“Secret Island”, one of only a dozen or so paintings by the Hungarian master Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka that is privately owned, is soon to be auctioned, and the enigmatic work has set a record starting price for a Hungarian painting at auction.
Budapest art trader Virag Judit Gallery has set the starting price for Tivadar Csontvary Kosztka’s (1853-1919) work in the December 19 sale at 160 million forints (EUR 440,000).
The painting dating from 1903 is one of Csontvary’s “most enigmatic” works, art historian Anna Kelen told a press conference on Tuesday.
To quote the paper provided by the gallery:
Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry is one of the greatest, but also one of the most distinctive figures in Hungarian art. This statement, which at first sight seems contradictory, is not wrong. The apothecary from Gácsi is one of the few painter giants of the second half of the 19th century who were able to depict the decline of old Europe and the birth of a new modern civilisation with poignant, dramatic power and in a way that is still valid today. Like Puvis de Chavannes, Henri Rousseau or even Paul Gauguin, Csontváry was born and worked on the borderline between these two eras. The mystery of their painting can be explained precisely by the coexistence of the strikingly different painterly languages of these two ‘worlds’. They were prophets who carried with them the memory of old Europe, full of myths and beliefs, and saw the new, profane reality of modern civilisation, of all aspects of life. Csontváry, like some of his contemporaries, did not accept the limitations of the modern age.
Csontváry became a myth-maker. Transcending the banal realities of the profane world, he strove to create a new transcendental world view that embraced the universe. And although his efforts ran up against the incomprehension of his time, he pursued his own creative programme with a conviction and faith that is astonishing even a century later. It is this myth-making that predestines Csontváry’s oeuvre not only to be appreciated by the art history of our country, but to be regarded as a work of European significance, like the oeuvre of his colleagues mentioned above. Although the international discovery of Csontváry’s greatness is still to be made, it can be said without exaggeration that his life’s work will one day be part of the history of the European Union. in the Pantheon, which is home to the works of these world-famous artists.
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