Hungarian Art Research Articles

Motifs musicaux et architecturaux en Transylvanie

AbstractKároly Kós, along with other Hungarian artists and architects, contributed to the development of a natural approach of culture, based on the local environment and on the local way of life. This is, in his eyes, the right way to the universal. Architecture and music, in particular, are intertwined, as they both attempt to create an agreeable environment to mankind. The transylvanian or Transylvania-inspired art is an example of this proximity between the architectural and the musical language.

헝가리 민족의 문화적 정체성과 분리파 양식

During the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy brought modern transformations to Hungary, as a result of political compromise. Hungary, which was primarily an agrarian and underdeveloped nation, rapidly evolved into an industrial and agricultural state during this era. This transformation significantly influenced Hungary’s social structure, culture, and art fields. Additionaly, during the Dual Monarchy, Hungary actively pursued cultural exchanges with major European cities. This period laid the foundation for internationalization and Europeanization, while emphasizing national characteristics and originality. The influx and expansion of diverse pan-European cultural and artistic trends in Hungary were prominent during this time. The Hungarian Secession style played a pivotal role in creating a unique style grounded in the nation’s traditional folk motifs, which was influenced by modernism and avant-garde tendencies. The Hungarian Secession style in architecture aimed to go beyond static societal, philosophical, scientific, and artistic positivism by showcasing intricate trends. Stylization and ornamentation were utilized as a response to naturalism and as a continuation of symbolism and artistic abstraction.
 This style is characterized by organic and curvilinear lines inspired by nature, which are present in both the exteriors and interior decorations of buildings. The architecture style of Hungary in the early 20th century was characterized by complex decorations and bright, diverse colors, especially in tile and glasswork. Buildings were not only functional spaces but also used to express cultural identity. In the field of art, Hungarian artists emphasized national identity by combining traditional folk art and patterns with contemporary styles in their works, often featuring plants, animals, and other natural elements. During this period, literature utilized metaphor and synesthesia as tools for stylization and ornamentation. The preferred genres were dramas, fairy tales, fantastical short stories, psychological novels, and lyric poetry. The focus was on expressing inner worlds and life's sentiments directly. The Secession style had a significant influence on the genre of short stories and played a crucial role in literary journalism of the time. This movement emphasized the cultural and national values of the economically prosperous liberal middle class, recognizing traditional Christian national values and the aesthetic tastes of the middle class. The new realism of writers such as Móricz Zsigmond and Babits Mihály would have been impossible without this style.
 The Hungarian Secession style originated from the attempts of Hungarian artists to combine national traditions and folk art with a contemporary style. The performance particularly highlighted national and folkloric elements, demonstrating a distinctive way of expressing regional characteristics and national identity in Hungary.

Circulation of Queer Ideas in State Socialist Hungarian People’s Republic

Inspired by Agata Jakubowska’s Circulation of Feminist Ideas in Communist Poland (2008) in the paper, I undertake the case study of Russian-born Hungarian artist El Kazovszkij (1948–2008) to discuss the circulation of queer ideas in state socialist Hungarian People’s Republic. Cold War-era queer cultural production is primarily associated with the then-establishing cultural and political agency of sexual minorities in the West. Nonetheless, despite the hiatus of queer movements or public dialogue in state socialist Hungary, there were still plenty of related works produced and circulated in both alternative and official cultural scenes. However, the lack of knowledge about the socialist era queer lives led to a homogenous image of socialist states: the individuals in question are still seen as absent or viewed as mere victims of the system, who had also no access to knowledge on non-normative sexualities. Therefore, artistic production addressing queer themes is either overlooked or interpreted as manifestations of the artists’ personal struggle, which implies an essentialist understanding of queer art, excluding critical or political connotations of the works and oeuvres in question. My aim is not to prove that queer discourse was thriving in state socialist Hungary. Yet, I argue that queer ideas circulated in Europe between the East and West as well as among socialist countries, offering crucial reference points to artists. Through the case study on El Kazovszkij, it is possible to reconstruct a fraction of these examples from the field of literature, film, visual arts, music, etc., which could contribute to the theoretical and methodological approach to further investigate queer lives of socialist and post-socialist East Central Europe (ECE). Beyond the art historical perspectives, the outcome could become a further step in cultural decolonialism and Piotr Piotrowski’s horizontalism to defy the East-West dichotomy within the cultural history of non-normative sexualities.

