Painting

Art historians have not yet written the complete history of post-World War II painting in Hungary. As a result of there being no currently available up-to-date comprehensive handbook or specialist literature which offers an analysis of the separate disciplines and research, the opportunity for polemic, criticism, and argument does not present itself. Should such a book ever be compiled, this would, perhaps, result in a semblance of personal consensus.Our theme has already been discussed in an indispensable manual issued jointly by the Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Art History Research Institute of the Academy. The next volume, which deals with the period following the Second World War, has not yet appeared, leaving a yawning gap in the scholarly treatment of art history but, at the same time, giving rise to a situation in which a period of history has drawn to a close without its historians having had time to accomplish self–evaluation. Such an evaluation, however, would not have withstood the test of time, considering the changes which took place in the 1980’s with regard to the thinking of art professionals, and which did not, in contrast, occur in the realm of cultural policy. In the meantime, the strait-laced “cultural policy” had been abandoned, leaving the task to the scholars of a new era – without doubt an advantage, since as a result an unbiased analysis of the immanent processes of art has been made possible, with no considerations outside those of the artistic process and of art history interfering or being imposed. The half-century long rule of ideology can now happily be replaced by freedom from such constraints, thus providing an opportunity to contemplate the boundless parochialism of that era from the viewpoint of universal art.The lack of a comprehensive analysis of that era does not, of course, imply that sub-periods and artistic trends were not first addressed in exhibitions and catalogues. Most consistent in this effort was the István Király Museum at Székesfehérvár, whose series of exhibitions was, by the 1980’s, elaborating on the theme of Art After World War II (The Fifties; The Years of Disengagement of the 1960’s; The Old and New Avant- garde 1967–1975; We, the Eastern French 1981–1989; Works and Attitude 1990–1996). Another significant attempt at exploration of this period was the Budapest Gallery’s series of exhibitions, staged by the art historians of its Art Critics Session, and entitled “Tendencies” (New Art in 1970; Secondary Realism; Geometric and Structural Tendencies; Fantastic Realism; Individual Paths). At the beginning of the 1990’s, it appeared that the time was right for a series of retrospective exhibitions to be undertaken, devoid of ideology, and looking to the future. The first phase of this effort may well have been the exhibition staged by the Hungarian National Gallery entitled “The Sixties: New Trends in the Hungarian Visual Arts”. However, this was rather impressionistic, with only László Beke’s study proof of any attempt at a more searching retrospective analysis. Similar exhibitions, “Variations on Pop Art” and “Visual Arts in the Eighties” at the Ernst Museum, failed both in composition and catalogue to provide the necessary analysis and depth.  For want of an exhaustive and analytical study of the subject, any current or future publication cannot but be subjective and sketchy in its attempt to cover half a century of painting in Hungary. It is not worth undertaking even a superficial description without at least indicating the borderlines of 20th century Hungarian art.  The beginning of this century, and especially its first decade, was a very special period for art in this country, with the main trends of both Hungarian and universal art running in a synchronised fashion along the same lines, in terms of “zeitgeist”, style, and “-isms”, and also in the field of interpersonal relations in the world of fine arts. The oft-lamented “cultural time-lag” in Hungarian historical development did not appear to present a problem in the first two decades of this century. Until the end of the 1910’s, Nagybánya’s Post-impressionism, and the various trends of the groups of the Eight and the Activists, were more or less in line with those being followed by contemporary art as a whole. All this, of course, did not only stem from the autonomous development of art, but was also the result of social transformation, having its roots in the flourishing middle-class, which was eager to be educated and become knowledgeable in art appreciation. This favourable situation, however, was to be very short-lived. After defeat in the First World War, the social groups which had purchased and consumed modern art no longer waxed strong; indeed, they were soon altogether on the wane. In her post-war plight, Hungary was, for a long period, to see the return of her “cultural time-lag”. The representatives of