Idyll Leo Putz

Leo Putz mastered the fundamentals of painting in Munich, under Gabriel von Hackl, and then at the Julian Academy in Paris. Although his teacher in Paris, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, was a representative of academic painting, the
young Putz was greatly influenced by the early works of Édouard Manet and Auguste Renoir. Upon completing his studies, he worked together with Adolf Hölzel in Dachau. After returning to Munich, he threw himself into the sparkling art
scene of the town. In his novel, Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann based one of the characters, Leo Zink, the jokester of Munich society, on Putz. The painter joined the circle of the periodical Jugend, which later published reproductions of many of his paintings. He also became a member of Die Scholle, a Munich association that embraced the spirit of the Secession. Putz’s female portraits and nudes
executed around this time with the technique he mastered at the academy already show the influence of Japanese prints. Between 1928 and 1933, he lived and worked in South America, and the works originating from this period show an affinity with expressionism.
Idyll, one of Putz’s early paintings, clearly belongs to the most important period within his oeuvre. It depicts a couple, probably Putz’s artist friends, rowing in a boat. The woman sitting with her back to the viewer is in a pale pink dress and
dabs her hand in the softly undulating water with a smile on her face, while her love entertains her by playing a flute. There are cliffs in the background and the outlines of a town in the distance. The meandering brushstrokes, intense colours and colour harmony lend a highly expressive tone to this painting, which was included in the Eighth International Art Exhibition in Munich in 1901, and then, in the next year, at the Spring Exhibition at the Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) in Budapest. The Hungarian press praised the composition thus: ‘Marvellously painted water, alive, undulating and gurgling, harmonious lines and unaffected simplicity, these are the strengths [of this piece]’ (Alkotmány [Constitution], 22 April 1902, 2). The
Hungarian state purchased the picture while the exhibition was still running.

Anett Somodi