Austria and Hungary at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair: A Hint of the End

Abstract This article examines the Austrian participation at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, focusing particularly on the display of art. Spread across two venues, the Austrian Pavilion and the Palace of Fine Arts, the display, with contributions from the Mánes Association of Fine Artists, Society of Polish Artists “Sztuka,” the Hagenbund, and the Vienna Künstlergenossenschaft illustrates the changes taking place in Cisleithanian art at the time, with the emergence and increased recognition of nationally organized art societies, whose very existence questioned the long-standing supremacy of Vienna art institutions. A further contrast is made with the Hungarian art exhibition at the same fair. Unlike the Austrian exhibit, housed in its own free-standing exhibition space, the much more modest Hungarian exhibit was divided in two. Fine arts were displayed in the Palace of Fine Arts, while decorative arts and crafts were displayed in a pavilion built inside of the exhibition hall. The author ends by contrasting the 1904 exhibition spaces with those of the 1900 Paris exhibition.

Kállai Ernő német nyelven megjelent írásainak könyvészeti jegyzéke (1938-1944) •

A collection of Ernő Kállai’s writings was published forty years ago, in 1981, by Corvina publisher. The pieces were selected, prefaced and the bibliography compiled by Éva Forgács. (Kállai Ernő: Művészet veszélyes csillagzat alatt. Válogatott cikkek, tanulmányok [art under a perilous constellation. Selected articles, studies]. Ed. and pref. Éva Forgács. Budapest 1981). Kállai’s last – published – writing appeared about lászló Mednynászky in the paper Politika on 9 July 1949. He was excommunicated from the profession, silenced, he lived in misery. He made ends meet by translating, selling items of his library, or pawning. “Old chum, i learnt yesterday that the ‘Breton Calvaries’ was only worth 35 forints. That’s the price then i want for them. Segers, Hausenstein – Klee are absolute rarities or amateur values, so i can wholeheartedly recommend them to your Excellency’s attention. Can we strike a bargain?” “By the way, i must return the typewriter to doctor Kővári. That means, until i can redeem mine, i must obtrude myself on you. and type on the small remington. – i’m sorry,” he wrote to his friend Miklós Szentkuthy in 1949. (Szentkuthy Miklós válogatott levelezése [Selected correspondence of M.Sz.] Ed. Hernád imre. Budapest 2008, 150–151.) Sporadically one or another Kállai writing appeared in anthologies before 1981 (Kortársak szemével. Írások a Magyar művészetről [Through the eyes of contemporaries. Writings about Hungarian art]. Ed. and pref. Perneczky Géza. Budapest 1967; Kritikák és képek. Válogatás a Magyar képzőművészet dokumentumaiból 1945–1975 [reviews and pictures. Selection from the documents of Hungarian arts 1945–1975] Compiled: art Historical research Group, HaS. Budapest 1976.). His books – cherished treasures of their owners – passed from hand to hand among the interested.Already Éva Forgács stressed that “the precondition for restoring him to his deserved place in the history of Hungarian art which he lost thirty years ago is, apart from the collection and publication of his works, a change in attitude: not least, the still viable convention must be superseded which values and ranks a mediocre aesthete or art philosopher higher, takes him more seriously than an outstanding critic, saying that after all, he is only a critic.” (Forgács Éva: Bevezető [introduction]. in Kállai op.cit. 9). This work was accomplished by árpád Tímár, who edited the works of Ernő Kállai in eight volumes.He knew best the history of art criticism in Hungary whose foundations he laid with several decades of research into the “cemetery of dailies”, publishing writings by imre Henszlmann, lajos Fülep, György lukács, leó Popper, artúr Elek. The Kállai collection fits in this series. He termed the “possibly complete” bibliography in the volume edited by Éva Forgács a “till now unavoidable” starting point (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke i. articles, studies in Hungarian 1912–1925. Ed., after-word: Tímár árpád. Budapest 1999, 236), but during his researches he corrected and extended her list. He worked alone elaborating the Hungarian articles, and with Csilla Markója and Monika Wucher in libraries of Munich, Berlin, Pozsony and Vienna to scan the majority of German-language papers inaccessible then (and today) in Hungary, exploring several so-far unknown writings. The collected material appeared in eight elegant tomes between 1999 and 2010 (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke. i–Vi, Viii, X. Budapest 1999–2012), except volumes 7 and 9, which ought to have contained the articles published in german in 1938–1944 (in Forum, Pester Lloyd). árpád Tímár prepared the bibliography of this material – which differs in volume and the accuracy of the items from the list presented in 1981 – but he had no drive or energy to type the text of hundreds of pages; he wished to work on more important engagements. Was he right to think others could also finish this project? Well, as long as it remains a project for the future, we offer some help for those interested with the bibliography of articles written in German between 1938 and 1944

