Between: hungary

Showing posts with label hungary. Show all posts

Monday, 8 May 2023

Artlyst: The Art Diary May 2023

My May diary for Artlyst includes mention of Joe Tilson, Alastair Gordon, Dennis Creffield, Jim Ede, Michael Petry, Marcus Lyon, Anne Redpath, Passion Arts, Jake Lever, Evelyn de Morgan, Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian, Ervin Bossányi and Manoucher Yektai:

'Ervin Bossányi: Stained Glass Artist will explore the art of the Hungarian artist in the collections of St Peter’s College Oxford and the stained glass of the College Chapel. Bossányi left Germany for Britain before the Second World War, aware that his family and work would be under threat had he stayed. He joined the large number of émigré artists arriving in Britain, many of whom were Jewish, many of whom explored spirituality within their work, and many of whom would, like Bossányi, receive church commissions in the post-War period. Among his peers in some of these respects were the muralist Hans Feibusch, mosaicist Georg Mayer-Marten, sculptor Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, ceramicist Adam Kossowski, and painter Marian Bohusz-Szyszko. In his life and art, Bossányi fused influences from Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism to create a vision of harmonious, unified human societies that were at one with the natural world. This is a profound and profoundly moving vision of life based both on his experience of peasant life in Hungary and the influence of the art of non-European civilisations. It was a vision forged in a time of great conflict and division, which had a significant personal impact on Bossányi.'

For more on Ervin Bossányi click here, Joe Tilson click here, Alastair Gordon click here, Marcus Lyon click here, and Passion Arts click here.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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U2 - Bad.

Friday, 20 May 2022

Remembering Ervin Bossányi, Stained Glass Artist

I'm looking forward to taking part in this event dedicated to Hungarian-born artist Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975), best known for his amazing stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral.

Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975) was born in a small village in southern Hungary and educated in Budapest. He worked as a painter and sculptor mainly in northern Germany until his forced emigration in 1934. In due course, he would establish a new career as a notable stained glass artist in England. He created stained glass windows for Senate House Library, University of London, the Tate Gallery (‘The Angel Blesses the Women Washing the Clothes’), the Victoria and Albert Museum (‘Noli me tangere’), as well as for York Minster, the President Woodrow Wilson memorial chapel in Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC and Canterbury Cathedral, among others.

Art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, founding director of Insiders/Outsiders Festival, will lead a panel discussion with family members, stained glass experts and others to explore the extraordinary life and unique cultural contribution of this still too little-recognised artist.

Panel participants:

Ilona Bossányi: granddaughter of Ervin Bossányi
Revd Jonathan Evens: Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell, who writes regularly on visual arts and has a special interest in émigré artists who worked for the Church
Alfred Fisher MBE: stained glass artist, who worked with Bossányi
Caroline Swash: stained glass artist and author of The 100 Best Stained Glass Sites in London

The event is free but registration via Eventbrite is required - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remembering-ervin-bossanyi-stained-glass-artist-tickets-339927070017. Doors open at 6.00 pm, event starts at 6.30 pm. The event is hosted by the Liszt Institute London,

17-19 Cockspur St, London SW1Y 5BL.

Read my Artlyst interview with Ilona Bossányi here, my Artlyst article on Refugee artists here, and my Church Times article on émigré artists who worked for the Church here.

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Keith Green - Stained Glass.

Friday, 31 December 2021

Church Times: Young Poland at the William Morris Gallery

My latest review for Church Times is of the Young Poland exhibition at the William Morris Gallery:

'The French artist Maurice Denis, in an address on “New Directions in Christian Art” published by the Revue des Jeunes in February 1919, referred to “the sumptuous glass windows of the Pole Mehoffer in Fribourg” as one example, among others, giving hope of a post-war revival in Christian art.

Józef Mehoffer was a collaborator with Stanisław Wyspiański in Young Poland (Mloda Polska), an Arts and Crafts movement with strong stylistic and philosophical affinities to the work of William Morris, John Ruskin, and their followers in Britain. These affinities were strong within Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to their exploration through the “Young Poland” exhibition at the William Morris Gallery, these affinities also feature currently at the Hungarian National Museum in “The Beauty of Utopia. Pre-Raphaelite Influences in the Art of Turn-of-the-Century Hungary”, which focuses on the Gödöllo artists’ colony founded by Aladár Körösfoi-Kriesch. Denis noted a further influence in the conversion of the Belgian art critic Bruno Destrée, in part through the influence of the works of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones.'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here.

