1853 -1919 · Hungary, Mediterranean and painting of the "solar path"

Monumental cedars, visionary colors and landscapes traveled make Csontvâry a solitary voice of Hungarian modernity.

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka was born in Kisszeben, today Sabinov in Slovakia, in 1853 and died in Budapest in 1919. A pharmacist by training, he decided late to become a painter after an inner experience which he interpreted as the announcement of an exceptional vocation. He worked to ensure his financial independence, then studied in Munich with Simon Hollósy and continued his training in Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf and Paris. From the 1890s, he traveled tirelessly: Dalmatia, Bosnia, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon provided him with sites where light, architecture and vegetation took on an almost cosmic intensity. Csontváry called his research the "solar path ": color not only copies the day, it reveals a spiritual energy present in the landscape. Pilgrimage to the cedars of Lebanon transforms the ancient tree into a ritual center around which figures, dance and horizon are ordered. On the contrary, his Self-Portrait confronts the viewer with a concentrated face, modeled by powerful tones. Baalbek, The Lonely Cedar and the Views of Mostar are among the peaks of a brief production of around a hundred paintings. Little understood in Hungary during his lifetime, exhibited in Paris, Csontvâry also writes prophetic and aesthetic texts. Saved from dispersion after his death, his work appears today as a singular link between the outdoors, symbolism, post-impressionism and modern expression. The "Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka" selection notably compares Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon and Self-portrait. His reading favors composition.

Csontváry does not paint the light placed on the world: he seeks the solar force which seems to animate him from within.