Chapters from the history of the Hungarian Playwrights' Union: The Hungarian Playwrights' Association from its conception until its foundation (1898–1904)

AbstractThe Hungarian Playwrights' Association was founded on 7 January, 1904, with the aim of providing moral and financial protection to theatre authors and the developing Hungarian stage. In its first incarnation it lasted until March 1919, and was subsequently re-established in December 1920. Like so many associations at that time, the Association was dissolved by ministerial decree on 8 December, 1950. The legal situation of playwrights at the time, along with the lack of adequate representation of their interests, prompted the Hungarian cultural sector to protect their rights by setting up an appropriate body of self-representation, following the examples of foreign countries. The association is of great importance in the history of the self-organisation and interest representation of Hungarian artists, as it was the first such independent Hungarian representative body.

Stone materials of the late twelfth-century incrustation works of Esztergom

The paper deals with the material analysis of four emblematic stone fragments from Saint Adalbert Cathedral and the Royal Palace of Esztergom from King Béla III’s era. All of the four examined objects (two fragments from the Porta speciosa and two throne arm-rests) have incrustations with red limestone basement and other colourful stone pieces. As red limestone is a well-known material in Hungarian art history with a rich historiography, the paper focuses on the findings of the analyses of other stone materials of the incrustations. The research contains several non-destructive analytical methods, such as relative humidity measurement, macroscopic and microscopic photography and X-ray fluorescence with lithologic description. Besides the comparative analysis of the stone materials, archive documents, the current state and the impacts of subsequent restorations of the four stone artefacts were also studied.

Reviving Authenticity through Traditional Crafts and Folk Art in Hungary

AbstractFolk art and applied folk art have been constantly shaped by cultural and political actors, as well as social and economic processes and the local society affected by them. In the context of these changes, the definitions of authentic, original, and genuine were given a new interpretation, which can be examined in different contexts. The question of authenticity in material folk art arose shortly after the birth of the concept of folk art and the “discovery” of folk art, and has accompanied the history of the revival of material folk art. Nevertheless, although discourses on the subject have been ongoing for a long time in the fields of folklore, theoretical works dealing with material folk art have not paid much attention to the issue of authenticity. The study first describes the contexts through which the issue of authenticity was articulated in artifact production inspired by folk art. The changed social conditions during the 20th century have also generated, and are still generating, new legal dilemmas in the field of artifact production at both community and individual levels, such as the extent to which folk art is individual or community-owned (taking into account the narrower and wider community), and the copyright of an authentic folk artist or craftsman or a creator recognized as a folk artisan. The questions lead to the evolution of the definition of authenticity and point out, among other things, the role that the issue of authenticity plays in the process of the heritagization of folk art.

