PAÁL, László

Around 1875-76 L�szl� Pa�l painted several pictures of the same topic. The picture space of these compositions is generally closed; in their centre there is a path or road leading the eye into the depth of the field, sometimes a figure is also seen. In this painting the deepness of the forest is illuminated by the sun radiating through the foliage. thus indicating the a presence of the outside world. This masterpiece is a personal and lyrical interpretation of the genre of “paysage intime”.

The art of L�szl� Pa�l gave many original features to Barbizon School. Of the great masters in Pa�l’s time only Millet actually lived in Barbizon, and he followed the activity of the Hungarian artist and the other young painters who worked there with great interest, and was highly appreciative of his passionate paintings. Pa�l’s work was first associated with that of Th�odore. Rousseau and later he was compared with Diaz de la P�na. Yet there is something that makes him quite different from them - his imposing power of rendering, and his highly nostalgic, nature-inspired delineation. In his best works, the romantic approach is combined with a realistic representation and expression of atmospheric effects.

The painting “In the Forest of Fontainebleau” is bathed in sunlight, the forms are strict and there is still a vibrant translucent effect. His palette has an abundance of greens - glistening olives, the pale green of sunlit leaves, the sea-green of moss, the dark green of the deep mysterious forest - these and many more variations of green foliage shimmer in the dancing shafts of sunlight.

Not one of his works was acquired by a museum during his lifetime, and his only official recognition, the “mention honorable” of the Paris Salon came when he was already seriously ill. In 1880 two of his pictures were bought for the collection of the National Museum. Thanks to Elek Petrovics, the Museum of Fine Arts, despite financial difficulties, bought a number of his works during and after the First World War, among them his painting.

L�szl� Pa�l studied in Munich and spent his short, hard life in Paris and the woods of Fontainebleau, where he introduced the principles of the Barbizon school to Hungarian landscape art. he tended to paint tracks, village streets or the fringes of peaceful forests, with lofty or crooked tree trunks bathed in gentle sunlight, the silvery green and sandy brown subtly nuanced, and highlighting afforded by a whitewashed house or the clothing of an old woman in the middle distance. Mildly elegiac moods mattered more to him than visual structure or the division of colours.

Morning in the Forest is one of the masterpieces of the artist’s mature period.

Following the international exhibition held in Munich in 1869, L�szl� Pa�l made an extended study-tour in The Netherlands where he studied the paintings of the Dutch masters especially those of Hobbema and Frans Hals. He stayed in Beilen, a characteristic Dutch village where he executed, among others, this painting.

Although he painted for less than ten years, L�szl� Pa�l became one of the most outstanding figures of Hungarian realistic landscape painting. After studying in Vienna, the Netherlands and Dusseldorf, he settled in Barbizon, where he painted nothing but forest scenes. Besides accurately depicting nature, his painting - sometimes lyrically refined, at other times dramatically disturbing - were also faithful representations of the artist’s state of mind. Poplars (1876), made in Barbizon like Pa�l’s other paintings, is very passionate, and its composition is generously comprehensive - qualities that made Pa�l one of the most important painters of the later period of the Barbizon School.

This work was painted relatively early on in Pa�l’s career. Interrupting his studies abroad, he returned home to Transylvania, where he painted this picture. A girl is walking towards a well on a street running between the whitewashed houses of the small village. There are a few ducks around the well. The composition is built on the contrast between black and white - dark and light colours. The picture radiates a quiet, melancholic mood; looking at the streets and the figure one has a feeling that time stopped in this sleepy, dusty Transylvanian village at the end of the century.

This canvas was painted about 1874, when L�szl� Pa�l found the landscape that remained his biggest inspiration until the end of his life. In the spring of 1873, after finishing his studies in Vienna and D�sseldorf, and a short Dutch period, he settled down in the small village of Barbizon, at fifty kilometres from Paris, and surrounded by great forests. By the time he settled down, this area had been the most popular place for landscape painters in France for forty years. After Rousseau, Corot, Diaz de la Peña, Daubigny, Dupr� and others, Pa�l was deeply touched by the atmosphere of the area. “I have found what my heart has been longing for. I don’t believe there is a more beautiful place on Earth than this,” he wrote in one of his letters.

In May 1873 L�szl� Pa�l settled down in Barbizon. He executed this painting representing the forest in November in the forest of Fontainebleau.

In May 1873 L�szl� Pa�l settled down in Barbizon. He executed this painting representing the forest in November in the forest of Fontainebleau.

The works of L�szl� Pa�l are mainly landscapes with no human figures appearing in then scarcely ever. This painting is an exception in as much as a woman can be seen in the background. In the coexistence of the land and the human being in Pa�l’s oeuvre always the former has importance. The woman is nearly disappearing among the trees, there is nothing, not even her presence, in the picture to disturb the silence and tranquillity of forest.