Watermill in Argenteuil (1925 körül)
László Medgyes (1892 - 1947/1948)
Signature
Signed bottom right: Medgyés
László Medgyes studied in Budapest and Paris. He lived and worked in Switzerland, Italy and France. In issue 2 of the Hungarian Art Journal 1926, a long article was devoted to the art of László Medgyes, along with his paintings and decorative drawings. George Valdemar writes the following about Medgyes' change of style in the second half of the twenties. In the second half of the twentieth century, the colours of his palette changed. His facture becomes more iron. He achieves an understanding of the craft of oil painting that he had previously lacked. The supple stems and translucent petals of Anemones (1924) are pastose (en pleine pate) painted. His Swiss landscapes of rolling mountain peaks, his lush meadows painted in the manner of folk scenes, his views of tennis courts in the parks of the Palacehotels, these modern castle parks, all testify to the extraordinary versatility of his inspiration. Finally, the series of his Parisi vistas, first exhibited at Devambez in 1925, mark a new era in his development, one in which form dissolves in colour, which breaks and captivates the linear structure. The liberated colour defines the rhythm of the picture'.
The painting above was painted by Medgyes in Argenteul, a north-western suburb of Paris, around 1925. The vivid greens and the cartoonishness of the drawing remind us both of the old drawn postcards and of the paintings of Maurice Utrillo, who himself captured the French mills.