New Order – New Youth

Reception of History of Ideas on Károly Kernstok’s Youngster Nude

Abstract

In my paper I attempt to analyse youngster nudes of Károly Kernstok by the methodology of iconography-iconology. My aim is to explore the movements of the history of ideas in the background of the pictures, the anthropological and childhood historical motifs on the masterpieces. For that I try to describe the main philosophical (evolutionism, social darwinism, social democratism, objective idealism), aesthetical (Leó Popper, György Lukács, Lajos Fülep, Anna Lesznai) and painting (Cézanne, Fauvism, Gaugain, Secession) movements which influenced Kernstok’s painting. First of all I define the relevant intellectual connections between the Eight, the „Nyolcak” and the popular theoretical – ideological trends of early 20th century, and after that I reveal the common motifs of these trends and the reform pedagogy, life-reform and child study movement; in my analyses I made a great use of my revelations concerning to the intellectual – ideological – aesthetical receptions in the art of the „Nyolcak” and Kernstok. Finally, in my analyses I conclude that the young boys on Kernstok’s canvases carry and advertise themselves the world of new order and new values through the manifestation of the evolutionist, positivist fact and idealist idea of growth, and the fact and idea of growth are connected with the child study and life-reform movement too. 

Photo: Web Gallery of Art