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Ok then! You can shoot now… thank you

How did artist on the front see WWI? The museum in Kecskemét offers a perspective on this.

After the outbreak of the First World War the Headquarters the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Army created a unit of artists (Kunstgruppe) within the Press Headquarters whose task was to record military events. This exhibition in Kecskemét offers an overview of their works.

One of the most significant parts of the museum’s collection is the István Farkas– Ferenc Glücks inheritance, which provides an insight into the oeuvre of three of the most significant Hungarian artists: László Mednyánszky, István Farkas and István Nagy. The museum exploits this sizable collection when it shows the First Wolrd War through the paintings, charcoal and sketch books drawings of these three artists.

The most famous pictures in the exhibition are those of László Mednyánszky’s (1852–1919), who was, by the time of the outbreak of the war, in his sixties. He made his pictures while serving in the Kriegspressequartier (Press Headquarters). He started the work on 7 September 1914 and was moving with the front line touring the major battlefields from Austrian Galicia and Serbia to Russia, Italy and South-Tirol. While enjoying taking a break from the front he was trying to reflect on his front line experience in his atelier and also displayed the results of this at exhibitions in Vienna, Villach and in Budapest. His enthusiasm about the war partly stemmed form his interest in vagabonds and in any form of human suffering, physical or mental. He quested the animalistic features of human nature and was also fascinated about behaviour when humans are vulnerable to extreme situations. “What I experience and hear here is so great and frighteningly beautiful that even the greatest drama writers would not be able to help their readers understand it.” Mednyánszky wanted to see action and drama, however, these were scarce in his presence. Moving with Ordonance and Supply, he mostly saw captives, trenches, PoW camps and the landscape as well as the old buildings which provided an environment for the war. These were the topics and motifs he could depict.

There are plenty of anecdotes about Mednyánszky’s life on the front. Here is one of these: “ towards the end of the war I spent long months on the Italian front, in the front line, amid the most intense cannon and gun fight. Mednyánszky’s tall figure and his hat pushed back on his head were well-known on both sides of the front line. Yes, on both sides, since trenches were so close to each other in some parts of the Italian front that the Italians could observe the artist, who was making his sketches and drawings with inspired enthusiasm, and who, occasionally, foolhardily sat down on a protruding rock disregarding the bullets whizzing past his head. One day the Italian side was preparing for an attack when the officer who was charged with observing the front noticed Mednyánszky sitting and drawing in total self-absorption. Driven by his respect to and enthusiasm about art and the artist, he shouted over through his megaphone shaped hands: Hey, old painter! Go back, we are about to fire! Mednyánszky looked up and shouted back in a friendly manner: Grazie mille, gentlemen! Una piccolo pazienza… Just a couple of brushes, and I’m ready with the picture… there we go… thank you! You can shoot now!” (Békés István)

István Farkas (1887–1944) volunteered to join the Austro-Hungarian army in 1915. He served as a gunner and later as a reconnaissance officer and depicted the ordinary soldiers and their life as well as the battlefields of the war. His so-called Black Sketchbook contains 69 pages of drawings with different techniques from the period of 6 March and 14 May 1916. Although a naturalist approach to recording the events is clearly visible in these drawings, formalist questions are also raised here. Stylization of the heads, for example, might not have only been forced by what he had learnt in Paris and Munich, but also by time constraints under the circumstances of a military operation. Looking at these closely, it is not difficult to see the features of cubism or art nouveau and even, to a certain extent, those of the cartoons. Farkas participated in exhibitions of the Press Headquarters in Vienna and in Budapest between 1916 and 1918.

His war diary reads: “Whatever a painter can ask for is offered any time of the day in Skopje, a movement of a man, as he is sitting, standing, where he is standing or squatting or lying, giving water to his horse or selling his tobacco in a Turkish manner. One could spend hours, days at one bridge. A man with white beard wearing a turban, what colours! (..) when I work it annoys me if they shoot over my head. (...) It’s hard to sketch while this is going on. (…) The blast is terribly strong at the moment of firing. It drove the cotton out of my ears and my nearly ready sketch disappeared almost entirely, it blew away the charcoal so strongly. Only very quick sketches could be made there.

This exhibition featuring the Kunstgruppe gives an interesting retrospective view of the war through the members’ artistic approach.

OK THEN! YOU CAN SHOOT NOW… THANK YOU. LÁSZLÓ MEDNYÁNSZKY, ISTVÁN FARKAS AND ISTVÁN NAGY IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

KECSKEMÉT, CIFRA PALOTA

FROM 31 July 2014.

Curator: László Gyergyádesz jr.