Kolozsváry Marianna szerk.: Lossonczy Tamás festőművész kiállítása (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2009/6)

of art from a psychological point of view, by and large parallel to the discovery of childhood creativity. Vasari admired Titian's late style, described as characterized by "vibrant brushstrokes, broad patches." He recognized it in works done by the Venetian master at almost ninety years of age, or more likely "only" eighty, since we do not actually know whether Titian really reached the magical age of ninety-nine or whether he in fact lived roughly a decade less. The search for a personal mode of expression in the style of old age, rejecting conventional allure and focusing on essence, is a common-place: it is frequently mentioned in the case of Michelangelo (who lived to the age of 89) concerning works of his done some twenty years prior to his death or in the case of the last period of the oeuvre of Rembrandt, who lived to be 63 years old. The comparable austerity and focus on essence are also repeatedly mentioned in discussion of the late collages of Matisse, who lived to be 85. The last period of Goya, who lived to be 82, is noted not only for the personal style of expression of the "Black Paintings," which is devoid of any compromise, but also for his employment of the new technique of lithography to the same effect. Picasso's enormous zeal to work even in old age and the liberated eroticism of his late pictures are also famous. This was all said about the works of Tamás Lossonczy some twenty years ago, when in the midst of one of the peaks of his art and creative activity he could already be aptly described as the "Nestor of Hungarian painting. Critics had also astutely observed the rare coherence and consistency of his oeuvre, starting with the modern impulses of the twenties to the consummation during the years of World War II and the period immediately following. The three years between 1945 and 1948 are when the gathering of the Európai Iskola [European School] and later the "concrete" artists who defined their work within the scope of the Galéria a 4 Világtájhoz [Gallery to the 4 Cardinal Points] gave a communal framework to his endeavors. Tamás Lossonczy was an artist at the prime of his life at the time, around forty years old. We know very little of the period prior to his artistic maturation because of the devastation of his studio in 1944. Less is known and for different reasons of the period following 1948 on the consequences of his isolation and his search for a way out. We can be certain that in the second half of the 1950's this way out was signified by his decision to take up the thread that he had rejected for almost half a decade and the continuation of the compositional method conceived fundamentally in the program of the surrealists. The Lossonczy interpretations proliferating in the 1990's - not independently of the use of the artist's diary entrees as sources and the insights offered by his verbal declarations - have taken note of this fundamentally unbeaten track in his - shall we say - late works. 90, 95, or 100 itself is not a boundary - and that's good news! There are no conceptual or stylistic differences between his works from 2004 and the works he made this year. There are, of course, other marked differences. There are fewer pictures painted with oil on canvas, and the familiar, ripened series of responses - always to formal problems of composition - given in CÍM NÉLKÜL, 200 8. 12. 2 7. I UNTITLED, 2 7. 12. 2008. I pitt kréta I chalk I 700x500 mm LTG.: 27872