The Hungarian Student, 1958 (2. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1958 / 5. szám
The Hungarian Student 3 József Dómján, Poet of Painted Woodcuts By L. B. (The woodcut on this month’s cover was done by Dómján) XN ALL OF THE history of Hungary there have been no great opportunities for the development of the fine arts. Monuments, however, have always been popular. These monuments were, in most cases, erected in honor of victims of defeated revolutions. The huge blocks of marble hid not only the ashes of the fallen but also buried, in many instances, the hope of a flourishing Hungarian art. The Hungarian artist had the choice of fighting with the revolutionary forces or going to jail. However, if he escaped this, he directed his art in a disguised fashion to serve the ideas of national resistance. As a result, the Hungarian artist usually did not join the mainstream of European art. The history of Hungarian art contains exceptionally early dates, works coming together with European art, objects and ruins of incomplete oeuvres, impossible to classify. We are not going to cite many examples. The romantic painter, Kisfaludy, lost his works of art in a shipwreck ten years before the “Medúza” was completed; the well-known “May Feast” of Pál Szynnyei Merse was being created at the same time Manet had finished some of his great canvases. Usually, every time Hungarian art was beginning to find its contacts with great contemporary European art, it ran up against a wall. The wall was very often a simple obstacle. Lajos Vajda, the modern painter, for example, spent his best years in a Nazi concentration camp. It is true that every nation’s art has had its wasted moments. These moments cannot be regained. The history of Hungarian art, as Lajos Fülep the eminent Hungarian art historian once wrote, consists of such wasted moments. It may sound unbelievable, but never before has Hungarian art had such an exceptionally favourable moment as it does now, in the present day. True, a Hungarian painter, such as Moholy Nagy, left a significant mark on the development of European art, but never before today was there a chance for so many excellent painters and sculptors to play a part in the life of the fine arts in Western Europe. For this reason we are glad that József Dómján held an exhibit of his works from 1957-1958 at the New York Kennedy Gallery. does not believe in any kind of aesthetic dogmatism. If his plans or his imagination wants it that way, he cuts one big geometrical ornament into the wood, but he has no difficulty in analyzing with the most far-Domján, “. . .giving new life to the world of folk woodcanings..in his studio. Connection with Folk Art We are thankful that, shortly after escaping from his country, he was able to work again. The more his works speak the language of modern art the more delighted we are. But, we must admit, our greatest happiness is caused by his uninterrupted connection with folk art. This is a continuous connection which had deepened during his long working hours in Switzerland and at present, in New York. He succeeded in giving new life to the world of folk woodcarvings, to that sometimes funny, sometimes grotesque world, which as a whole is above all, frightening. The rigid forms of Moldavian carnival masks and the angularity of woodcarvings, both appear on his prints. Doniján has begun a very exciting series of tests. He has already succeeded in the following ways: 1. he adheres to the iconography of folk art, 2. he does not philologize. This latter point is what we believe to be the most important of his theories: he fetched means of naturalism, the anatomy of flowers, casually touching upon a few harmonies of colors which suddenly make us remember the color of the eyes of fairies in Hungarian folk sagas. Again, it is wonderous how he has created his formidable Hussar figures in accordance with the tradition of the child-like honeycake puppets. Chagall followed the same pattern. He painted what he knew—for example the decorations of Russian merry-go-rounds— but he did it in Paris, whereas Dómján pursues his art in New York. (Continued on page 4.)