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Henryk Gorecki - O Domina Nostra.

Thursday, 16 September 2021

Artlyst: Ilona Bossanyi interview

My latest interview for Artlyst is with Ilona Bossanyi, granddaughter of the Hungarian émigré artist Ervin Bossanyi:

'Earlier this year I wrote an article about the extent to which artworks in the UK by émigré artists are- under threat, with some requiring urgent restoration and others in buildings that have been closed. Ilona Bossanyi, granddaughter of the Hungarian stained glass artist Ervin Bossanyi, contacted me after reading that article, in which her grandfather was mentioned, as she was concerned about the fate of the stained-glass window that her grandfather had created for the Tate Gallery...

The difficulties émigré artists such as Bossanyi have faced over the years, including the difficulty of receiving appropriate recognition posthumously, is demonstrated by the many strains seen in the story of how An Angel Blessing the Washerwomen of Chartres first came to the Tate and of its subsequent reception...

Yet, as with work by many other émigré artists, a lack of recognition, both of their work and stories, continues into the present even, at times, on the part of institutions that hold such works in trust for future generations.'

The Church Times article that attracted Ilona Bossanyi's interest was based on a conference held at St John's Waterloo to raise awareness about the threat to works by Hans Feibusch and other emigre artists. That article can be found at - https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/11-june/features/features/debt-owed-to-jewish-refugee-art.

See also my Artlyst articles on Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others and

Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Articles -

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Keith Green - Stained Glass.

Tuesday, 31 August 2021

Arts and Crafts influences within Britain, Hungary and Poland

Several exhibitions this autumn explore the unexpected example of cultural exchange between Britain, Hungary and Poland through the influence of John Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Beauty of Utopia. Pre-Raphaelite influences in the Art of Turn-of-the-century Hungary at the Hungarian National Gallery is a complement to Desired Beauty, their exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate Collection. Art in nineteenth-century Hungary was primarily shaped by Austrian, German, and French influences. However, the British-Hungarian relations that developed at the turn of the century facilitated the productive effect of Pre-Raphaelite art, the Arts and Crafts movement and numerous English artists on Hungarian literature, fine and applied arts as well as in architecture. The most notable influence of the Pre-Raphaelites was manifest in the ars poetica of the Gödöllő artists’ colony and the early period of Lajos Gulácsy’s oeuvre, but other Hungarian artists also drew inspiration from their English contemporaries.

The exhibition documents the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites in Hungary in four thematic groups: the works made by the Gödöllő artists’ colony, the paintings of Lajos Gulácsy’s “Pre-Raphaelite period”, the English influences in Hungarian art at the turn of the century, and also Pre-Raphaelite prints and drawings that are of major significance in the history of the museum’s collection, including pieces by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Walter Crane.

Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch founded the Tolstoyan, Symbolist – Art Nouveau artist colony in 1901, after settling in Gödöllő. The art theoretical writings of the art critic John Ruskin, who was of great importance for the Pre-Raphaelites, also fundamentally shaped the ars poetica of Körösfői, and his book on Ruskin and the English Pre-Raphaelites was published in Budapest in 1905. Laura Kriesch (Mrs Sándor Nagy), Leo Belmonte, Rezső Mihály, Árpád Juhász, István Zichy, Ödön Moiret, Jenő Remsey, Tom von Dreger, Ede Wigand Toroczkai, Ferenc Sidló and Mariska Undi were among the members.

The oeuvre of the Gödöllő artists’ colony is also presented with its antecedents harking back to the romantic historicism of the English Pre-Raphaelites, as well as to the work of William Morris, who revived handicraft traditions and initiated the Arts and Crafts movement, and also in the art and activity of Walter Crane. In the spirit of all the artistic aspirations of the period, works were made in many branches of fine and applied arts in Gödöllő: paintings, murals, graphics, sculptures, furniture, embroidery, textiles, tapestries, glass windows, costume designs, book illustrations and art books.

