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

This is why the literature reters to this group of Vajda's works as masks, though most of them do not depict actual masks, a means of concealing features. These beings made up of human, animal and demonic elements mostly represent themselves, the transcendent and irrational quality inherent in them. As such, they are in a no man's land: they are no longer human, but their gestures, grins, gnarls, their foolish or evil looks still shimmer with worldly life; certainly, they bring accounts of a perturbing domain that cannot be rationally mapped. Most of the works in the series ware made in pastels. In contrast to his earlier pastels, where he had been thinking in coloured, homogenous surfaces, he now made full use of the possibilities inherent in the technique: the demonic, rancorous faces unfold in richly coloured, beautifully iridescent surfaces, the portentous content is wrapped in captivating exquisiteness. Thereby, Vajda did not muffle his meaning, nor did he lure to seek pleasure in viewing evil; rather, he created a disturbing contrast between the content and manner of his depiction. These blurred and fading faces (Green Clown Mask, Rainbow Mask) recall the multiply exposed and skidded portraits of Surrealist photography (Tabard, Schad, Parry), which he had known. In further pieces in the series, the anthropomorphic characteristics of the mask begin to disappear: the heads become elliptic shapes with irregular contours. The forms of face slip apart and transform; lines, tattoo-like spots, fragmentary ornaments take their place. In the meantime, they lose their fearful, awesome aspect, but they are nonetheless alien, they have nothing in common with the human world. They begin to float above empty spaces, in uncertain spatial situations. They no longer convey fears and anxieties; they bring news of a world beyond the usual co-ordinates. The figures transformed from "masks" prepared the way for a new period in the art of Vajda. It is difficult to establish the common denominator of these drawings in pencil, ink and charcoal, the pastels and temperas of this period. Fragments of landscape, monsters and skulls, plaits of hair, ladders, moons difficult to interpret whirl in these works. Their most important characteristic is probably strangeness: they offer no references we can grasp through daily experience. As though the artist were revealing the finds of a pre- (or post?) historical period broken up into fragments. Like an archaeologist, he records all traces, but their interpretation, contextualization is not yet possible. 3(1 X, In Unworldly Regions Works 1938-1939