Page 60 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Budapest

58  INTRODUCING BUD APEST

Exploring Secession Budapest

The Secession movement crossed artistic boundaries,
influencing painting and the decorative arts as well as
architecture. Colourful, sometimes fantastical designs
are instantly recognizable hallmarks of the style. The
Hungarian National Style drew heavily on this general
trend, incorporating motifs from old Hungarian
architecture, particularly that of Transylvania, folk
art and even oriental features.

German and English art. His
finest pictures, which in clude Vase designed by István Sovának,
Golden Age and the mysterious in the Museum of Applied Arts
Adam and Eve, can be admired
in the Hungarian National brickyard in Pécs in southern
Gallery. Lajos Gulácsy was Hungary, not only to cover roofs
influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite but also as a decorative element.
and expressionist movements The owner of this brickyard,
and his pictures are often Vilmos Zsolnay, discovered an
symbolic. Many of his paintings, innovative method of glaz ing
too, can now be viewed in the tiles and ceramics. This proved
Hungarian National Gallery. so successful that the brickyard
The artists’ colony based at was turned into a factory
Gödöllő was an important specializing in their production.
centre for painters working Zsolnay’s factory eventually
in the new Secession style. made most of the vivid and
Its founder, Aladár Körösfői- distinctive pyrogranite ceramic
Kriesch, created numerous tiles covering the Secession
works, including a fresco buildings in the city.
entitled The Fount of Youth Zsolnay also employed
which decorates the Liszt leading designers to create
Academy of Music. ranges of dinner services, vases
and candlesticks. For these he
was awarded the Gold Medal
Decorative Arts
of the Legion of Honour at
New ideas in the decorative arts the World Fair in Paris. And
at this time were closely related at an exhibition organized in
József Rippl-Rónai’s Woman in White- to architectural developments. 1896, to mark the millennial
Spotted Dress (1889), in the Hungarian Ödön Lechner began to make anniversary of the Hungarian
National Gallery use of colour ful ceramic tiles, Kingdom, the factory introduced
acquired from his father-in-law’s its most beautiful pieces.
Paintings and Drawings
Ödön Lechner (1845–1914)
The main exponents of
Secession art in Hungary were The most influential architect of the Hungarian Secession,
József Rippl-Rónai, János Ödön Lechner trained in Berlin before completing his
Vaszary and Lajos Gulácsy. apprenticeship by working in both Italy and France. His quest
Rippl-Rónai spent many years was to create an iden tifiable Hungarian National Style, by
in Paris, at the time when the combining Secession motifs with
Art Nouveau movement was elements from Hungarian folk art
beginning to flourish. Lady in and Hindu designs. The colour ful
Red, which he painted in 1899, ceramics that he often used became
was the first Hungarian painting his signature. Among the buildings
in the Secession style. Many of that Budapest owes to him are the
Rippl-Rónai’s works are on show Museum of Applied Arts, the Post
in the Hungarian National Office Savings Bank and the Institute
Gallery. There is also a tapestry of Geology. Behind the ingenious and
version of Lady in Red in the fantastical exteriors, Lechner’s
Museum of Applied Arts. buildings have wonderfully simple,
The work of János Vaszary Portrait of Lechner functional and superbly lit interiors.
was heavily influenced by both

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