Szubverzív anakronizmus a művészettörténetben

Subversive Anachronisms in Art History– The Case of Magical “Socialist” Realist Painting –
 By using the term „subversive anachronism” I mean to invoke Georges Didi-Huberman’s concept of „sovereign anachronism”, which is itself the product of a montage of theories. Following Walter Benjamin and Aby Warburg, Didi-Huberman constructs the phenomenon of intellectual montage in the historical sense, which frees the concept of anachronism from its negative scientific connotations. In this spirit, anachronistic associations of artists, aesthetes and art historians can critique and destabilise the existing social, political and aesthetic order. Tibor Csernus and his best-known ‚followers’ in the history of Hungarian art, László Lakner and Gyula Konkoly, were described early in their careers as surrealist naturalists and magical realists, respectively. Magic realist painting is based on the hybridisation of different realities (real and fictitious), while Csernus, Lakner and Konkoly adapted the German and American magic realist painting of the interwar period to the Hungarian reality of socialist realism. In a superb and anachronistic way, this adaptation mixed together the ideologies and visual cultures of different periods and different chronotopes (early German Lowland painting, Dutch Baroque Realism, German and American Magical Realism between the two world wars, French Surrealism, American Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and Hungarian Socialist Realism)
 Keywords: critical iconology, avant-garde, magical realism, montage, Aby Warburg, Georges Didi-Huberman, Tibor Csernus, László Lakner, Gyula Konkoly

The Hungarian Nippon Society

The Hungarian Nippon Society was founded in 1924, with the aim of building and developing Hungarian–Japanese relations, popularising Japan and Japanese culture in Hungary, and encouraging research on Japan. The society organised public lectures on Japan and Japanese culture and art exhibitions and social events connected to Japanese culture, and through these activities the society was the most important organiser and promoter of Japanese culture and art in Hungary between the two world wars. This society was the first (and for a long time, until the foundation of the Hungarian Japanese Friendship Society in 1987, the only) association in Hungary to focus solely on Japan and Japanese culture. This study summarises the most important issues related to the Nippon Society, with the aim of placing its history and activity in the broader historic and ideological context of its time. Examining the history of the Hungarian Nippon Society can provide us a more nuanced picture about how and why Japan’s image changed during the first half of the 20th century in a Central European country that had different images and concepts about the East and thus a different approach than Western European societies had. Moreover, this case of a primarily cultural association in a politically difficult era can show how different cultural and intellectual thoughts and theories can be affected by identity issues and by contemporary politics, political thinking, and international situations.

Motivation and Development – Using Poly-Universe Game in Teaching Mathematics and Other School Subjects

Motivation and development of different skills are keywords in teaching mathematics all over the world – and how can we achieve these better than by playing? János Saxon-Szász, a Hungarian artist invented the Poly-Universe game. It is a game of arts and mathematics. In our presentation and paper we would like to introduce the artistic and methodological background of using the game in teaching different fields of mathematics on different ISCED levels. As well, in an international consortium (Poly-Universe in Teacher Training Education, Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership, 2020-1-HU01-KA203-078810) we have a research project on how to implement these methods into teacher training education through using the Poly-Universe game. After the first semester of pilot courses in our partner institutions we would like to present the experiences and outcomes of them – and to raise your interest in further development. Keywords: game-based learning, teacher training, arts and mathematics, motivation

Developmental Assessment of Visual Communication Skills in Primary Education.

In this paper, we describe subskills of visual communication based on the skill structure outlined in the Common European Framework of Visual Literacy. We have developed this Framework further through assessing the development of subskills related to visual communication in the “produce” and “respond” domains of CEFR-VC in primary school grades. We developed and validated online digital assessment tools to facilitate the introduction of authentic assessment as a standard practice in curriculum development. The results of this study include the definition of its components, development of innovative tools for their assessment, and description of the development of its subskills in the “produce” and “respond” domains. Our tests for the “respond” domain of the visual literacy framework were administered in the eDia interactive diagnostic testing environment in Grades 4–6 (ages 10–12 years) of the Hungarian primary school system. The tools for the second experiment about the “create” domain of visual communication were developed in the GeoGebra free educational software environment and tested major components of the “produce” domain of visual communication in primary Grades 5–8 (ages 11–14 years). Results show increasing attainment in subskills through the age groups in the “produce” domain and less significant or no development in the “respond” domain, which is underrepresented in Hungarian art education curricula. Development is unrelated to school achievement in non-art disciplines, showing the distinctiveness of the visual domain, and is weakly related to gender and digital literacy. Using our subskill descriptions and the assessment tools, teachers may select those subskills that they find most important to develop during the limited teaching time for visual arts. The paper ends with suggestions to enhance visual communication as a cross-curricular competency that develops visual-spatial intelligence.