the canon of Hungarian progressive art emigrated, with Lajos Kassák, Vilmos Huszár, László Péri, Sándor Bortnyik, Lajos Ébneth, Alfréd Réth, and László Moholy-Nagy commencing their careers, or already working, under the aegis of international Constructivism and affiliated to the Bauhaus, Sturm, De Stijl, and Abstraction-Création movements in Vienna, Dessau, Berlin, and Paris. The course of events in Hungary tipped the scales towards social, political, and artistic conservatism. Painting rooted in the Hungarian Post-impressionist traditions, the Gresham circle, and the so-called Rome school (the last blending Post-impressionist and “classical” ideals, and embracing the ideals of the Italian “Novecento”) was well-suited to an increasingly conservative public, whose taste appeared to remain mired in that of the “fin-de-siècle”, and also fatally severed from that of the main trends in art in the inter-war period. The art of Aurél Bernáth, István Szõnyi, Vilmos Aba-Novák, Pál Molnár C. and their companions without a doubt represented a particular aesthetic standard which, although in harmony with the then Hungarian social milieu, was terminally separated from what modern art in the wider world was concerned with. This situation, however, did not prevail in all the Successor States of the former Austro–Hungarian Monarchy. In Poland and the newly created Czechoslovakia the picture was entirely different; these societies regarded modernity as an integral part of the new images of the new states; institutional structures were set up, and the contemporary arts were even subsidised.  Towards the end of the 1930’s and the beginning of the 1940’s, changes began to occur in Hungary, with the debut of a new generation of artists such as Imre Ámos, Lajos Vajda, and Endre Bálint, who were followed by Tihamér Gyarmathy, Tamás Lossonczy, Ferenc Martyn, and others. As a result of their activity, the short-lived European School was set up after the end of the Second World War. In spite of its heterogeneity, its declared objective was to re-establish links with the universal arts. However, by this time the rift between fine arts and the public had been manifested to a tragic extent, a quarter of a century of conservatism in the arts having been enough to erase the former position of the modern visual arts. The Socialist Realist art of this era easily coincided with conservative, naturalistic, and realistic tendencies by virtue of its illustrativism. On the other hand, Socialist Realism in the Zhdanovian sense of the word was never to become fully-fledged in Hungarian art, or at least only fleetingly so. In other words, such works never conveyed any aesthetic value whatsoever; their import is now seen as being rooted not in aesthetics, but in the sociology of art and in social history.Additionally, the period from 1948 which lasted almost until the mid-1960’s is still tragic, because during that time visual art was evicted from the realm of culture and was reduced to the meagre role of the illustration of distorted ideas. Visual art did not primarily involve the depiction or representation of ideologies, but rather was all about the prevailing expectation that fine arts should bring out definite contents which could also be put into words and which, in effect, precluded a visual catharsis – which is the very essence of fine arts. It was not only in the sensibilities of the public that all this was at work, but it also affected artists in that environment who, ironically, were busily creating “art” in opposition to an imagistic way of thinking.Be it Béla Bán or Endre Domanovszky in the 1950’s, their quasi-aesthetic or ersatz workmanship can never be interpreted in the context of the aesthetic criteria of the visual arts. And this is not a political or an ethical, but rather an artistic question.  The spurious and fabricated antimony-pair of Realist and non-Figurative Abstract art was to hold sway long after the 1950’s, and it served only to obscure the real issue: namely, that it is only art which is in keeping with the age and the spirit of the age which has a raison d’être. Another such ideologically concocted specimen of antagonism was that created between national and international art; this may have had a reasonable claim to veracity in the 19th century, but it was reduced to an absolute anachronism in the 20th. The place in which a given work of art was created, and the spiritual and cultural environment in which an artist works may, of course, carry some weight, in that the differences in artistic traditions can indeed be described and substantiated. However, these do not essentially modify the quality of art. The time-honoured slogan of “Hungarian Landscapes with a Hungarian Paintbrush” is but sheer demagoguery in the second half of the 20th century.An iron curtain also existed in a cultural sense which, apart from causing distortions in the world outside art, as outlined