Diary, visual autobiography, and Künstlerroman:
Identity and privacy in the ’Juvenile Diary’ of Bertalan Székely
The article aims at reinterpreting the so-called “Juvenile Diary” of one of the greatest nineteenth-century Hungarian painters, Bertalan Székely, as an autobiographical construction. The diary has a very complex structure, originally consisting of isolated parts fulfilling different functions over the time. First, it served as a sketch-book (around 1855–56, see parts 1 and 2 in the diagram), later as a written painter’s book (1858–1861, see part 3, and 1861–1866, see part 9). In the winter of 1861, Székely filled up the empty spaces in the diary with sketches made in the period 1855–1861 (see parts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). This heterogeneous structure of the “juvenile diary” puzzled many scholars, who could not reconcile the ‘impersonal’ methodological parts with the numerous ‘personal’ sketches. The article argues that the key to understanding the organization of the diary is offered by the function of the sketches added in 1861. Székely inserted them into the diary not only in
a chronological order, but arranged them in order to retrospectively connect the isolated parts of the diary into a coherent “narrative” about the author’s origin, artistic development and events in private life.
Since for Székely, becoming an artist meant not only the acquisition of technical skills, but also building an artistic identity, the parts of the diary concomitantly documented his technical, artistic and personal development. The sketch-book did not simply record the development of his technical skills; its fictional (auto-)biographical series were also part of the gradual construction of the artist’s identity. The painter’s book registered pieces of advise and summarized various painting methods. At the same time, these notes also allowed him to compare his abilities and skills with those of other artists, to legitimize his choice of becoming a painter, to choose among artistic genres, and ways of living.
The process of building up the identity of Székely as an artist developed in different stages, from the readings of fictional (auto-)biographical narratives in a first phase (attentively documented in the diary), to their experimental recreation in the form of fictional autobiographical series. These series demonstrate Székely’s familiarity with contemporary visual and written (auto-)biographies recording the formation and development of a young personality, such as popular visual (auto-)biographies and fictional novels narrating the development of a young personality. Among these Bildungsromans, several belong to the sub-genre of Künstlerroman, which recorded the process of becoming an artist – be it a painter, an actor or a musician. In Künstlerromans, privacy and emotional life hold a crucial role in the process of becoming an artist: they form the basis of artistic creativity by fusing experience and its representation. These visual and written genres can be regarded as social and cultural models facilitating the identity building of an artist (i.e. a painter). This perspective helps us understand the function of Székely’s numerous series representing private life of artists and sketches dealing with love-scenes, or mother-child relations. They document not only his artistic activities, but they also “record” and “visualize” experiences of his private life, as authentic expression of his privacy in his autobiographical construction.
Finally, Székely’s developed interest in various forms of biographies led him to the conscious construction of his own autobiography about his becoming an artist. Thus, based on the various parts of his diary written in the previous period, in 1861 Székely looked back to his own artistic and personal development, and retrospectively inserted into the diary sketches created in the previous years in order to compile a comprehensive ‘narrative’ of his artistic development and private life.
Székely’s “diary” thus developed into a complex autobiographical construction consisting of visual and written parts covering the formative period between 1855–1866. During this time, Székely transited from a student to a young artist completing his training, and finally to a nationally and internationally known artist. In his private life, he matured, fulfilling the roles of a lover, a husband and a father. The diary suggestively documents these interrelated processes. It can be read—from the beginning up to the end—as a ‘narrative’ of his own life from his origins to his artistic maturity, recording his early artistic achievements at the Viennese academy, his sketching tours, his wanderings, the years spent in Munich, exchanges of thoughts and methods with other artists, and the story of his love.
