Mazányi Judit (szerk.): A felfedezett Duna-parti kisváros. A 20. századi magyar művészet Szentendréről nézve - Ferenczy Múzeum kiadványai, C. sorozat: Katalógusok 3. (Szentendre, 2013)

Mazányi Judit: Kisvárosi mikrokozmosz, 1935-1949. (Művészeti szemléletmódok történeti és stiláris összefüggésekben)

Judit Mazányi

THE MICROCOSMOS OF A SMALL TOWN, 1935-1949

Artistic Attitudes in Historical and Stylistic Context

(Summary)

Judit Mazányi analyses in her article the creative behaviour and attitudes among the artists who had worked in Szentendre from the mid-1930's to 1949, emphasizing the Szentendre programme of Dezső Korniss and Lajos Vajda.

Certain tendencies were clearly formed by 1935 in Hungarian art which were often intertwined. The Szentendre Artists' Colony had survived its first great crisis in 1932. As a result of the activity of the colony and the Society of Szentendre Painters became most popular among the artists. From the mid-thirties onwards, a new generation of artists appeared in Szentendre (Dezső Korniss, Lajos Vajda, and a few others), whose starting point was not Nagybánya any more, but had rather an orientation towards socialistic ideas and the basis of their interest were the contemporary European trends.

The vivid, rich artistic scene of the Szentendre summers in the second half of the thirties was destroyed by the war. In the autumn of 1940 forced labourers were taken to the colony, later soldiers camped there. Although the Society of Szentendre Painters remained active, many other artists were away from the town, due to their origin or due to military service, and many died during the war years.

Along the changes of the art scene stresses were changed in Szentendre, too. With the exception of Dezső Korniss members of the young generation were rarely visiting Szentendre, the majority found home in the circle of European School or in the circle of the Abstract Artists.

Although the members of the Society of Szentendre Painters met again right after the end of the war, already in 1945, the colony was re-settled only in 1946. The reconstruction of the ruiny buildings sponsored by the state was lasting for several years. The membership of the Society had changed after the war, and by 1948, though renewal could not be experienced, neither thematic nor formal, it was again on the scene of the artistic public life.

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