 Budapest - WGA

FÉNYES, Adolf

(b. 1867 Kecskemét, d. 1945 Budapest)

Hungarian painter, who studied in Budapest, Weimar and Paris, then returned to Weimar, and finally, came back to Budapest. He first exhibited in 1895. After 1898 he spent the summers in Szolnok, from autumn until the spring he lived in Budapest. Among his early works the most famous are his one and two-figure compositions depicting poor people. During the first decades of the 20th century he turned towards more cheerful and colourful subjects; he painted genres and still-lifes. During and after the First World War Biblical themes became important in his art. Disheartened by the events of the Second World War he lived in seclusion and hardly worked at all.

Brother and Sister

This is the most mature picture of his post-impressionistic period. The composition of the picture is simple and clear, the two figures in a triangle are composed in a single plane in front of the light blue background airily painted: a peasant girl wearing a red skirt and a white head square is embracing her younger brother with a brown hat. The sky-blue of the apron and the somewhat darker blue of the background produce a beautiful contrast with the yellow blouse, the yellow earthenware pot and the plate. The picture is dominated by F�nyes’ bright colours and stylization. The silhouette of figures in the plain background and the composition of the picture synthethize F�nyes’s colourist-decorative intentions.

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Forenoon in a Provincial Town

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Peasant Girl Bringing Basket

The courtyard of the farm house depicted in this painting is a recurring motif in the paintings of F�nyes, it is also represented in his masterpiece, the Bean Huskers, displayed in the Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest.

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Poppy-seed Cake

F�nyes painted this still-life during his second, more cheerful and colourful period. The physical environment of the Hungarian bourgeoisie in the beginning of the 20th century is depicted in these still-lifes. The popularity of these pictures at that time was due to the fact that those who purchased them recognized their own environment in these paintings. The gentle use of Art Nouveau by which F�nyes created a definite rhythm of the composition contributed to their success. This rhythm is prevalent both in the colours - which seem to correspond with one another - and in the forms. Every element in this composition is subordinated to the concept of strict symmetry.

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Shelling Beans

“Shelling Beans” is one of the most beautiful of F�nyes’s sunny pictures. It is a good example of the painter’s Impressionism. He enhanced the subject matter, an everyday one of three figures husking beans in a village yard, to an ecstatic spectacle. In the delicately tinted picture, reflexes of colours, greyish, bluish and pinky shades are clearly visible which divide the canvass into patches of colours. Due to the sunshine which can substract colours and make even shadows colourful, the picture is rich in colours: shades of red, ultramarine and blues are mixed with grey. His composition is not based only on forms arranged in space, but on the ability of the sun to change colours. Independently of painters of the Nagyb�nya school, F�nyes was engaged in similar problems as e.g. Ferenczy in the colours of “October” or “Sunny Morning”.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No 5

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