above, was also to bring about malfunctions within the realm of art as a result of the situation of general isolation. The careers of the great artists, such as those who were members of the European School, or those who, like Béla Kondor, made their debut in the 1950’s and 1960’s, came to be seriously affected as a result. Tragically, but at the same time understandably, even such excellent masters as László Bartha, Béla Czóbel, and Jenõ Gadányi in essence stagnated in spirit and in style at the phase which they were undertaking at the onset of the isolationist period. Their opus was fulfilled within its own limits, but suffered as result of the severance from and withering of their European roots. The works painted in the 1960’s by the ex-members of the former European School, who later joined the “Gallery of the Four Cardinal Points” and represented the Lyrical branch of Abstractionism – Tihamér Gyarmathy, Tamás Lossonczy, or Ferenc Martyn – were at this period in harmony with contemporary international trends. This was of immense significance, despite the fact that their works were not exhibited.Lajos Kassák’s later artistic period was also to remain of only theoretical significance, with the master consistently adhering to the concept of Pictorial Architecture and the Constructivism of the 1920’s.  However, it was during this period that he painted his free and irregular forms and canvases similar to the works of Jean Arp.  He is undoubtedly the most influential figure for those who commenced their careers in the 1960’s and 1970’s.Amongst the successors to the Constructivist Surrealist programme of the Szentendre School, it was Dezsõ Korniss who played a decisive role, not only with his calligraphic, drip-crafted pictures in the style of Pollock of the early 1960’s, but also with works which, from the end of the 1960’s onwards, more consciously blended in elements of Hungarian folklore. His influence on the launching of the next generation of painters, such as Ilona Keserü, Imre Bak, Tamás Hencze, and István Nádler, is indisputable. Jenõ Barcsay’s style also shifted in the 1960’s from the painting of ephemeral urban motifs to the undertaking of Geometric structures in his pictures. Even in his early period Pál Deim used constructions, puppet motifs, and rasters in his works, thus paving the way for the transition to Pop Art and the Hard Edge. Endre Bálint, Júlia Vajda, and Margit Anna are close to another Surrealist-Figurative trend of the Szentendre School, as exemplified by the art of Lajos Vajda. The white primed canvases, dotted with colour, of Béla Veszelszky, as well as the works of Lili Ország, who compiled collage-like pictures of basic geometrical forms, are hard to pigeonhole.The School of Hódmezõvásárhely, on the Great Hungarian Plain, typifies the wrong approach. This is illustrated from its very outset by its “tolerated” and “supported” period. Once again, it is not the fabricated antimony of Figurative and Abstract which is the key issue of 20th century painting, as had appeared to be the case in Hungary in the 1960’s. The paintings of György Kohán, József Németh, and Ferenc Szalay may have evidenced, within their own confines, some kind of coherence. The art of their predecessor, István Nagy, was undoubtedly of genuine quality and, with regard to its topicality, may have struck the viewer as being different from the conservatism of Nagybánya. However, from today’s perspective their art does appear to be an intensely parochial exercise.Another interesting concurrent development was the debut of a group of Bernáth followers and the followers of the Gresham Circle, such as Tibor Csernus, László Lakner, László Gyémánt, Ferenc Kóka, Ignác Kokas, György Korga, and their companions. Their Sur-naturalism is in fact unprecedented in Hungarian painting, since Surrealism proper had no representatives in this country.  From the late 1960’s onwards, the hermetic isolation of Hungary had somewhat abated, and visual arts activities based on progressive Hungarian traditions and redeemed by the spirit of universal art once again stirred (as exemplified in 1967 by the exhibition of the Young Artists’ Studio, that of the Iparterv Group, the work of the Zugló Circle, of the Szürenon and the Pécs Workshop). When the Neo-avant-garde then appeared on the scene, its reception was determined by the capabilities of the public, and thus communication between them was completely impossible. To make matters worse, visual arts which qualified as progressive were being practised without public exposure. The kind of art available and accessible to all in the Galleries and Museums – that is, the so-called Post-socialist-realist works, which were essentially “content-orientated” – invariably had an answer to the question “what does it represent?”