English Translation of the Árpád Feszty Information Board

The life and work of Árpád Feszty

Árpád Rehrenbeck was born on December 24, 1856, in Ógyalla. His father, Szilveszter Rehrenbeck, took the diminutive form of his first name as his surname due to his strong identification with Hungarian culture: Szilveszter became Veszti, and Veszti became Feszty. The Feszty family was granted a noble title with the prefix Martosi in 1887. At the age of 16, the young Árpád Feszty became a traveling actor, but his creative passion drew him to painting. He was most interested in large-scale historical and religious themes. One such work was Women Mourning at the Tomb of Christ, which won him the State Gold Medal at the Art Gallery in 1889.

To mark the millennium, he and his colleagues created a popular 120-meter panorama of the arrival of the Hungarians between 1892 and 1894. He was also a talented writer, and his collection of short stories was published in 1897 under the title Az én parasztjaim (My Peasants). He married Mór Jókai’s foster daughter, Rózsa Jókai. He lived with his wife and Jóka in a palace on Bajza Street, where the leading figures of the era and the artistic life often gathered. From 1894 to 1902, he lived in Florence, where he painted his composition The Burial of Christ. He preferred to spend the rest of his life on the Adriatic coast, where he died on June 1, 1914, in Lovran. Many of his works can be seen in the Hungarian National Gallery.

How was the Feszty Panorama created?

In 1891, Feszty traveled to Paris, where he saw a panorama painted after the Napoleonic Wars and immediately decided to create one himself. At first, he wanted to paint the biblical legend of the Flood, but at Jókai’s suggestion, he finally chose the arrival of the Magyars and the conquest of the Carpathian Basin as the subject of his painting. In a country feverish with millennium fever, it was not difficult to change the subject. Feszty began his work conscientiously: he researched material in libraries and museums, began corresponding with archaeologists, had oriental costumes brought in, and tried to learn everything he could about the era of the conquest. For the sake of authenticity, he traveled to Munkács and sketched the Verecke Pass, the Munkács Plain, and the sparkling waters of the Latorca River in the real valley. Árpád Feszty created this artistic composition quickly and with a sure hand, and it took two years to paint the enormous picture. Several of his friends and fellow painters helped him with the execution and painting of the details.

Landscape painting experts Ignác Ujvári, László Mednyánszky, Béla Spányi, and Ferenc Olgyai also joined the team. The scenes of camping and tent pitching at the foot of the mountains were painted by Czelestin Pállya, while the horsemen and battle scenes were painted by Pál Vágó. In addition to them, Adolf Barsy, Károly Ziegler, and Dániel Mihalik also took part in the great work. Feszty even involved his own wife, Róza Jókai, whom he had previously forbidden from painting, even though she had also graduated from the Academy in Munich. Róza took on the task of depicting the wounded and the dead. Meanwhile, the foreground was also constructed, merging with the painting to create the illusion that we can still admire today. Thus, the great work was completed on the morning of Saturday, May 12, 1894. The panorama is 120 meters long, 15 meters high, and approximately 38 meters in diameter. Painted on a giant canvas, it depicts more than two thousand figures.

source: Jenő Esztergályos, A magyarok bejövetele (The arrival of the Hungarians)

The relationship between Martos and Feszty

Kingyes-puszta lies 5 kilometers from the village. This is where the farmstead of Árpád Feszty, Mór Jókai’s son-in-law, stood. He often fled here from the hustle and bustle of the capital to rest and create in peace. His collection of short stories, Az én parasztjaim (My Peasants), reveals that he loved the people here and often visited Martos. The admiration was mutual, and the people of Martos composed the following song about him.

Eight gypsies are playing the violin in front of the Martos inn,
Árpád Feszty is walking by, oh, so lonely.

He sent girls and young men to dance,
made brides sing, and enjoyed himself immensely.

Árpád Feszty will be remembered,
and we will remember his pride and kindness.

May God bless him for his loyalty and kindness,
there is no equal on earth to our lord Árpád Feszty.

There are tangible traces of the close relationship between Árpád Feszty and the people of the village. The native inhabitants of Martos served as models for a surprisingly large number of the figures in his famous panoramic painting depicting the arrival of the Hungarians under the leadership of Chief Árpád. The unique folk costumes were commonly worn until the 1960s. When people went to church on Sundays, the village looked like a magnificent flower garden. No wonder that when Árpád Feszty painted his panorama entitled The Arrival of the Magyars, he found the model for the chieftain’s wife in the most beautiful girl in the village. There sits Lidi Bazsó, the most beautiful girl in Martos, on a triumphal chariot drawn by four oxen, and the painter also immortalized many other faces from Martos in the Verecke Pass. He modeled the tribal chiefs, warriors, shamans sacrificing white horses, and the peasant driving the cart on the people of Martos, the latter specifically on János Jóba.

