Őriné Nagy Cecília: A gödöllői szőnyeg 100 éve (Gödöllő, 2007)

THE GÖDÖLLŐ CARPET'S 100 YEARS

designed by the members of the colony, the furniture, leather objects and sculptures would appear in the company of the workshop's textiles: not only tapestry, but also embroidery, applied textile pictures and decorative cushions. The Gödöllő tapestries usually represented the main figures and events of Hungarian mythology, employing typical decorative motifs taken from Hungarian folk art. Thus, we can see representations of Attila, the Hun monarch, Prince Árgirus and Fairy Ilona of the folk tales, the tragic story of the immensely powerful Miklós Toldi and that of the aristocratic Klára Zách. There were furthermore instances when the heroes were taken from faraway cultures, like the Greek heroine Cassandra and Shakuntala of Indian mythology. Beautiful, stylised plants, as well as geometric motifs were also used, often identifiably of folk origin. The golden age of the weaving workshop lasted from 1907 to 1914 or until the start of World War I. Alongside the tapestries, they produced cushions, settee covers, hand-woven and knotted carpets. The quality and the number of weavers kept increasing during this period. World War I dealt a serious blow to the community. Only the families of Körösfői-Kriesch, his friend and brother-in-law Sándor Nagy, and a young student, Jenő Remsey, stayed in Gödöllő. Many male artists went to the front and several died, while others' minds were overwhelmed by the horrors of the war. The workshop kept producing carpets during the war, if satisfying less orders with a smaller staff. Aladár KörösfőiKriesch tried in vain to gather the dispersed artists after the war. The foreigners would not return to Hungary, and those Hungarians who had moved to Budapest sought other ways of getting by. Though the colony was not re-established, its former members remained friends, often even marrying into one another's families. In 1920, the leading character of the colony, the extraordinarily talented Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch died of an illness he had carried since his youth. Thenceforth, Sándor Nagy and his wife, Laura Kriesch, directed the textile workshop. Later, Jenő Remsey and his wife, Vilma Frey also started a weaving manufacture, and in 1939 their daughter, Ágnes Remsey, who designed textile, opened her own workshop. The spiritual heritage of the artist colony and the weaving workshop was handed down to the artists now living and working in Gödöllő by Jenő Remsey and his family.