I was in Chelmsford today for the start of the Eastertide Living with other faiths course, which got off to a very positive start, and picked up, second hand, a book on the Hungarian ceramacist, Margit Kovács.
Kovács was born in Győr and a permanent exhibition of her works can be found in the town. She trained in Munich under Karl Killer was influenced by the religious pathos of his work. Her own work treats many religious themes in a style that was influenced by both Byzantine and folk art.
Kovács was part of a movement in Hungarian art that saw religious and hiostorical appearing more frequently from the 1920s onwards. She herself had many significant ecclesiastical commissions including the portals of the Saint Emeric Church of Győr (1939-1940) and the Stations of the Cross at the St Ladislaus Church of Hollóháza.
Reviewers felt that her religious pieces were "imbued with the piety that pervades works by old masters." She appreciated "the human dramas of the Bible" and projected "her own problems and emotional crises" in religious themes. Ilona Pataky-Brestyánszky wrote that Kovács "created for herself a poetic mode of expression with brightly coloured lavish decorations; with nervous, sensitive, undulating, whirling lines; with new rhythm and symbols and with a new mysticism."
Kovács understood her work in Biblical terms saying that "Clay is my daily bread, my joy and my sorrow. At first touch, it became an organic part of my life. And ever since, this material, making its way through my bloodstream, whirls me to heights of delight and, at times, plunges me into the valley of despair." Handling clay was, for her, "the most rapturous activity" and she felt that ceramics served ornamentation, beauty and joy. It's aim, she said, "can only be, and has to be, to express good cheer and joy within the possibilities of the medium."
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Erkki-Sven Tüür - Architectonics VII.
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