1900 The Turn of the Century
EUROPEAN PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
Katherine McDowell

The highly publicized exhibition of Belgian Symbolist art currently on display at the Fine Arts Museum, Budapest greatly overshadows a little-known treasure trove of work by some of the most famous artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Modestly tucked away at the back of the museum, the Department of Prints and Drawings is currently displaying lithographs, etchings, woodcuts and sketches by 52 renowned European artists in the first of a new series revealing their fabulous collection.

Women Washing Clothes on the Riverbank, Paul Signac, 1895

Evincing names as impressive as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Käthe Kollwitz, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Edvard Munch, this exhibition is a fascinating assortment of fine finished works in their own right as well as minor sketches for later pieces.
For many art-lovers, the decades before and after 1900 mark the most exciting evolutionary period in art history, and these artists, mostly painters, remain the premiere purveyors of that important era. As the world shifted from "gentleness" to "barbarism" - as the authors of the day wrote - so too did art, resulting in a wide variety of styles, overlapping and inspiring each other. By placing the works of these artists side by side, this presentation reflects their collective search for new influences, and their experimentation with an unconventional medium - the print.

Seated Clown, Toulouse-Lautrec, 1896

Strolling along the isles of this long room filled with glass cases containing the powerful images, widely studied in art history courses the world over, one journeys from tender Impressionism, explorational Primitivism, and allegorical Symbolism to spontaneous Expressionism. Since most of these celebrated artists are represented by no more than 3 or 4 prints or drawings, this exhibition can only be thought of as a teasing sampler - a modest toe dipped in the water of a very rich pool of turn of the century masterworks. All of the exhibited works are acquisitions of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.

Spring, Heinrich Vogeler, 1896

Admirers of Impressionism will adore Degas' lithograph, Out of the Bath, 1891, for its untraditional gesture of a woman drying herself created in soft loose lines. Similarly crafted are the gentle figures created in several lovely color lithographs by another French artist, Renior.
Important links from 19th century aesthetics to a more modern style can be found in the thick outlines, simplified forms and disregard for perspective in Gauguin's Breton Women Beside a Fence, 1889.
Paul Signac also broke away from pure Impressionism with his distinctive style of Divisionism - developing images with small dots of color, blended not on the canvas but by the eye - as shown in his Women Washing Clothes on the Riverbank, 1895.

Riot, Käthe Kollwitz, 1897

Perhaps the most thrilling discovery of the museum's print collection is their ownership of 226 works by Toulouse-Lautrec, of which 6 outstanding color lithographs are currently on display.
In Seated Clown, 1896, he sincerely portrays the melancholic, often humorous and erotic world of Paris nightlife with bold lines, solid colors, and intuitive caricatures.
Framed by flowers in a decorative manner, Heinrich Vogeler's etching, Spring, 1896, was inspired by legendary tales.
For this allegorical illustration, he used his future wife as the model, and the landscape surrounding her resembles northern Germany, where they lived.
The German artist, Käthe Kollwitz and Norwegian, Edvard Munch both created emotionally charged imagery - the former more politically and the later more psychologically. In the lithograph Riot, 1897,

Jealousy, Edvard Munch, 1896

Kollwitz uses art as a medium for her fervent social concern - espousing the plight of the poor and oppressed. As can be observed in Jealousy, 1896, Munch uses art as a vehicle for investigating and articulating his own intense personal turmoil. Both were too controversial to be fully accepted by the conservative art world at the time, thus making them immensely popular with the growing numbers of artists who were starting to defy convention.

Two Girls Embracing, Egon Schiele, 1915

Egon Schiele ventured headlong into abstract Expressionism with no fear, creating sensual and often explicit images expressing dark human emotions with unflattering, angled lines. In Two Girls Embracing, 1915, he makes no moral judgment of the lesbian couple, nor does he present a pleasing endorsement; the image is free for interpretation, the power lies completely in the expressive execution.
The vast array of imagery to be found in this presentation range from playful and romantic to disturbing and provocative, but they share the common threads of unique vision and permanent force characteristic only of masterworks.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest is exhibiting "1900 The Turn of the Century" from October 25, 2001 to February 24, 2002. Regular admission to the museum is only HUF 500. A catalogue, published in Hungarian and English in one volume, is available at a relatively low price in the bookstore.
November 2001