Kostyál László: „Hirdette utcákon tereken” Németh János művei köztereken és középületekben (Zalaegerszeg, 2004)
„Professed in the streets and squares ...”
in larger dimensions and in a simpler, more concise way. This distinguished genre requires a particular way of thinking. It is not only possible, but it is worthwhile dealing with this uncommon type of art separately, for through examining each of his individual works the complete picture will emerge in a sublime way. This is why we will not specifically mention the ancestors of János Németh, his family of stove-makers, the workshop that had a defining influence on him, or his childhood in Egerszeg. Nor will we conjure up the years he spent as an unskilled worker in the factory either, which had developed from his family enterprise, or the years he spent at college under the auspices of István Gádor and Miklós Borsos. We also pass over the years gone by in which he started to work and build a family, and began to experience his first success. We will not touch upon the later stages of his life either. All of these biographical reminiscences would only distract us from the objective at hand. Therefore, let us focus only on his art work because this area is sufficiently abundant as well. During the forty-two years between 1960 and 2002, around sixty pieces of art left Németh' s workshop. Among them one can find smaller statues as well as friezes of hall-like dimensions (the frieze of the swimming pool in Zalaegerszeg, for instance, has a surface of 24.5 m 2 ), lonely figures and monumental reliefs telling complete stories and carrying multilayered meaning with their refined symbolism. When observing one after the other, a logically structured and impressive career can be mapped out, and the various developmental stages of a plain but unique system of emblems and forms can be identified. His story began in 1960 with a relief (which has since been disassembled) made using coloured glaze for a primary school in Balatonföldvár, and it continued in 1965 with a relief having a similar surface made for the Children's Medical Home in Szombathely. After another interval of five years, which was also a period of artistic refinement, from 1970 on the artist received commissions continuously. During these years he began integrating glazed chamotte into his craft, and he has used this technique ever since. In 1971 János Németh was asked to create an enormous frieze for the indoor swimming pool in Egerszeg, which has been his most significant work of art to date considering its dimensions. He derived his choice of theme and some of the forms from ancient mythology: sea-gods, mermaids and fish fill the relief area enclosed with two ships at both sides, and the figures of Venus being born from a shell and Neptune grabbing his trident are in the centre. This latter figure has been moulded as a separate statue as well by the artist. Some of the components of the dynamic, stump and exuberant figures were formed by intersecting the "solids of revolution" visibly moulded on the potter's wheel by planes. The motifs of the frieze do not make up an organic composition because they simply line up one after the other. The artist did not attempt spatiality or proportionate moulding, for his aim was to fill the ribbon of depiction with emblematic and emotional elements as completely as possible. The symbols are only loosely interconnected, as he did not intend to create a system of emblems suggesting more than their tangible meaning. The figures are refined, shapely, and comic with their naive shapes, making the artistic gesture of anti-heroism seem relatively natural to the observer. In the Savaria relief made six years later in 1977 (displayed in an X-ray laboratory in Szombathely), the most significant change is the denser and more complex nature of the symbolism. By cognising the relief as four iconostases of differing sizes, Németh could condense the content. He organised the theme along diagonals - the left diagonal referring to the Roman Empire and the right one to the eternal renewal and evolution of life. The largest field is taken up by the artist's favourite motif, which is an emblem professing to the 14