Lajos Gulácsy spent most of his narrow creative years, almost a decade and a half, in Italy. During this time, he lived and worked in numerous Italian cities. Moving away from space and time, he created a unique literary and pictorial atmosphere. The subject of his admiration between 1903 and 1908 was primarily early Renaissance painters; Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi and Botticelli, and Dante’s writings, artists who previously had a great influence on the English Pre-Raphaelites. In Italy, at the turn of the century, the Pre-Raphaelite artists had been worshipped, so Gulácsy could have been influenced simultaneously by the paintings of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as well as the original Italian works that inspired the British artists.

The inspiring knowledge, as well as a kinship in style, subjects, and motifs with English art, can be presumed in the case of a great many Hungarian artists. These connections are demonstrated at the exhibition through works by József Rippl-Rónai, Károly Ferenczy, Ferenc Helbing, Ferenc Paczka, Aladár Kacziány, Lajos Kozma and Attila Sassy.

The prints of Rossetti and his pupil, Burne-Jones, were donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1934 as outstanding pieces of Pál Majovszky’s large-scale collection of drawings.

By the turn of the century, like in other European countries, the art of the island country had become popular in Hungary. The English connection of the Hungarian art scene is reflected in Walter Crane’s exhibition in 1900 at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest. In Hungary, a real cult developed around the artist at that time, for the reason that Crane, like the group of artists organised around Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch, encouraged the discovery of folk art motifs. Numerous works by Crane from this exhibition got into the collection of museums; many of his graphic works have enriched the British material of the Museum of Fine Arts. And of particular interest, our exhibition also includes the masterpiece by the English artist, entitled Abduction of Europa (1881), which entered the collection of the Hungarian National Bank in 2020 from a private collection in Hungary.

Young Poland: An Arts and Crafts Movement (1890 – 1918) at the William Morris Gallery from October is the first major exhibition to explore the decorative arts and architecture of Young Poland (Młoda Polska), an extraordinary cultural movement that flourished in response to Poland’s invasion and occupation by foreign powers.

Originating in Kraków and the nearby village of Zakopane at the foot of the Tatra Mountains, Young Poland sought inspiration in local folk traditions, wildlife and craftsmanship while collapsing the distinction between the fine and applied arts. Developing themes explored in a critically acclaimed book by its curators (Lund Humphries, 2020), the exhibition is the first in the world to position Young Poland as an Arts & Crafts movement, revealing strong stylistic and philosophical affinities with the work of William Morris and John Ruskin.

While the diverse visual language of Young Poland was created autonomously, in search of a distinctive cultural style and identity, it simultaneously looked outwards to the rest of Europe including Britain. The exhibition explores unexpected examples of cultural exchange between both nations: for instance in 1848 the members of the newly-founded Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood included the Polish fighter for freedom, Tadeusz Kościuszko, on their list of ‘Immortals’ (inspirational heroes). While Stanisław Witkiewicz developed the Zakopane Style—which draws on the vernacular traditions of the Tatras—before he became aware of Ruskin and Morris, he later said that he had unknowingly fulfilled the theories of these British reformers.

From furniture to Christmas decorations, intricate textiles to delicate paper cuttings, this landmark survey spans five galleries and brings together over 150 works, most of which have never travelled outside of Poland. Young Poland: An Arts and Crafts Movement (1890 – 1918) examines the ideas that propelled the movement and introduces the artists, designers and craftspeople whose decorative schemes and objects came to define it.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Józef Czajkowski, Zdzisław Gedliczka, Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Karol Kłosowski, Józefa Kogut, Bonawentura Lenart, Jacek Malczewski, Jan Matejko, Józef Mehoffer, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Henryk Uziembło, Stanisław Wyspiański and Stanisław Witkiewicz.

Influences between Hungarian and Polish art, as well as that of Austria, Czech, and Croatian painting, were explored in 2017 in The First Golden Age: Painting in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the Műcsarnok, an exhibition for the 120th anniversary of the Műcsarnok in Budapest. The Hungarian Review has an extensive article that also explores these influences in the light of the 2017 exhibition.

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Bela Bartok - Hungarian Sketches.

Monday, 27 February 2017

Georg Mayer-Marton: work in churches has considerable religious significance

George Mayer-Marton (1897-1960) was born in Gyor, Hungary and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War. From 1919 to 1924 he studied art in Vienna and Munich. He immigrated to England in 1938 to escape the threat of Nazi Germany.

