Fountain

Fountain by Béla Iványi-Grünwald from 1904, held at the Rippl-Rónai Museum, depicts an ornamental fountain — a subject belonging to the tradition of garden painting and architectural capriccio that runs from seventeenth-century Italy through to the Impressionist paintings of Parisian parks. A fountain, with its constant movement of water and its stone or ceramic basin, offers a painter simultaneously an architectural subject and a study of reflective, moving water. Iványi-Grünwald may have encountered such a fountain in a Hungarian garden or during one of his study trips to Western Europe. The subject reflects his interest in subjects that combine natural and human-made elements.

The water jet and basin are rendered with fresh, fluid brushwork that captures the movement and transparency of falling water against the more solid treatment of the stone structure. Iványi-Grünwald's palette is high-keyed here, using whites and pale blues to convey the sunlit, reflective quality of the water.