DOI Heft:
Nr. 97 (March, 1905)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26959#0093
.SY/v/Ai- 7^//^
h UDAPEST.—Only within the last ten
) ^ years have the sculptors of Hungary
g succeeded in freeing themselves from
* ^ the rigid conventional style that para-
lysed all originality, and it is but in the last
half-century that plastic art has been practised
with any real success in the other countries of
Europe. The' energies of the Hungarian nation
have, in fact, been so entirely absorbed in the
fierce political struggle that has been going on
so long, that there was little chance of aesthetic
culture receiving any consideration whatever,
and literature alone was able to hold its own
amidst the many conflicting interests absorbing
public attention. Plastic art had to wait for its
revival for more peaceful times, and when at last
these times came in the late 'seventies, the influence
of Germany, so closely associated with Hungary
alike geographically and politically, was for a long
time preponderate, coming out in everything pro-
duced in the latter country. Hungarian students
of painting and of sculpture flocked for instruction
to Munich or Vienna, and on their return after
going through the usual course, they flooded their
native land with work in what may be characterised
as Biedermayer manner. Every public square in
Budapest bears witness to the truth of this in the
monuments that have been erected to those the
people delight to honour, each with its conven-
tional classical group of accessory figures. For-
tunately, however, the rising generation is now
abandoning this hackneyed style with its unreal
sentiment, and is substituting for it original work,
of which beauty of proportion and fineness of
grouping—in other words, truth to nature and
recognition of the limitations of plastic art—are the
leading characteristics.
One of the most talented members of the new
school is Edward Teles, who is a born sculptor,
and achieved a real success with a work exhibited
by him at the Paris Salon in 1900. True, he too
studied at Vienna, but he very soon shook himself
free of the influence of its traditions. His compo-
sitions are remarkable for the absence of unneces-
sary detail, and their thoroughly decorative effect.
He is, indeed, a masterly interpreter of the human
form divine, which lends itself so admirably to
79
h UDAPEST.—Only within the last ten
) ^ years have the sculptors of Hungary
g succeeded in freeing themselves from
* ^ the rigid conventional style that para-
lysed all originality, and it is but in the last
half-century that plastic art has been practised
with any real success in the other countries of
Europe. The' energies of the Hungarian nation
have, in fact, been so entirely absorbed in the
fierce political struggle that has been going on
so long, that there was little chance of aesthetic
culture receiving any consideration whatever,
and literature alone was able to hold its own
amidst the many conflicting interests absorbing
public attention. Plastic art had to wait for its
revival for more peaceful times, and when at last
these times came in the late 'seventies, the influence
of Germany, so closely associated with Hungary
alike geographically and politically, was for a long
time preponderate, coming out in everything pro-
duced in the latter country. Hungarian students
of painting and of sculpture flocked for instruction
to Munich or Vienna, and on their return after
going through the usual course, they flooded their
native land with work in what may be characterised
as Biedermayer manner. Every public square in
Budapest bears witness to the truth of this in the
monuments that have been erected to those the
people delight to honour, each with its conven-
tional classical group of accessory figures. For-
tunately, however, the rising generation is now
abandoning this hackneyed style with its unreal
sentiment, and is substituting for it original work,
of which beauty of proportion and fineness of
grouping—in other words, truth to nature and
recognition of the limitations of plastic art—are the
leading characteristics.
One of the most talented members of the new
school is Edward Teles, who is a born sculptor,
and achieved a real success with a work exhibited
by him at the Paris Salon in 1900. True, he too
studied at Vienna, but he very soon shook himself
free of the influence of its traditions. His compo-
sitions are remarkable for the absence of unneces-
sary detail, and their thoroughly decorative effect.
He is, indeed, a masterly interpreter of the human
form divine, which lends itself so admirably to
79