Mayer-Marton studied the art of Byzantine (face) mosaic at Ravenna between the wars. Following his appointment at Liverpool College of Art in 1952, he received commissions from the Roman Catholic Church to carry out mosaic works at a number of churches in the area, as well as a commission for a font at the Anglican Church of St Michael and All Angels in Tettenhall, West Midlands.

His abiding interest in music was reflected in his painting and mosaics, not only in subject matter but also in the chromatic use of colour, and the feeling for structure and form which characterize his landscapes. In 1957 all the different strands came together with the Pentecost Mosaic, amongst his finest work, now displayed at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

The Pentecost mosaic was originally installed at the Church of the Holy Ghost in Ford, Liverpool and when the church was faced with demolition, a campaign was undertaken by the artist’s niece, Johanna Braithwaite, Robin Riley, Gordon Millar, Brian Drury and Sister Anthony Wilson of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral to save it. The process, supervised by Robin Riley, was technically challenging. The mosaic was transferred to the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in 1989.

The mosaic at the Church of the Holy Rosary is currently under threat following the decision of the Diocese of Salford to close the church. Catherine Pepinster, writing in The Observer, says, 'The arts heritage body, the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, has warned the bishop, the Right Rev John Arnold, that the mosaic’s destruction would be “a very regrettable loss, if not an act of iconoclasm”.

According to the association’s chairman, John Lewis, the émigré artists of postwar Britain, of whom Mayer-Marton was a leading figure, are only now being appreciated by art historians. In a letter to Arnold, Lewis cited the Oldham mosaic as “an unusual commission … which must be preserved. Mayer-Marton’s work in churches during this period has considerable historic and religious significance.”

The eight-metre-high mosaic was installed in the church in the 1950s and is made of natural stone and glass tesserae, giving it a striking sheen, typical of Byzantine work. The original piece had frescoes depicting St John to Jesus’s left and his mother Mary to his right, but these were covered over with white emulsion in 1980.'

His great-nephew, Nick Braithwaite, who is campaigning to save the Oldham mosaic, said: “The mosaic is inspiring and beautiful and it dominates the church. It would be disastrous if it were lost, and would signal a dreadful failure to understand its unique value. We are urging the diocese to think again.

“My great-uncle, who was of Hungarian-Jewish descent, worked on this mosaic just 10 years after the war and losing his parents and brother in the Holocaust. It must have been very poignant for him to work on an image of the suffering Jesus.”'

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Woven Hand - The Speaking Hands.

Saturday, 22 March 2014

Hungary: conflicted engagement of faith and art

In his introduction to the 2002 exhibition A Thousand Years of Christianity in Hungary, Laszlo Cardinal Paskai, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Primate of Hungary, wrote about an open, inclusive engagement with the Arts:

‘Hungarians joined European Christian culture one thousand years ago. The adoption of Christianity entailed a change in our way of life, and the Church played a crucial role in this adjustment. After converting, the once nomadic, pastoral people built churches and monasteries, which were decorated by masters from home and abroad and furnished with beautiful devotional objects crafted by talented artists. Our country warmly welcomed foreigners: Benedictine, Cistercian, and Franciscan monks as well as Italian, German, French and Byzantine missionaries, from whom our people gained knowledge of the Christian beliefs and acquired the power of faith.

The Church not only provided our people with faith, churches, and outstanding historical figures, but also passed on its comprehensive knowledge to us and taught us the art of renewal. Enemy forces may have ravaged our country, but to little effect, for the building of both churches and souls always followed in the wake of destruction. The Catholic Church is a part of our everyday lives; this was the case in the past, in the days of persecution, and today, in a democracy too. Entrusted with the task - as is its mission - of delivering the good news, the Church has made its presence felt in both families and society alike.

Our hope is that this exhibit will provide visitors with a glimpse into the thousand-year history of a country. Our art bears the marks of a people with a unique culture while at the same time reflecting the style of the various periods. You, who have arrived from all parts of the world, whether Catholic or not, will be able to understand the exhibit without having any knowledge of our language. As you view our art, you will recognize its symbolic messages, wonder at its individuality, and discover its similarities to familiar monuments from other Christian countries. The explanation for this is simple: Christianity binds us together. The Church provided the most important setting for one thousand years of interconnections between European and Hungarian art. This cultural link is proof that our nation will be a worthy companion to those integrating into the Europe of the future.’

