On a Hill at Zebegény, 1920

The master
Ernő Kállai analysed the painting of Szőnyi as one of the leading ones of his time, in as early as 1926, in his famous book on new Hungarian painting. He had become a highly appreciated master of a whole generation of painters, like Vilmos Aba-Novák, Dávid Jándi, Antal Deli, Jenő Paizs - Goebel, Vince Korda, Erzsébet Korb, Károly Patkó.

The motif
The painting On a Hill at Zebegény is showing the sunlit, harmonical face of Nature, before a storm. Behind the distant trees we can see the Sun going up. The morning light is dressing the land in orange-yellow tones, which is radiating deep calmness, and harmony. The left side of the picture is filled in with one of the characteristic antropomorphic trees by Szőnyi, the tree is protecting a little cottage under it. It is most probable that the setting is the painter's later home, Zebegény, and it means that it is the earliest of his pieces painted there. He moved there in 1923, but he often wandered about in the surroundings of Budapest to find motifs, so he must have discovered the beauty the bend of the Danube by 1920.

Szőnyi in 1920

The year 1920 was an interesting one in his life ; he was sent down from the Academy of Fine Arts beacause of his artistic participation in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. At the same time the young genius received the Great Award of the Szinyei Society, and they even accepted him as a member.

The Nagybánya Tradition and the "Neo" Movement
His artistic start was strongly determined by the Nagybánya School's traditions in landscape painting. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts from 1913 on, his master was Károly Ferenczy from whom he received a scholarship to Nagybánya first. He spent his summers in Nagybánya in 1914, 1917 and 1918. The Landscape with a Horse is another masterpiece by Szőnyi from 1920. However, this Nagybánya is different from Ferenczy's, Réti's Nagybánya. The treatment of colous, and the brave composition is related to the new directions of the Neo movement there. The result altogether is one of the most beautiful early landscape from István Szőnyi's oeuvre.