2. Founding the School

Simon Hollósy had been nursing the idea of a "private academy of fine arts" based on nature studies and organized in Hungary for years. Nevertheless, it is due to a fortunate accident that his dream could become reality in 1896.The first impulse was given by a commission: Máramaros district charged Simon Hollósy to paint the fortress of Huszt. The painter visited Hungary to see the fortress for himself. This is when he came upon the idea of to ask the local János Thorma and István Réti to organize a stay for him and the students of his academy in the summer at Nagybánya.

Finally, the students of the independent school in Munich and the friends of the artist arrived to Transylvania in 1896. During the first summer they were working in a temporary atelier provided by the town. They had to get used to the strong light and to rapidly jotting down their impressions in a natural environment under the constant movement of the sun. The Sermon on the Mount by Károly Ferenczy and the Evening on the slopes by Oszkár Glatz captures very convincingly the special atmosphere of the surroundings.

The commission given by the editor of the weekly called "The Week" was a very important milestone in the history of the colony. József Kiss visited the colony in 1894 in search of illustrators for the deluxe edition of his poems. Most of the drawings and paintings that decorate the book are genres. Among others, the Nothing behind me, nothing ahead of me by Simon Hollósy, the Daphnis és Chloé by Károly Ferenczy, the Moon Rise by Béla Iványi Grünwald was made for this edition.

Those belonging to the school of Nagybánya exhibited their works for the first time in 1897 at the old Palace of Art (Műcsarnok, today's Academy of Fine Arts) in Budapest. The exhibited works reflected the more and more self-confident and liberated experience of plein-air painting. The József Kiss illustrations showed a thorough awareness of contemporary European tendencies. A number of critics (Sándor Bródy, Károly Lyka) gave enthusiastic accounts of the exhibition.

The success of the exhibition strengthened the artists in their decision to make the summer colony at Nagybánya a permanent site for their creative work. In spite of the inevitable inner quarrels and personal conflicts, the school of Nagybánya became an indispensable factor of Hungarian artistic life in a few years time. Step by step, the style and personality of Károly Ferenczy became determinative. In consequence, Simon Hollósy decided to bring his Munich art school to Técső (Tyachev, a village in the upper Tisza region) for summer practice. The structure of the school of Nagybánya was altered after this. István Réti, János Thorma, Béla Iványi Grünwald and Károly Ferenczy opened the Nagybánya Independent Painter's School. The name of the institution was chosen so as to show that the attendance did not require any prior artistical studies. The leaders of the school instructed by turn every summer. István Réti and János Thorma took over the leadership in 1906.

The first generation of Nagybánya painters evolved their aesthetic principles on the bases of pragmatic painterly praxis. They did not strive to adopt any kind of programmatic manifesto to justify their activities. The theoretical background of their creative work was explained by stván Réti much later. The overwhelming effect of the works of art of the first years can be explained with their genuine view of nature. No preconception intervened between the finished paintings and the primary impressions. They didn't perceive the visual experiences through the filter of some consciously built up system. Their subjective emotions served as a filter instead. This is what Nagybánya painters meant by naturalism. This concept of nature became, for decades, a fundamental category of Hungarian fine art.