Sári Zsolt (szerk.): Hajdú László (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2013)

• "Le pan de mur est en face, pour conjurer le cercle de ton réve. Mais l'image pousse son cri. La täte contre une oreille du fauteuil gras, tu éprouves tes dents avec ta langue: le goüt des graisses et des sauces infecte tes gencives. Et tu songes aux nuées pures sur ton fle, guand l'aube verte s'élucide au sein des eaux mystérieuses." (Saint-John Perse: Le Mur) László HAJDÚ's paintings allow a wide scope of interpretation - but remain independent of any interpretation and cannot be included in any style or trend. His thoughts transformed into pictures of a visual language linked to the traditions of the art of painting are engaged in a search for the original way of existence of the phenomena. He follows a long way with the purpose to ask questions about the final nature of things. He is focusing exclusively on his subject, cleansed from any restriction: he invites the spectator to contemplate every phenomenon directly and simultaneously. The painter's means - capable to evoke the nature of reality - are infinitely simplified and are always part of a homogenous system. Characteristic for the works of art are a disciplined geometric construction and a meticulously elaborated, often monochrome surface. The picture suggests calmness at the first quick glance. Its complex structure slowly unfolds for the penetrating mind. This is one of Hajdú's charms. We see it from outside - while we are already inside. Step-by-step we penetrate into a distant unknown world; pass through dangerous obstacles and through suddenly emerging unexpected beauties. Every work of him - either an independent painting or part of a series - is a concrete formulation of the passage of an idea and at the same time it is a total abstraction of the real phenomena, an openness aiming at experiencing the final state of existence of the things. The subsiding sorrow of loneliness. The inner light shining above the anxieties layered upon each other. He is applying geometry as an efficient medium, which provides the spiritual purity needed for the consequent concentration. Still, he does not build a constructional empire of forms but imperturbably he follows his own path conveying creative evocation - instead of depiction and a feeling of co-vibration - instead of interpretation. The lines constitute the pictures' determinant elements. Sometimes, their presence is just referred to, other times, the order of lines is the picture itself. The painting's inner time is perceivable through the fine oscillations of the lines painted with infinite meticulousness. Simultaneously, they attract towards infinity, where intersection of parallel lines is dreamt, and they show the secret of the waning moment. Hajdú leaves it to the spectator to notice any correlation between the nature and way of existence of phenomena and the reality. The most important help he provides is that he offers eternal time by the visual impulses of the picture: opportunity for contemplation. The rest is not his task. We could mention a long list of all that what he does not do: he does not wish to make known or to tell anything and he does not wish to start even a dialogue. He shows the path he followed by the pure means of a painter; all his speculation and reasoning constitute visual standpoints. He paints pictures, he does not explain. He does not more and not less: he creates a picture and through the picture - a world on its own. He enables the mind and the soul to contemplate together separately existing phenomena. Instead of reflecting the mutual influence of inside and outside, of construction and imagination, of rationality and emotion, he leads the spectator to the final strength. The picture allows the spectator to recognize how the concrete appears in the general, to find the moment which makes the notion of timeless perceivable. There is no inspiring sight but there is a completeness to be experienced through the sight. The conception of space offers many possibilities to the spectator: he may discover the inner space of the picture - as an exceptional universe - when following the lines running into three directions; or he may discover himself, when participating in the visual world of Hajdú. But this is the spectator's choice: within the picture's infinite complexity his own feelings and thoughts outline all that what becomes existent for him. The painter does not transmit his own perceptions to the spectator. If someone is looking with open mind and heart for a path in the whirling phenomena leading to his own awakening, he will find an eternal companion in Hajdú's pictures. Hajdú's paintings don't look like any other painting. He uses different techniques, creates them in different compositions, and still, whoever has ever seen a work of the painter, he will recognize immediately all his other paintings too. The works irradiate strength, wisdom and the power of visualization. Hajdú's paintings. One can live without them. But it is not worth... Borbála Cseh 3