Goda Gertrud: Izsó Miklós, 1831-1875 (Miskolc, 1993)

In his hands the material - clay - ennobles, alike the greek Tanagra figures in the Span long statuettes: „The dancing peasents" 1861-1875 (cat. 39-53) of popular inspiration with the same value as Franz Liszt in his music using Hungarian dance-motives. Izsó himself was an excellent dancer, so he could identify the proud movements of the recruiting hussards, or the clay trampling gipsies. The reich plasticity of the hellenic-art is allied to the classic way of free moving bodies. The series of 15 pieces of small plastics is a treasure of the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest. His creating period had been very short: only one-and-a half decade, he died suddenly in 1875 just at the time when he was nominated professor to the first Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, founded a family, built his studio. His work of art remained a torso even if as the most brilliant artist of his time he left us his heritage. This volume draws together for the first time all his oeuvre, as well as the copies made from them. We are witnesses of an interesting phenomenon: his most successful compositions became integrated in the folkart (cat. 12, 13). A lot of his creations are only known from some moulding clay-copies, like that of the famous gipsy-violonplayer (cat. 70-71.), some ones only by reproductions „The peddler jew" (cat. 72.) or from laconic descriptions. We have the very urgent task to conserve definitively from a durable sculptural material his works as well as the documentation in pictures of the monuments.