Czóbel Béla Pipás Önarckép Tus, Ceruza, Papir. 26x20.5cm 

Béla Czóbel made this self-portrait drawing with ink and pencil on paper. The rough style of the drawing, the barest suggestion of form, relates to the expressionistic and Fauvist styles that Czóbel explored in the early twentieth century, especially during his time in Paris. The Fauves sought to liberate painting from its traditional role of representing nature accurately. Instead they wanted to express the artist’s subjective feeling. As such, this drawing may not be as interested in the specifics of Czóbel’s appearance as in the emotional and psychological experience of seeing oneself. In this context, the pipe becomes a key symbol of the artist, alluding to bohemianism, masculinity, and intellectualism. It presents the artist as a thinker, even a rebel, someone who is challenging the artistic conventions of the time. To understand more about the social context of this work, we might look into the history of Expressionism and the rise of modernism in Hungary.