István Réti

István Réti (26 December 1872 – 17 January 1945) was a Hungarian painter, professor, art historian and leading member, as well as a founder and theoretician, of the Nagybánya artists' colony, located in what is present-day Baia Mare, Romania.

Returning to Nagybánya, Réti painted his first significant work, Bohémek karácsonyestje idegenben (Christmas Night of the Bohemians Abroad) (1893).

Although Réti moved to Budapest in 1913 to teach at what is now the University of Fine Arts, he continued making improvements to the Nagybánya school during the summers.

[2] In his first phase as a painter, Réti was chiefly interested in light and interiors, especially lamps or sunlight streaming through windows, as shown in Gyötrődés (Cacophony), 1894; Öregasszonyok (Old Women, 1900); and Kenyérszelés (Slicing the Bread, 1906).

In 1899 he produced one of his best-known canvases, Honvédtemetés (Burial of a Hungarian Soldier), which referred to the 1848 revolution; the unity of the landscape and people is bound together by the grey of the dusk.

[2] In his later years, Réti worked relatively slowly, taking long breaks between paintings and undertaking theoretical preparation for each new one.

[4] Scholars consider his writings on aesthetics, influenced by Benedetto Croce and Henri Bergson, to have had a more profound effect on other artists than did his painting or teaching activities.