Veszprémi Nóra - Szücs György szerk.: Vajda Lajos (1908–1941) kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2008/6)

Gábor Pataki: Panther and Lily: The Retrospective of Lajos Vajda

The majority of Hungarian art historians, critics, intellectuals agree that the art of Lajos Vajda has a world-wide significance, and, in a Hungarian context, matches the performance of the greatest masters, Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, Károly Ferenczy and József Rippl-Rónai. There are two moments in his afterlife that have import here: in 1983, Stefánia Mándy published her often-criticized but very usable monographic study of the artist, and, a few years later, the museum devoted to his oeuvre was opened in Szentendre. The home exhibitions commemorating his centenary this year and the shows planned abroad will hopefully contribute to his international recognition. Nevertheless, his art is not particularly popular among the general art-loving Hungarian public. His use of cheap materials (packing paper, ink, pencil, and charcoal), his grave subject matter and a presentation often purposely suppressing sensual beauty do not facilitate reception and appreciation. Naturally, we are far from wanting to believe that his refined drawings in pencil or his tragically toned compositions in charcoal would ever make the top lists of popularity, but we do think that this exhibition will let his works reveal their secrets. Lining them up side by side, they will be able to convey the complexities of their maker: the dream structure he assembled from the architectural details of a little town and mundane and sacrificial objects; the quasi-world that sprang up from the motif wrecks and form ruins that he left after having shattered the structure, and, finally, the terror spun out from fibrous bundles in his last years. It might be possible to see and make see that Vajda would never lie, never blur the matter; when he could and believed in it, he did flash fullness; and when he no longer could, he genuinely played the pipes of hell. Gábor Pataki Panther and Lily The Retrospective of Lajos Vajda