L. Kovásznai Viktória: Modern magyar éremművészet 2. 1976–2000 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2004/4)

human figures reduced to signs and eliciting rows of associations. The architectonic elements, geometrical forms and the horizontal lines intersecting the plane create a peculiar spatiality. Underlying his efforts is his set of experiences closely tied to nature. The style and tone of his medals made a few years later are different. These pieces laden with emotions and inner tensions are formally more abstract, the reduced elements and geometrical forms being coupled with bizarre sections (Heaven and Hell series, 1992). While Tornay's works did suggest the potentiality of a surprising unfolding. Edit Rácz' pieces - though sometimes representing the non-figurative realm of forms - did not anticipate the daring change of style. Most of her works are subtly elaborated, lyrical pieces with organic forms and impressions indicating the experience of nature (Genesis, series, 1991). Kalmár, who stalled on the border line between figurativity and abstraction, drew increasingly closer to the latter (Head and Shade, 1987), the process leading to an utterly new tone. Bronze gave way to painted iron, and the design determined by the material reflects an approach based on regular-irregular geometrical forms, in which the simplified triangular planar forms function as signs (Eastern European Small Inventory, series, 1992). These works interpret the boundaries of the art rather leniently, advancement being promised by many-part medals. From the latter half of the 1980s, in the phase of intense search, it was not infrequent to resort to more traditional methods and then start along a novel course. Such retreats sometimes produced excellent medals such as Gáti's The Shepherd of Enamoured Moons series (1989), in which the artist treated the undivided regular circular surface as a whole and combined figurativity with sign creation. The most accented point of the compostions is the hemispherical form projecting in the middle - a plastic symbol of feminity. The rest of the details in bas relief cany moods and emotions. Several artists of the new generation starting in this period identified with Ligeti's and Gáti's concept of the medal. One of them is Tamás E. Soltra, who at first drew on the achievements of the previous decades in his own interpretation. His endeavours were also concentrated on creating signs (Széchenyi

s Diary, series, 1991). Later, based on the lost-wax technique, he worked out a highly individual style alloying very different viewpoints. In his scries Fora Theatrical Company (1993) he mixed the traditional elements of the medal with new ideas and motifs condensed into signs. The smooth circular ground is untouched at places, pierced or defective at others, modelling is now subtle, now flat, now almost three-dimensional like in real sculpture, all this serving to emphasize a symbolic detail. Their concepts of the medal being similar. László Szunyogh'

s pieces stake out a course like Soltra's, though his forms are more abstract. His compositions are characterized by rigorously constructed spaces and closed, sensitive forms, by tension and lyricism at the same time (Prodigal, series, 1994). Brave, novel creations reaching the outermost boundaries of medallic art - or beyond - can be found in the oeuvre of both artists, but while they are the outcome of consistent development in Szunyogh's case, they are unexpected, almost unprecedented in Soltra's. Roundness appears to be an inherent specificity of the medal that most artists respect. When there is a change of materials or styles, the traditional formula usually remains intact, as in György Holdas' red marble medals. In these pieces the artist represented officials, bureaucrats and their activity with withering sarcasm (The Thought fs Gone, 1990). The above statement also holds true of the current in which the intellectually conceived content exclusively appeared in abstract form shifting towards the extremes of expression. What unites the - apparently ramifying - works of Enikő Szöllőssy, Ágnes Péter, József Palotás and others is that nearly all the abstract forms in their works can be interpreted as signs although the signs do not coalesce logically into a system. One may venture to contend that in the Hungarian art of the medal the individual character of allegories and symbols characterized the entire 20th century. Although Szöllőssy' medals of the 1990s meant a step backwards from her earlier objects, they present signs and symbols of our wounded and helpless world, in keeping with the artist's world view ( Gate, series, 1993). Palotás' existential experience and outlook are more lyrical, the emotional charge of his works also being manifest in the symbols he created. By combining cast iron with a variety of materials in an original manner, his main aim was subtle and sensitive formulation in the first place, instead of formal innovation (Auspices from the Sand of the Pannonian Sea, series, 1999). The most marked ligure of this trend is Ágnes Péter. Her medals unfold a system of signs which she first used to depict everyday life, followed by an analysis of the hidden properties and phenomena of cosmic reality. She presents the mystic forces, cultic spaces, the interrelations and laws of cosmic space and lime once through the use of ancient signs, once by creating her own symbols. Her formal idiom is abstract and she prefers contrasts, connecting regular and irregular forms, polished and rough surfaces, geometrical and organic motifs (Tree ofLifel-X, 1993; The Role of Wax in Diminishing Radiation, 1995). In a sense, Ildikó Várnagy'also belongs to this group, but her work is mainly characterized by a diversity of techniques such as painted bronze (Heidegger: Existence and lime, series, 1993) and individual patina.