The Swing (Vacationers, In the Garden)

Szinyei made his firs attempts at "plein-air" painting, the type of representation that aptcures the shimmering atmosphere around the objects, at the same time, but quite independently from the French Impressionists. "The Swing" is one of the most beautiful of the "plein-air" picture sketches he painted in Munich at the beginning of his career. It is a fresh colourful scene with natural, loosely linked figures, the flying swing, sunny walls and patches of sunlight on the dresses.

Just like the Impressionists, Szinyei was also mocked for his originality. One of his colleagues called this picture a "fashion plate" because the figures were in contemporary clothes and not in the traditional historical or folk costumes. Szinyei was so upset that he never painted the full-scale work he had intended. Later he gave it to József Rippl-Rónai who discovered it as an early Impressionist masterpiece.The Neue Pinakothek in Munich offered him 4,000 marks for the sketchs, but he would not part with it. Later, however, he could not resist the 15,000 crowns offered him by Marcell Nemes, the Hungarian art collector who lived in Munich.

The picture came to the Museum of Fine Arts from the legacy of Marcell Nemes.

You can view other representations of the motif "The Swing."