Árpád Feszty invited Mór Jókai several times: Come, Uncle Móricz, see them alive… and the inscription carved into the beam of the farmhouse is proof that he came.

September 18, 1894.
We cannot write, everything is already full. The shelf,

Jókai, Mór, Ordódy and Jankovits
Béla Feszty, Imre Balogh, the faux.

Thousands saw the panorama painting The Arrival of the Hungarians, featuring the chieftain’s wife, but Lidi Bazsó did not, even though she was invited several times.

In the twilight of her life, she finally decided to go, even though she had never wanted to travel to see the painting. In 1943, she was taken to Pest by car because she was already frail. Then, 50 years later, she saw herself, the young wife. All she said was,

„It’s a pity I didn’t listen to Mr. Jókai when he sent word to me, ‘Come, Lidi Bazsó, come and see yourself, I’ll pay for your journey. Come now, while you are still the same.'”

Source: István Zsittnyan, Martos múltja és jelene (The Past and Present of Martos)

„But Papa’s village, still is the neighboring Martos”

„Feszty often told his friends about his great love, the marshy farmstead in Kingyes, where he would disappear from Pest to paint in the quiet surroundings of Martos. Of course, he kept the location of the farmstead a secret, wanting to protect his little empire from any disturbance.”

József MÁCS: A PÁLYATÁRS TISZTELGÉSE FÖLDIJE EMLÉKE ELŐTT – PÓSA LAJOS GAZDAG HAGYATÉKA (A COLLEAGUE’S TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF HIS FELLOW COUNTRYMAN – THE RICH LEGACY OF LAJOS PÓSA) In: Gömöri Hírlap, 2000/25./26./27.

„I have a quiet little farmstead in Kingyes. Where is this Kingyes? It would be pointless to tell you, no one would find it. It is a world surrounded by reeds and floodplains, where no one comes after me except those who love me very much. Between the winding rivers of Vág and Nyitra lies a rustling, overgrown region whose land has not yet been plowed by a plow or broken by a harrow,”

– writes Árpád Feszty in the preface to My Peasants.

„The reeds sometimes rustle horribly on the path. It is as if they are being driven by invisible demons. Now the reeds are not plants and the willows are not trees, but fantastically shaped fairy-tale creatures with a dark, mysterious intelligence and a ghostly will. Suddenly, the carriage creaks beneath us on a small, rickety wooden bridge, and amid the deafening crackling and crunching, we feel the whole world breaking apart beneath us,”

– recalls Géza Gárdonyi in his short story Kingyes, describing the time when he and his companions lost their way in the marshlands near Martos while searching for Árpád Feszty.

„…I can feel my father beside me, as he sits in the red room after dinner, telling me beautiful stories about his native village with unending love, day after day. My father was deeply attached to his village and its people, and the warm, patriarchal relationship that developed between them was truly unique. Actually, Ó-Gyalla is the Feszty family’s home, where our grandfather settled after his eventful youth, but my father’s village is the neighboring Martos.
Gyalla does not have such beautiful traditional dress, it is not so authentically Hungarian, so it did not capture the imagination of the young painter in the same way as Martos, which is more bizarre and primitive, more reminiscent of the time of our Árpád ancestors.

A village that preserves its thousand-year-old traditions, secluded in the pristine purity of its antiquity by the Nitra and Zsitva rivers and a dead branch of the Danube,”

– writes Feszty Masa, daughter of Feszty Árpád, in her 1933 memoir about her father and an unknown ancient Hungarian village.

Árpád Feszty describes the setting of his narrative poem Árva Bandi (Orphan Bandi) in the following lines. It is perhaps not far-fetched to assume that Martos and its surroundings, as well as the people who lived there, inspired him.

On the banks of a reed-covered marsh, far from the village,
Far from the curious noise of people –
Where old trees lean over the water –
Reed beds and lakes rock flowers,
Kiss the foam playing with the sunbeams
The swaying foliage of gnarled willows. –
Where the breezes whisper mysterious tales and secrets to the reeds –
There is a small nest by the reed lake.
A small house with a thatched roof. Its inhabitants are poor.
Yet they live so happily, so cheerfully
In that little thatched house.
They rejoice in summer, they rejoice in winter.
Yet they live only by the grace of God,

They hunt and fish in the reeds,
Humming and singing merrily, both of them.