János Thorma (24 April 1870 – 5 December 1937) was a Hungarian painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

. A representative figure of the Nagybánya artists' colony, his work progressed from naturalism, to historical subjects, to romantic realism

Romantic realism

Romantic realism is an aesthetic term that usually refers to art which combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another....

 to a Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism

Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...

 of a style specific to Nagybánya (today Baia Mare

Baia Mare

Baia Mare is a municipality in northwestern Romania and the capital of Maramureş County. The city is situated about 600 kilometres from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, 70 kilometres from the border with Hungary and 50 kilometres from the border with Ukraine...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

).

Born in Kiskunhalas

Kiskunhalas

- Railroad :The city is an important railway junction. It crosses the Budapest-Subotica-Belgrade railway line. The Kiskunfélegyháza railway ends in Kiskunhalas.- Name :...

, Kingdom of Hungary

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

, Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

 to the tax agency cashier Béla Thorma and his wife Gizella Fekete, Thorma moved with his family to Nagybánya at the age of 14. He began to study art at Bertalan Székely

Bertalan Székely

Bertalan Székely was a Hungarian Romantic painter of historical themes. "The Discovery of Louis II's Dead Body", "Women of Eger", "Battle of Mohács", "Ladislas V" are among the most important of his historical paintings. Szekely is also known for his many murals.-External links:* *...

's drawing school, continuing to learn under Simon Hollósy

Simon Hollósy

Simon Hollósy ; was a Hungarian painter. He was considered one of the greatest Hungarian representatives of 19th century Naturalism and Realism. Hollósy was not productive as an artist: he was in search of atmospheres and his productivity was confined to teaching...

 at Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 from 1888 to 1890. In 1891 and 1893-95 he worked at the Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

 in Paris. His first significant painting, Szenvedők ("The Bereaved"), was exhibited at the Budapest Art Gallery, then at the Paris Salon in 1894. In 1896, on the occasion of the millennium of the Magyars' conquest of Pannonia, he presented his painting about The 13 Martyrs of Arad

The 13 Martyrs of Arad

The 13 Martyrs of Arad were the thirteen Hungarian rebel honvéd generals who were executed on October 6, 1849 in the city of Arad, Kingdom of Hungary , after the Hungarian Revolution was ended by troops of the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia, who reestablished Habsburg rule over the area...

, Aradi vértanúk ("The Martyrs of Arad"), which gained him nationwide renown. In 1896 he was one of the founders of the Nagybánya artists' colony, and from 1902-27 he was a teacher at the Nagybánya Painters' Association, becoming its president in 1917. In 1898 he began to paint Talpra magyar! ("Rise up, Hungarian!"), on which he worked intermittently almost to his death.

His first paintings were naturalistic, and an early inspiration was Jules Bastien-Lepage

Jules Bastien-Lepage

Jules Bastien-Lepage , was a French naturalist painter, a style related to the Realist movement.-Life and work:...

, whose most popular work, the Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, he used in 1892 as a model in painting Irén Biltz; the result bore the characteristic atmosphere of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

. However, he felt that naturalism offered him too little to achieve his goals as a painter, and already as a young man drew inspiration from German romanticism ("The Bereaved", 1892) and French classicism ("The Martyrs of Arad", 1893–94). In 1897, following a long trip to Western Europe, he painted his Biblical subjects (including Békesség veletek – "Pax vobiscum"), which show the influence of Rembrandt.

After 1900, Thorma's work turned toward realism

Realism (visual arts)

Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...

 (Kocsisok között – "Among the Coachmen", 1902; Október elsején – "On the First of October", 1903; Kártyázók – "The Card-Players", 1904). In 1906-07 he was under Spanish influence (Cigányutca – "The Gypsies' Street", 1907), while for a brief period around 1910 Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

 inspired him (Húsvéti kenyérszentelés – "The Blessing of the Bread", Templombamenők – "People Going toward Church", both ca. 1910). After 1920 he developed his own en plein air

En plein air

En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...

style, based on his substantial knowledge of painting and employing certain elements of neo-classicism (Tavasz – "Spring", ca. 1920; Fürdés után – "After Bathing", 1928). In the last decade of his life, he painted very beautiful impressionistic landscapes and portraits without restrictions.

In 1918 he took his historical works to Hungary expecting the Romanian invasion at the end of World War I and stored them in Debrecen

Debrecen

Debrecen , is the second largest city in Hungary after Budapest. Debrecen is the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar county.- Name :...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 afterwards. After the Treaty of Trianon

Treaty of Trianon

The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...

, only he remained in the region, all other Hungarian painters left. He had to continue the "official Nagybánya school" that he had never represented before.

In September 1929, Thorma, aged 59 and until then a bachelor, married his disciple and distant relative Margit Kiss. He died in Baia Mare eight years later.

Further reading

• Művészeti lexikon. 2 Ed.: László Éber. Budapest : Andor Győző, 1926. Thorma János l. pp. 531–532.
• Művészeti lexikon. Vol. 4. Chief ed. Anna Zádor and István Genthon. Budapest : Akadémiai Kiadó, 1966. Thorma János l. pp. 538.
• Piktorok városa, Nagybánya. (Nagybánya painters). Szerkesztő-rendező: Nagy T. Katalin. Budapest : Duna Televízió, 1997. (Duna TV Videostore).

External links

• Thorma, János, Fine Arts in Hungary