. They were also mainly concerned with concepts such as “message”, “realism” and the like, which appeared to be at work within a framework of trumped-up criteria.Social and public interest, if any, focused on visual arts only if an event happened to have some implications in terms of “cultural policy” (by which is meant the notorious three categories of art works: “supported”, “tolerated”, and “banned”, and also the infamous political game of “tight and loose” which was being played at the time). Of course, what was particularly special about, for example, the “legitimisation” of Csontváry was that his works were exhibited largely in opposition to the official line, and in the country, not in Budapest. Be that as it may, remarks in the visitors’ book and part of the critique in the professional press did not at all differ in tone from that of the general public in their rejection of, and lack of goodwill towards, contemporary art.From the late 1960’s until 1983–84, the division of art into legitimate and official categories was gradually introduced. Art accessible to the general public was the “supported” and “tolerated” quasi-art, which attempted to follow the line of cultural policy; the “banned” category of art works could only be viewed by the “other” – underground – public. There were no strict borderlines between the categories, so the division of art occurred without any specific ideological or aesthetic criteria being followed. Art did not become progressive or avant-garde solely in order to be disliked by officialdom or the public. However, these fifteen years saw an attempt to integrate a “striving for modernity” with the official, “legitimate” line.  For example, Imre Varga assumed the mantle of a modern sculptor, and some older masters were quasi-rehabilitated and bestowed with the trappings of “respectability”. At the same time, the increasing international exhibition and recognition of the non-public art means that this is not a simple picture.The 1970’s was not a golden age for painting. The generation which launched itself in the late 1960’s tried to approximate progressive Hungarian traditions to some vital aspects of universal contemporary art. This is the decade in which well-known processes and trends in international art again became identifiable and functional, at least in the case of the Neo-avant-garde. The influence of Pop Art and the Hard Edge of the 1970’s is apparent in works as diverse as those of Imre Bak, Ákos Birkás, Miklós Erdély, János Fajó, Károly Halász, Tamás Hencze, Ilona Keserü, Ádám Kéri, Imre Kocsis, Gyula Konkoly, László Lakner, Ferenc Lantos, Dóra Maurer, László Méhes, András Mengyán, István Nádler, László Paizs, Sándor Pinczehelyi, Endre Tót, and Péter Türk. It had become apparent at that time, but not yet to the general public, that Hungarian painting was once again in the process of establishing links with the universal processes of contemporary thinking in art, in the course of which painting was not affected by extraneous – that is, political or ideological – considerations.This, of course, proved to be a lengthy and irksome process, and it did not at all imply recognition by the society or their interlocking with more mainstream culture. The use of the epithet “underground” is characteristic of descriptions of this type of art. The number of emigrants, such as Gyula Konkoly László Lakner, László Méhes, and Tamás Szentjóby, was extremely high. Yet, by the end of the decade, this generation had also in a practical sense come out from behind the iron curtain, with Germany and France becoming their points of orientation. Even if their exhibitions were far from being large or representative, they were at last visible in European exhibition halls. The fact that radical changes did indeed take place in the 1980’s, as a result of their consistency and perseverance in pursuing their programme in art, is not of lesser importance.  Reviewing the processes of art in the 1980’s, one can discern two major tendencies which are interrelated and complementary. A new trend was the appearance of a sensual, expressive, and often dramatically aggressive New Painting, rooted partly in the objective, narrative, and thematic Neo-expressionism of a young generation born in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and partly in the abstract, meditative, and intellectual painting of the generation born in the 1930’s and early 1940’s.The other trend, a crucial one with respect to the installations and objects of the late 1980’s, was the development of Post-geometric art. The Post-geometric trend characterised Hungarian art in the 1980’s as much as did Constructivism earlier, which has always been regarded as the most important movement of the classical Avant-garde, and was synonymous with revolution and progress.These two trends resulted in an evolutionary process which culminated in a systemic change in visual art in 1983–86 – a change which was to occur in the political and social arenas only six to seven years later.The 1980’s opened with declarations proclaiming the death of the Avant-garde and the resurrection of painting. In contrast to Western models, something unusual occurred in Hungary in that this change was engineered by middle-aged artists such as Imre Bak, Ákos Birkás, István Nádler, and Tamás Hencze, who were at this time aged between 45 and 55. As a result, the Avant-garde positions of the 1960’s and 1970’s were continued, as was their influence. The rise of the younger generation in the early 1980’s came about in a less radical fashion in Hungary than in the West, because here they felt no need to challenge the art of their immediate predecessors, or to assert that they were opposed to the older generation.  