This positive engagement between faith and art would seem to have been reversed (defensive and exclusive) if recent reports like Hari Kunzru’s article in The New Yorker claiming that across Hungary the cultural scene is now in a state of crisis are correct:

‘The current Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has rebranded Fidesz, once a liberal youth party (with the vintage countercultural slogan "Don’t trust anyone over thirty-five") as a right-wing Christian nationalist organization. After Fidesz won a large majority in national elections in 2010, Orbán set about remaking the country, changing the constitution in ways that observers allege have removed important checks on the power of government … The new constitution "recognizes the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood," and art that is deemed blasphemous or "anti-national" is now the target of a full-blown campaign of suppression … In the art world, an organization called the Hungarian Academy of Arts (M.M.A.), founded as a private association in 1992, has recently been made into a public body and given control of the lion’s share of the national cultural budget. They will now select the directors of museums and administer prizes … The eighty-year-old head of the M.M.A., György Fekete, has said that, in addition to artistic excellence, "unambiguous national sentiment" is required for membership in his organization … He has pledged to prevent blasphemy in state institutions, citing an exhibition at the Mucsarnok called "What Is It To Be Hungarian?" (which had sections on "stereotypes" and "conflicts"), as an example of the kind of show that will no longer be presented. In a TV interview, he stated that Hungary is "built on Christian culture; there is no need for constant, perpetual provocation."

Kunzru quotes George Szirtes as saying, "the country I have loved and admired … every part of it is being dismantled and banished." In an article for the Guardian Szirtes wrote: "Hungary has produced great artists, musicians, architects, film directors and writers. Some of them are still alive. The government wishes to cut them out of the heart of culture"

Some of these great artists have, in the modern period, contributed to the earlier more open and inclusive engagement between faith and art:

From the 1880s Bertalan Székely started to paint murals. His most famous murals can be found in Matthias Church, in the Cathedral of Pécs, in the Budapest Opera, and in the Kecskemét Town Hall. A whole generation of painters can be found among his students, including Béla Iványi-Grünwald, János Vaszary, Aladár Körösfõi-Kriesch and Sándor Nagy.

The Gödöllõ Colony of Artists, outside Budapest, became attractive for artists and Hungarian Art Nouveau in the first two decades of the 20th century, as a rival of the Nagybánya Colony of Artists and later the Kecskemét Colony of Artists. The Gödöllõ colony's spirit was composed of Tolstoyan and Christian-Anarchist ideas which had come to them via the philosopher Henrik Jenõ Schmitt in Diód. The members of the Gödöllo Colony of Artists also took the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as an ideal to follow, as well as the earlier 'model', the Nazarenes. Of all the artists’ colonies inspired by the ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris, the one at Gödöllo came closest to fulfilling Arts and Crafts principles.

Aladar Körösfoi-Kriesch, the leading figure at Gödöllo, wrote On Ruskin and the English Pre-Raphaelites, in which he outlined the role the artist should play in reforming society. Körösfoi-Kriesch (painter, sculptor - ceramics, applied artist and illustrator) and other founders of the Gödöllo colony strongly believed that making and using handcrafted folk objects had a transforming power in people’s lives. The colony's Golden Age was ended with Körösfõi's death in 1920, although Sándor Nagy and the Remsey family mantained it.

Sándor Nagy worked with Körösfõi-Kriesch on the mural paintings in Temesvár seminary (today Timiõoara, Romania, demolished), but he painted in Gödöllõ alone after Körösfõi's death including symbolic frescoes on religious subject matters. He painted frescos in Csorna (1942-43, demolished) and in Budapest (Refectory and chapel of St. Imre Parish Church, Budapest; Regnum Marianum, Budapest; Pacsirtamezõ, Magyarok Nagyasszonya Church; Chapel of the Maglódi Hospital, 1932), but his masterpiece is the Pesterzsébet St. Elisabeth Church (1937-1941).

The Gödöllo Colony of Artists was also influenced by Symbolism as well as Art Nouveau, Plein-air and late Romanticism. Symbolism became elemental in the oeuvres of Lajos Gulácsy and Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry. János Vaszary's painting entitled Golden Age and István Csók's Biblical topics and subjects taken from Asia and from 'dark Symbolism' are also linked to Symbolism.