Az építészeti tervpályázatok 1908. évi rendelete és megszületésének okai: szabálytalanságok, visszaélések, összefonódások

The 1908 Decree on Architectural Design Competitions and the Reasons for its Creation: Irregularities, Abuses of Power and Entanglements
 The democratic idea of architectural design competition came to existence in the Age of Enlightenment, with the aim of ensuring that an edifice is erected according to the most suitable design, while providing the most apt architect the chance to succeed. By the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the number of domestic planning applications had increased in Hungary, especially for larger public structures, and problems along with them.
 In this paper, I will first describe the process which due to the efforts of the Hungarian Society of Engineers and Architects led to the issuing of the Minister of Commerce's Decree No. 79 049 of 1908 regarding the regulation of architectural design competitions. Then I will outline the main points of the regulation, sharing examples to highlight the irregularities that arose as a consequence of the secrecy regarding the tenders, deadlines, the construction programme and its budget, the size of plans, as well as the abuse of power by the evaluation committee, necessitating the creation of the regulation. The lesson to be learnt is that by the time the legislation could take effect, public works for which tenders were to be invited had already been ended due to the outbreak of the First World War. In addition, the constant recurrence of scandals caused serious moral damage to Hungarian art.

The Birth Metaphor in Anna Lesznai’s Difference Feminism

Anna Lesznai (1895-1966), a Hungarian artist and writer of Jewish descent, was a well-known figure of the Hungarian avant-garde. Lesznai’s view of womanhood that is contained in the unstructured writings of her diary, addresses one of the major questions of the time: What makes women feminine and how do women construct their female identity? Her view of gender as founded in biological sex reflects her era when women’s birthing capability was the focal point of their role and identity. Lesznai’s view of the female self is constructed through two kinds of birthing—biological and creative. She asserts that birthing is an action in which women actively and voluntarily participate, giving agency to women and empowering them more than men who are barren. Lesznai redefined the role of women as a birth-giver, rather than a mother.

Contributors

Contributors

Bortnyik und die „Műhely“ •

Bortnyik and the “Workshop”. The graphic design work of Sándor Bortnyik (1893–1976) and the “Hungarian Bauhaus”. In the Hungarian and international art history literature, Sándor Bortnyik is primarily known as an avantgarde artist attached to the circle of the MA (Today/Hungarian Art) periodical established by Lajos Kassák. Less well known is his role in the emergence of modernism in Hungary after 1925. From the very start, his painting and printmaking developed in parallel with and in interaction with his graphic design work. Having spent time in the milieu of the Bauhaus in Weimar between 1922 and 1924, upon his return to Hungary he continued to work not only in painting and printmaking, but also in book art and advertising, as well as photography, toy and furniture design, theatre work, and animation. The transcendence of the boundaries between genres, and even between branches of the arts, and the mutual influence between traditional art problems and processes and new media, are among the characteristic and still influential aspects of the modern culture of objects and visuality that were brought about by the twentieth-century avantgarde movements, and which continued in their wake. The work produced by Bortnyik, who believed that art played a role in shaping society, evolved in this spirit. His private graphic design school, the “Workshop” (in Hungarian: Műhely), was the representative in Hungarian visual culture of the Bauhaus concept of practice-based art training and functionalism, which fed off the ideas of Constructivism. The study provides a brief overview of the later development of his career, and his turn away from the genre of graphic design towards the direct communication of social, and later ideological content in painting and in printmaking.