The Hungarian representatives of New Painting remained within the framework of values formulated by their predecessors a decade previously. Painting was to become something elemental, personal and, simultaneously, of mythical importance for László Fehér, Károly Kelemen, András Koncz, István Mazzag, János Szirtes, and András Wahorn. New Painting in the early 1980’s in Hungary was dominated by diverse variations on a new theme of expressionism.Ákos Birkás’ and István Nádler’s abstract painting is expressive of the content of emotions as conveyed through gesture. Drawing on all the experience of Constructivist picture composition in his new painting, Nádler returns to his Expressive approach as adopted in the early 1960’s. He does this by giving prominence to elements not previously employed – mainly gestures, but also landscape elements, as well as some “quoted” basic motifs, from Malevich’s triangle to his own Nike form.  Birkás appears to be insisting at all times on the intellectual principles of construction, and creates concentrated pieces. What was particularly noteworthy in his work was that he began to wield a brush after ten years of abstinence. His paintings of the 1980’s are characterised by violent gestures; they are constructed from two or three parts, and depict partly imaginary landscapes and schematic human faces.Obviously, the Post-geometric approach was adopted by Imre Bak as his organising principle. Changes in his pictures, over and above those of structure, were mainly concerned with the prominence given to the use of dissolved colours, monumental forms, and a highly conscious picture construction. Bak intertwines geometric-abstract motifs with symbolic motifs rooted in the Central European tradition: for example, Art Nouveau ornamentation and emblematic forms with their roots in folk art, as well as other motifs which allude to earlier periods of the Hungarian Avant-garde.From the early 1980’s onwards, Tamás Hencze has initiated two radical changes in his painting. He has altered his monochromatic colour system of neon-like greys and greyish blues to vivid reds, and supplanted his geometric and constructed motifs with calligraphic gestures – gestures which have been frozen by the technical processes of the painting.At the beginning of this decade an aggressive theme appeared to become more intense in the works of the younger generation, with the sensuality of the visual surface driven to the extreme, and a radical palette indicative of a different attitude to life. Works created during this period – those of András Koncz, István Mazzag, and József Bullás – are expressive of extreme attitudes, based on experiences of urban life. Koncz links the products of showbusiness to elements of real life in a grotesque fashion.  Sensuous fantasies generated by the new wave in rock music are revealed by Mazzag. The ideas of violence and absurdity of Bullás are portrayed with a dramatic vigour.  László Fehér seems to adopt a wholly different approach to existential painting. In the early 1980’s he painted Neo-fauvesque pictures, taking an interest in the world of mythology and ritual. His depiction of Jewish holidays is expressive of the conflict between human mortality and eternity. In the mid-1980’s his painting became cooler, gloomier, and more photographic, with the depiction of the human condition at its core. He renders harsh, timeless, and motionless visions of human existence; his pictures show everyday stories and preserve moments of passing time in pictorial freeze-frames. This photographic rendering imparts a stochastic and deliberately composed character to Fehér’s compositions, which are fashioned in such a manner as to suggest that solitude is part and parcel of human existence.Another seminal development of the 1980’s was the prominence given to eclectic, mythological thinking centred around art and its symbols. This can be found in the painting of Károly Kelemen, Sándor Pinczehelyi, El Kazovszkij, Gábor Bachman, and, in a different sense, in that of János Szirtes, Tamás Soós, and László Mulasics. In keeping with the eclectic character of the Post-modern movement in the 1980’s, the range of themes treated extends from commonplaces, private mythologies, public