Nagy Ildikó szerk.: A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Évkönyve 1989-1991 (MNG Budapest, 1993)

Bajkay, Éva: FROM MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL TO THE MODERN MECHANICAL STAGE

of which he was master of ceremonies. Weininger's aim - which he worked out earlier, already in the Spring of 1923 in Hamburg - was more far-reaching: he wanted to design a dynamic play of colour, forms, lights perfectly devoid of narrative elements or motifs derived from nature. "These elements would create a stage setting that is similar to a constantly changing three-dimensional abstract painting," his critic in New York

17 wrote in view of the American reconstruction under the artist's guidance (Kitchen Theatre), Weininger's trail-brazing experiment, a production conceived sixty years before and realized with the help of today's computer hightech,

18 meant the consummation of abstract attempts at three-dimensional spatial plays fit for the theatre stage. As Weininger recalled, the Mechanical Stage designed in Hamburg and presented in the Jena Theatre in 1926 attracted Kandinsky's attention.

19 Its influence is easily demonstrable in Kandinsky's abstract production of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in 1928. It is also detectable in Oskar Schlemmer's stage design for Stravinksy's Nightingale. Weininger's multi-media show of the Mechanical Stage, Abstract Revue connected the works of the Bauhaus with the only abstract mechanical stage experiment of Dutch neo-plasticism designed by Vilmos Huszár in 1921.

20 While Huszár's attempt still retained something of the character of visual narration, Weininger went further and made an attempt at spatially relating variants of pure colour and form to noises. Later Kandinsky and Schlemmer were strongly tied to musical inspiration. Abstract art and music also had an organic unity in Weininger's art. He inherited his musicality from his father, the organist of the cathedral of Pécs and cashed in on his talent as the unforgetable mainstay of the Bauhaus jazz band. It can be easily verified on the basis of the new acquisitions of the Hungarian National Gallery

21 how the modernists starting from Pécs were for shorter or longer periods completely governed by reason, how they fell under the spell of technical civilization, leaving behind their native soil and later the Mediterranian visual experience, and joining those who wanted to break out of the chaos of pain and regression with the help of logic. But, unlike in the rest of the Central European countries where the modernists tried out different variants of progressive avantgárdé at home —from Czech Poetism to Yugoslavian Zenitism —, the Hungarian artists had to go abroad to be able to join the last general artistic trend aimed at creating "Gesammtkunst". NOTES 1. Exhibition of The Eight and the Activists (1979-1982 Pécs, London, Paris, Rome, Budapest, Helsinki, Stockholm, Belgrade, Zagreb); Klassiker der Avantgarde-Die ungarischen Konstruktivisten (1983-1988 Innsbruck, Linz, Sofia, Vienna, Berlin, Prague); Die ungarische Avantgarde in der Weimarer Republik — Wechselwirkungen (1986-1987 Kassel, Bochum); Hungarian drawings abroad, an itinerant exhibition in Hungarian towns and in the Petőfi Literary Museum in Budapest: 1. VIENNA 1919-1933 (1982/83), 2. GERMANY 1919-1933 (1989/90). 2. Lőrincz, Péter: Emberek az embertelenségben (Human beings in inhumanity). Válságok és erjedések (Crises and fermentations) Novi Sad, 1962. 3. A kubizmus (Cubism), 20 March 1919 issue (IV/3) of MA, Budapest. 4. A festészet mai követelményei (The requirements of today's painting). (Excerpts from Jacques Riviere's study I—II), issues 15 April and 15 May 1917 (II/6-7) of MA, Budapest; Molnár, Farkas: A kubizmusról (About Cubism). Krónika, Pécs, no. 4, 1920, 14-15. 5. Petar Dobrovié Kat. Muzej Savremene Umetnosti, Beograd 1974. 6. See Molnár, Farkas, op. cit. 15. 7. The fortnightly periodical of literature, arts and criticism of Pécs, KRÓNIKA (1 Oct. 1920-1 June 1921) carried: Molnár, Farkas: A kubizmusról (About Cubism) no. 4. 1920, 14—15; Gebauer. Gusztáv: A futurizmusról (About Futurism), no. 2 1920, 14-15; Az expresszionizmusról (About Expressionism) no. 2 1920, 15-16. See also: Tüskés, Tibor: A Krónika repertóriuma (The repertory of Krónika), Pécs, 1978. 8. Schuber, Rezső: Képkiállítás (Picture exhibition). Krónika, no. 6 Pécs, 1921, 95. 9. Alexander Kanoldt (1881-1939) Gemälde-Zeichnungen—Lithographien. Freiburg, 1987. 10. Molnár, Farkas: Firenzei levél (A letter from Florence). Krónika, apr. 1921, 172-174. 11. Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919-1923. Bauhaus Verlag Weimar-München-Köln, 1923, 204. 12. Molnár, Farkas-Stefán, Henrik: Italia. Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar, 1922 (Inv. no. of Hungarian National Gallery: G. 86. 20). 13. Utopia Verlag, Weimar, 1921. 14. L. W. Rochowanski: Formwille der Zeit in der angewandten Kunst. Wien, 1922. 15. Bauhaus Utopien. Arbeiten auf Papier. Kat. Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1988; Wulf Herzogenrath: Die fünf Phasen des Bauhauses. 19-32. 16. By kind communication from Weininger's wife. One part is in the estate in New York, the other in the Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs. 17. Carl V. Poling: Kandinsky : Russian and Bauhaus Years. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1983, 70. 18. Kitchen Theater. New York, 1983; Gesammthochschule Kassel, 1986; Theater der Klänge, Düsseldorf, 1988. 19. Kathrin Michaelsen: Andor Weiningers Bühnenprojekte am Bauhaus. Wechselwirkungen, Kat. 428-430. 20. Vilmos Huszár: Gestaltendes Schauspiel. Composition 1920-1921. De Stijl, 1921. no. 8. 126-128. 21. In the Hungarian National Gallery a Weininger retrospectiv exhibition was held in 1990 which resulted in a promise by the widow living in New York to enable new acquisitions.