Through Károly Ferenczy the Nagybánya Colony of Artists was able to change the nature of Hungarian painting. His religious experience of nature and lyrical sensibility inspired huge compositions under the influence of his experiences at Nagybánya. This experience was deeper and more complicated than could be rendered with a simple natural motif or the cutting out of the view. This is why the otherwise atheist Ferenczy chose biblical themes. These lost their historical approach and became the instruments that rendered the experience of nature for the artist. Sermon on the Mount begins a series of paintings in this new style. It was followed by several visionary scenes, which were dominated by deep tones, colours appearing among green nuances: The Three Magi, Joseph sold into Slavery by his Brothers, Isaac's sacrifice. The experience was evoked by nature, but the simple view was transcribed into a vision by Ferenczy and in this way he transcended the describing naturalism. The inner emotional world and the view are bound together in these pictures.

János Schadl studied under Károly Ferenczy at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts for two years. Breaking off his studies, he joined the circle of the Activists and worked in a spirit shared with the artists of the avant-garde periodical MA. His rapturous devotion and pious enthusiasm sometimes tinted his religious Expressionism and Cubistic form construction with a naive but highly unique hue. His symbolic biblical compositions and Cubistic townscapes elevated his art of the 1910s and 1920s to a higher level.

Gyula Derkovits drew the theme of his Last Supper from the Bible, and placed the human figures, forced into rectangular forms, in front of an arcaded landscape rendered in expressionist style. The early Derkovits artworks bear the footprints of the cubo-expressionism of the 1910s, while the use of bluish-reddish colours and the cubistic form creation show the influence of [Janos] Kmetty's art. Kmetty's rigorously symmetrical picture entitled Sermon on the Mount depicts a biblical story as well. Pécs Artist Circle member Henrik Stefán's painting titled The Samaritan also draws its theme from the Bible. This New Testament parable inspired a number of other contemporary artists: from among the neo-classicist youths who had visited Nagybánya, Dávid Jándi and Vince Korda worked out their own adaptations of the story, and there are also pictures carrying this same theme from Ernõ Jeges who had worked in the Bicske colony of artists and from one of the most outstanding representatives of Croatian neo-classicism, Sava Sumanovic, as well.

A pupil of Gyula Rudnay, István Csók and János Vaszary at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts between 1924 and 1926, Vladimir Szabó finished his studies with Ágoston Benkhard some ten years later. In 1931-1934 he was on scholarship to Rome, which left its imprint on his choice of religious subjects, in the precision of drawing and the richness in realistic detail. Yet his painting cannot be labelled realistic in that realism was only one component of his pictures based on a profound insight into human character. His interest in visionary ideals played just as great a role in his work as his flair for the grotesque, not to mention his vein of story-telling.

Lajos Vajda was a pupil of István Csók at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arrts and also worked in Lajos Kassák's workshop. In 1930-1934 he lived in Paris where he got acquainted with Surrealism as well as the oustanding works of the Russian Realist film. The two influences prompted him to create his dramatic photo-montages of the great cataclysms of mankind, war, hunger, armed violence and abject misery. At home he lived alterately in Budapest and Szentendre, but also spent much time in Szigetmonostor, collecting folklore motives. He wanted to immerse himself in ancient cultures and this ambition was bolstered by the icons of the Serbian churches of Szentendre and by folk art. He incorporated the simple objects of everyday life as well as Hungarian and Jewish religious motifs into his pictures. He developed his style which he labelled "constructive-surrealistic schematics" from this assemblage of motives. He superimposed motifs drawn with a single linear sweep, presenting symbolic-spiritual contents viewed from above, in an ethereal floating manner. His icons and icon-like self-portraits were also made around this time and serve as timeless representations of faith and perseverance.

After studies in the Art Academy of Prague, Béla Kontuly studied with István Réti in Budapest. In 1928-1930 he was on scholarship to Rome. His style was shaped by the New Objectivity of Novecento both on the canvas and in mural painting. He decorated several churches and ecclesiastic buildings, while, in small-scale genres, his portraits deserve attention.