Opening the Cage at "Hungría 74": Hungarian Artists in Argentina and Their Critical Take on the Dematerialization of Art Objects

In 1974, the exhibition Hungría 74 presented 24 artists from Hungary at the Centro de Arte y Communicación (CAYC) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By the time, artists from both countries suffered political repressions of the dictatorships ruling their countries. Hungría 74 thus was one of the few occasions to interchange ideas. However, the artists from Hungary and Argentina did not first and foremost agree on their political stance. Rather, they were both preoccupied with the dematerialization of art objects. Among Western artist dematerialization was perceived as a rebellious act against the commodification of art objects on the market; it was also embraced as a positive effect of media societies facilitating participation of marginalized groups. However, Argentinian and Hungarian artists transformed the idea to their own means. Experiencing political oppressions, they understood that the loss of material presence was not merely positive. By contrast, it was connected to disappearance, forced exiles or invisible political surveillance. The works of Dóra Maurer, Tamás Hencze, István Haraszty, György Jovánovics presented at Hungría 74 reflect these different notions of dematerialization and offer a critical perspective on the broader political consequences of dematerializations in media societies developing worldwide since the 1970s.

Dóra Maurer: Proportions & Timing

Abstract This paper aims at re-evaluating two of Hungarian artist Dóra Mauer’s films, the video work Proportions (1979) and the 16mm film Timing (1973/80). Both films follow a rigid structure. In Proportions, Maurer uses a paper roll to compare her own body measures repeatedly; in Timing, she repeatedly folds a white linen to compare the rhythm of her arm movements. Through her use of paper and the gesture of folding, the two films can be read as references to the very origin of the term format, as coined in early letterpress printing. When the notion of format is understood as a determination of a ratio and, as such, as an indexical reference to given social relationships (Summers, 2003), these films unfold sociocultural and political meanings. The present paper traces this spectrum of meaning through the pointed inclusion of historical discourses surrounding early motion studies, the art scene in socialist Hungary in the 1970s, and early time experiments before the advent of precision clocks.

“It Must Be Preserved”: Adolph Bolm's Revival of Le Coq d'Or

“It Must Be Preserved”: Adolph Bolm's Revival of <i>Le Coq d'Or</i>

National Icon and Cultural Ambassador: Zoltán Kodály in the Musical Life of State Socialist Hungary

Abstract In my paper, I wish to raise questions pertinent to the changing position of the composer, ethnomusicologist and musical educationalist Zoltan Kodály in the musical and cultural life of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods of Hungarian state socialism. Owing to his folkloristic and conservative musical style, and also his identity as “an educator of the people,” Kodály established his status as a fellow traveller of statesocialism in the early 1950s. The easiest way in Hungarian composition to satisfy the expectations of the political power, as inspired by Zhdanov’s aesthetics, was to follow the style of Kodály. At the same time, Kodály sustained his reputation as a “genuine” national icon whose music was capable of expressing, even if in riddle form, anti-Stalinist sentiments in the eyes of various political and cultural circles, especially after 1953. In spite of the fact that Kodály did not take any active part in the political struggles in the revolution of 1956, he was named as a candidate for head of state by important revolutionary forces. Following the suppression of the revolution, the restored state socialist political power revised its practices in the field of art. The fact that the new cultural policy gave up the idea of a unified Hungarian art which is “national in form and socialist in content,” resulted in a temporary weakening of Kodály’s position. Kodály’s status was precarious, subjected to a challenge by avant-garde trends in composition and competing paradigms of musical education. From the early 1960s, however, when both the Western and Eastern political systems proposed strategies for long-term coexistence, Kodály gained a new function from the perspective of the political power. In Western cultural circles Kodály sustained a reputation as one of the great European humanists, and his music educational method generated a strong professional interest globally, and particularly in the usa. My paper also examines the cultural political impact of Kodály’s visit to Moscow in 1963. Kodály seems to have functioned as a mediator across the political divide. He had achieved great personal successes during his tours to the political West, and this reinforced his position in Hungary.