symbols (for example, the red star), and heroic landscapes to revolutionary Constructivism. Imre Bukta’s pictures, and especially his installations, are permeated by the shocking and dramatically ironic effect of absurd banality driven to its extreme. Every object used by him can be sociologically identified as an object used in everyday life, or an artefact from rural Hungary. The utilisation and analysis of grotesque, neo-primitive, and pop elements – as exemplified by András Wahorn, László fe Lugossy, and István ef Zámbó, Bukta’s companions in the Lajos Vajda Studio of Szentendre – appears to be a hallmark of the 1980’s.A momentous development which occurred in the second half of the 1980’s was the sudden interest of Western Europe in the art of Central and Eastern Europe. A series of exhibitions opened, in whose titles were words such as “contemporary”, “today’s Hungarian”, “5 Artists”, “10 Artists”, and so on. A few of the works on show even found their way to international art dealers. Hungarian artists, introduced by international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennales of 1988 and 1990, were to become the focus of interest.  However, in the 1990’s earlier expectations proved to be unfounded, with no substantial changes occurring in the reception accorded to Hungarian art. The previous decade had been a period of major change, change in a true 20th century meaning of the term, which in this region coincided with changes in the social system. The type of systemic change which occurred in politics at the end of the decade had taken place earlier, approximately in the mid-1980’s, in the creative arts. Hungarian art has finally reached the end of its “separate development” (a development which suffered two serious disruptions, one occurring around 1920 and the other around 1948), and it has once more established links with the course of universal art. Now that its autarchic development has been disposed of, the painful aftermath of this is surfacing. Overproduction, both of artists and of works of art, will have tragic consequences for the “has-beens” and the dropouts, and there is foreboding of serious conflicts, with a war in the arts having perhaps already begun.However, a new generation of artists – inexorably tough and uncompromising – has emerged. The number of alternative exhibitions has increased, as has their importance and weight. This development is doubtless a sign of normality, with every work created having at least a chance of being exhibited. Momentous things are happening in small galleries and at exhibition sites, areas which are separate from the quasi-official exhibition system.There have already been two ground-breaking and comprehensive exhibitions in the second half of the 1990’s which have displayed the most recent developments. A third of the exhibitors in a Székesfehérvár event entitled “Works and Attitude 1990–96” were members of the new generation (Mária Chilf, Magda Csutak, Róza El-Hassan, Pál Gerber, Gyula Július, Balázs Kicsiny, Éva Köves, Csaba Nemes, Attila Szûcs, Gyula Várnai, and their companions).  They are more puritanical and professional in their means of expression than anything seen before, utilising installations, objects, combined techniques, and technical implements. Should the pictorial expression still appear traditional, the feeling generated is that in the end it does not matter, for tradition has long been transcended. Art is no longer necessarily about pondering over painterly qualities.A large-scale and comprehensive event staged in the 1990’s was the opening exhibition of the Contemporary Museum/Ludwig Museum, in which the emphasis was not only on painting. Indeed, installations, and multi- and inter-media activities appeared to be of more importance. Painting in the traditional sense still, of course, exists. In the spring of 1997 the prizewinners of the Hungarian Abstract Painting Competition (Attila Szûcs, Éva Köves, András Gál, Katalin Káldi) were exhibited by the Contemporary Museum. In this Competition Exhibition it was made clear that painting as a communicative art is still viable, and the only conditions under which it can be strengthened are those of appropriate challenges and opportunities.  In this respect the 1997 exhibition in the Mûcsarnok may turn out to be an extremely seminal event. For the first time in a long time the exhibition is not accidental and is not constructed along the lines of a market-place. Judging from the preliminary list of names and works, it can be seen that it will be a comprehensive survey of Hungarian painting, with the exhibition itself designed in accordance with purely professional considerations. It will cover trends and generations, disregarding political and official pressure, and that exerted by artists’ lobbies, offering itself instead for serious analysis. After the opening of “Oil/Canvas” we will become more knowledgeable.
 

Péter Fitz