The extraordinary versatility of Béla Kondor who studied painting and graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts is apparent in the fact that apart from using various graphic techniques he made paintings, wrote poetry and prose, explored new methods in photography and was an excellent organist. Besides integrating avant-garde trends, his art was able to build on the great traditions of the past in such a way that the stylistic, thematic and iconographic motifs were actually merged in a unique system of expression guided by the sovereign instructions of the artist. He rendered new interpretation to common symbols in his efforts to provide answers to the challenges of the age, in an art that created a personal mythology. Flying and soaring are common themes for Kondor, and these contributed to the creation of symbols appearing in the form of insects (Wasp King, 1963), birds and flying structures (The Artificial Cricket's Take-Off, 1960). He changed the symbols of classic and Christian mythology into the sources of ambivalent notions. The angels, the cherubs, the geniuses of creation and destruction are the strangest figures of the Kondor-iconography. His angel figures, his saints and biblical heroes reveal the Good-Evil polarity in man by exploring the temptation of man. In his pictures of Christ he is preoccupied with the contemporary message of the crucifixion (Iron-sheet Corpus, 1964; Christ on the Cross, 1971). The changing face of man existing in this earthly sphere and the tragic roles played in the 'human comedy' are often displayed in contrast with the angels of the celestial sphere, by flashing up ambiguous interpretations and ambivalent meanings. The key to the interpretation of his self-portrait series (Somebody's Self-portrait) showing a disharmony built on asymmetry, is the attitude of facing the irrational. Of his wall-pictures, his panel painting placed in Margaret Island, Budapest (1968) depicting the legend of Saint Margaret is his most harmonic work of art. His monumental oil painting entitled 'Procession of the Saints into Town' (1972) considered to be a pinnacle in his oeuvre was also one designed to be a wall-piece, however it eventually ended up in a museum, because the party that had ordered the painting rejected it. This work of art that offers a variety of interpretations to the spectator and reflects the grotesque and tragic view of history and philosophising world perception of the artist accompanied by ironical half-tones, can be regarded as a synthesis of Kondor's art.

Barna Basilides began his studies in graphics at the Hungarian National School of Applied Arts in 1920 before going on to secure a diploma at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1925, in which year he also departed on a study tour of Italy. That is when the Society of Spiritual Artists, of which he was a founding member, was formed.

Works such as the Antique Legend, Moses, Genius and Golgotha, prepared during the last period of his creative career, show that Jenõ Kerényi turned towards the world of myths and legends, and themes from the Bible. The dramatic and tense sensation found in these works was produced by a deep sense of thought, vibrant forms, and a torn formulation of the surfaces of the works.

From the thirties onwards professional respect for both the expertise and talent of Pál C. Molnár led to a string of prizes (Monza, Warsaw, Milan, Padua, Rome) and commissions (a winged altar in the church at Városmajor, another in Battony, panel pictures in the Golf Hotel, a fresco in St Ann's Church, an altar fresco in the Farkasrét Cemetery chapel, and so on). He became the embodiment of the intellectual movement known later as the School of Rome, and continued his activity in church art after the war (his most important work in this art-form was the winged altar in the parish church of the Inner City in Pest, 1948), as well as producing many secular panel paintings (portraits, scenes with horses, landscapes etc.), in a style awash with increasingly bizarre and surreal features.

In 1958 Édition Labergerie published the Jerusalem Bible with more than a thousand of Endre Bálint's illustrations, and this helped him in developing his typical late artistic style. From 1959 onward he painted one after the other his most valued paintings, including the Miraculous Fishing (1960), the Dream in the Public Park (1960), I Walked Here Sometime I-II. (1960). These works of art can be classified as the representatives of late surrealism. In them familiar recollection-fragment clichés of nostalgia-imbued childhood and the past, all positioned in never-seen internal landscapes are mingled according to the 'logic' of human dreaming and remembrance with unknown, mysterious and often frightening figures and shapes, in order to become players of a story for which there are no human words to express.

Marta Jakobovits is a professional ceramic artist, educated at the Academy for Visual Arts from Cluj. She got her doctorate degree (DLA – Doctor of Liberal Arts) at the University of Arts and Design in Budapest. She works as a free-lanced artist and gives lectures about ceramics and paper-art at universities as invited artist. She is member of different professional organisations: Romanian Artists Union, the Barabas Miklos Guild, the Hungarian Artists Union, the Christian Artists Europe, Rotterdam, the European Academy of Culture and the Arts from Rotterdam. She has works in museums in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and in private and public collections from different countries. Beside her one-man-shows she had participated at a lot of international and national exhibitions, symposiums and conferences in Germany, France, Holland, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, Canada, Finland and Japan.

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Zoltán Kodály - Psalmus Hungaricus.