Őriné Nagy Cecília (szerk.): A népművészet a 19-20. század fordulójának művészetében és a gödöllői művésztelepen (Gödöllői Múzeumi Füzetek 8. Gödöllői Városi Múzeum, 2006)

Folk Art as Reflected in the Art at the Turn of the 19,h and 20th Centuries and in the Art Colony of Gödöllő. Abstracts in English / Angol nyelvű összefoglalók

216 Abstracts in English 216 process pointing back to the foundation that happened decades earlier, ofwood carving schools dealing with toy making. The one time Toy-making Apprentice Workshop at Hegybánya-Szélakna (today: Stiavnické Bane) is by far the most outstanding among the other similar institutions by its gradual development, by its attachment to applied arts, by the quality and vendibility of the toys and by its frequent participation in industrial, arts-and-crafts and applied art exhibitions. The first national call for toy competition has been announced by the Hungarian Arts and Crafts Society in 1904 in which they incited the contemporary artists to design "stylish, ingenious, characteristically Hungarian toys for children". The winner of the competition was Mariska Undi with her code-named creation entitled "Prince Petes Cart". The sides of the four-wheeled carriage towed by stags were made up of a series of floral motifs and four pillars adorned with life trees held its top. The art teacher Mariska Undi closely associated with the art colony of Gödöllő became a decisive figure of this field for long decades. This is a place where mention must be made of Árpád Juhász who has recorded his ethnographic observations in the form of paintings and drawings when he made a great number of preliminary studies prior to the creation of the 4-11 cm high "Matyó" toy figures in collaboration with László Inotay, the teacher of industrial technical drawing from Temesvár. The applied art expositions held in the first decades of the 20th century have amply exhibited of artistically inspired toys with original and individual design. The exhibition of Milan in the year of 1906 was an outstanding event among them, despite its tragic fate. Each piece of furniture for children exhibited here, their form and ornament aimed at touching the children's soul by their florally adorned painting and by evoking the atmosphere of the folk tales. Their designer artist was Vilmos Wessely who was already well-known at this time by his unique toys and whose creations were produced by the National Toy Making School at Hegybánya-Szélakna. Among the so many tiny objects reminding us of the kirmess toys, we could see a pushing bird with floral tail, a horseman with his horse equipped with rattles and bells, a richly decorated little horse on wheels with opening back, a devil, a donkey and cart and a dove-cot. In the years of the First World War, the workshops of the different war rehab offices set up to help and look after the soldiers disabled in the war further enriched the picture by contributing with new toys to the creations of already known toy designers. An old-time horse-and-cart as used by Transylvanian peasants, figures of animals which could move on wheels, a cow in a yoke decorated with tulips and carriages with adorned wheels have been prepared by those who worked here. The one-time flourishing workshop at Szélekna, so frequently mentioned by Pál Nádai with words of appreciation, started to decline after working and growing for a quarter of a century and its activity came to an end by an official handing over inventory dated on 27 May 1919. The most outstanding figure among the toy designers of the nineteen twenties was the painter and drawing teacher Leon Grabowieczky. After removing from Transylvania to Budapest in November 1919, he set out to work to organize his toy