Francis Berger
  • Blog
  • My Work

What Happens When You Spend Time in Paris - The Shift Into 20th-Century Modernity

4/2/2022

9 Comments

 
Picture
János Vaszary (1867-1939) hailed from a prominent Catholic family in Kaposvár, Hungary. How prominent? Well, his uncle was the Archbishop of Esztergom, which was a very big deal back in those days. 

​Vaszary began pursuing art quite early in his life, and displayed notable technical talent. Yet what makes him particularly interesting as a painter is the remarkable shift in style that basically cleaves the oeuvre of his work into two distinct Jekyll and Hyde-ish parts that I will refer to here as pre-Paris and post-Paris.

Vaszary's pre-Paris paintings comprise those he painted before he moved to the City of Light in 1899. Note the style and subject matter.  
Picture
Peasant Girl in the Garden - 1893 (Not only my favorite Vaszary painting, but one of my favorite Hungarian paintings, full stop.
Picture
The Command Has Arrived (Farewell!) - 1894
And the following paintings exemplify the style shifts Vaszary employed later in his life during and after his return from Paris after the turn of the century. 
Picture
After Bathing - 1903
Picture
French Riveria - 1920
Picture
Nude with Buddha - 1926
Picture
Woman Sitting in the Garden - 1930
Picture
The Morphinist - 1930
9 Comments
Luke
4/2/2022 21:32:57

That's quite startling. From the ones you selected, it appears that there's also a shift after WWI into that who-even-cares-anymore style.

Reply
Francis Berger
4/3/2022 18:47:31

@ Luke - That's a good observation. Modernism, as it relates to art, can be roughly summarized as a the loss of faith in the core institutions of Western civilization, and that certainly was prevalent after the carnage and devastation of the First World War.

Reply
Sue
4/3/2022 01:56:12

I love the first painting. It is so sweet.
Clearly he was spiritually degraded after Paris.
Its a staggeringly huge fall.

Reply
Francis Berger
4/3/2022 18:48:53

@ Sue - Yes, and it seems to follow the same trajectory of so many other painters that lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reply
Lady Mermaid link
4/3/2022 02:18:09

The shift illustrates a spiritual war that lies at the heart of the French nation. On one hand, France has a culture known for loose sexual morals with syphilis being historically known as "The French disease". The worst excesses of the Enlightenment are manifest in the bloodbath of the French Revolution. Those materialistic values still play a prominent role in the West today.

However, there is another destiny for the French nation. It can reject the French Revolution and embrace the legacy of Clovis, St. Louis, Joan of Arc, and the Sacred Heart. This is a France known as the "Eldest Daughter of the Church". I understand that the likelihood of an institutional church making a comeback is slim being that the leadership of most churches, including Rome have apostatized. However, the French people can regain their status as the Eldest Daughter of the Church in a spiritual fashion one man at a time.

Reply
Francis Berger
4/3/2022 18:51:38

@ LM - True. France was very much at the forefront of the modernist movement -- the avant garde, as it were. American writers and artists flocked to Paris in the twenties to soak up the modernist ambiance. On the surface, France - as a nation - seems lost, but one never knows what spiritual possibilities lay hidden in the depths.

Reply
bruce charlton
4/3/2022 08:18:44

It looks like a pretty catastrophic personal moral (sexually-motivated) corruption - being manifested (and excused in a generic fashion) in the painting. A microcosm of the value-trajectory of the entire West.

Reply
Francis Berger
4/3/2022 18:57:46

@ Bruce - Vazary is an example among many that fill that time. Hungarian artists flocked to France in much the same fashion as the Americans and Brits did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I am not familiar with the intimate details of Vazary's biography, but I do know that he was enamored by modernism, and that he worked actively to "make it new" in Hungarian painting in much the same way Ezra Pound had for poetry. I'm interested to know what, if any, personal moral corruption Vazary underwent. As you point out, the movement of his art through the years certainly point in the direction of some kind of severe personal corruption.

Reply
Nathanel
4/5/2022 12:18:01

I don't see anything wrong with the latter paintings? There is more to painting than photographic realism.

Although I think I agree with the sentiment you are pointing to in that there is clearly a distinction between before and after.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Blog and Comments

    Blog posts tend to be spontaneous, unpolished, first draft entries ranging from the insightful and periodically profound to the poorly-argued and occasionally disparaging.
     

    Comments are moderated. Anonymous comments are never published (please use your name or a pseudonym). 

    Emails welcome:

    f er en c ber g er (at) h otm   ail (dot) co m
    Blogs/Sites I Read
    Bruce Charlton's Notions
    Meeting the Masters
    From The Narrow Desert
    Synlogos ✞ Aggregator
    New World Island  
    New World Island YouTube
    ​Steeple Tea
    Berdyaev.com
    Adam Piggott
    Fourth Gospel Blog
    The Orthosphere
    Junior Ganymede

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Picture
    A free PDF is also available in My Work. 
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.