Bakos Katalin - Manicka Anna szerk.: Párbeszéd fekete-fehérben, Lengyel és magyar grafika 1918–1939 (MNG, Warszawa–Budapest, 2009)

III. KATALÓGUS - 2. HAGYOMÁNYKERESÉS - - Folklór - - Hétköznapi falusi élet

Folklore Country life KB: "The contemporary writer and artist is not a lone wolf, a pretentious aestete shut away in his ivory tower, but a man-artist, in whom the artist unites with a man. A man who is a member of some society, some people."

17 The central concern of 19th-century Hungarian art was to work out a national art. History pictures and genre scenes of the peasantry were all created with a view to national art. The movement of the secession also adopted this ideal, and in line with the innovative European trends it discovered and utilized the forms of folk art. The way was paved by scientific collecting work and fierce debates about folk ornamentation, which were closely connected to the questions of national identity, to prehistoric research findings and questions of historical origin used as arguments in the disputes. The adoption of the forms of folk art was particularly felicitous in architecture, applied arts and music. Lajos Kozma's achievements in architecture, interior decoration, graphic and book art epitomize the conscious, analytic use of the peasant arts and crafts: the motifs adjusted to the artist's idiosyncrasy were harmoniously combined with the modern endeavours. Kozma's efforts continued the line of fusing folklore and modernism after World War I when he joined the activity of designers and book publishers hoping to help the recovery of the country by promoting the nation's cultural level and the production of quality goods. Compared to Kozma, István Turi-Polgár was a lesser master of late secessionism. His linocuts made to accompany Endre Ady's poems are spectacular but the use of folk ornaments is unclear and inconsistent. Turi-Polgár interpreted Ady's poetry one-sidedly, focusing only on the pathos of nationalism. His visions inspired by the poems take place in mythic times, allowing no outlet to Ady's critical tone, or to teeming contemporary life which greatly inspired the poet. István Pekáry's popular peasant genre scenes in painting and the coloured etchings of the Hungarian Dance album are characterized by this kind of non-analytic, superficial folklorism. It is not accidental that Pekáry's autonomous art works harmonize with his decorative carpet designs and the motifs of his album were multiplied on picture postcards. The decorative, humorous works imitating the naivety of folk art represented a folkloristic tendency encouraged in the media of decorative art, photography and graphic design by the cultural policy for a deliberate use in creating a definite - idyllic - image of Hungary also applied in tourism and foreign trade advertisements. György Buday's ars poetica was sharply contrasted to direct folklorism. His ambition was also to explore the deep layers of ancient peasant culture and render the world of folk poetry in the expressive tools of modern graphic art. Opposed to the romantic concept of the peasantry, Buday was motivated by his social sensitivity and an urge to explore reality. After the shocks of the war and revolutions, the discrediting of the bourgeois democratic and the labour movements, the idea that it was the peasantry - the purely Hungarian stock - who was the vehicle of the nation and token of its survival spread from the early 1920s. The global economic crisis and the shift of the domestic politics to the right forced responsible, socially sensitive intellectuals to launch researches to reveal the living conditions of the peasantry and seek remedies to their problems. Buday was involved in these efforts as a member of the Young Artists' College in Szeged, together with photographers, ethnographers, literary historians. Buday made woodcut illustrations for the ballads and folk tales collected by his ethnographer friend Gyula Ortutay. The dramatic contrasts, formal simplicity, flashlike appearance of motifs make the woodcut particularly well suited to convey the sombre, mystical realm of ballads laden with tragic conflicts. Peasant Tales from Nyír and Rétköz appeared in the