Gärtner Petra (szerk.): Csók István (1865 - 1961) festészete - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. A. sorozat 45. (Székesfehérvár, 2013)
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RESUME 457 with his endeavour for "re-creation", Csók moulded from his own picture, its memorial, and erected it.This event-memorial, thus, had to be rendered displayable. In place of the old, originally folding (but by now, nailed and boarded) stretcher, we prepared a new pushpegged frame. We repaired the deformed, wavy canvas carrier and tacking edge by multiple steaming, and we anchored and reinforced the paint layer that had loosened in a number of places with Klucel. We fitted the picture with an additional tacking edge, reinforcing the old one that was torn and missing in many places. After stretching the painting onto a new stretcher, we removed the contamination on the surface of the picture by treatment with soapy white spirit, and the yellowed lacquer of various thicknesses and dimensions with acetone. We executed the replacement of missing segments in the continuity of the surface with smoothing. Meanwhile, we seriously ruminated on whether to fill in the portions of the surface that the master had rendered "chaotic" (to put it lightly) with W&N Aquapasto, and to smooth them this way, but finally we decided that in this way, it would make a strong whole. We underpainted the lesions and the smoothings with aquarelles, and then we varnished the picture.The aesthetic restoration occurred with oil paints and adapted retouching. It is worth mentioning that restoration work was not foreign to István Csók. Very early repairs to his picture, The Lord's Table (cat. 6), serve as evidence of this, though he used a flat brush, unsuitable for retouching. The other similar case was the study for Nirvana, for which the canvas was lined in such a conspicuously childlike way, that we had to examine why it was done this way, and this is how we came upon the canvas on the verso, (cat. 37) The doubling of the picture was truly unnecessary: by mounting a new tacking edge, the stretching could be solved, and in this way, both sides of the painting became visible. Most probably, István Csók also conserved his picture, Gathering Hay (cat. 9), in such a way that he fixed the paint layer that had begun to spin by daubing it with thick dammar varnish. When I received this picture for restoration many years ago, my first task was to restore the surface that was similar to ice-floes piling up on each other to its original condition. Also in connection with this picture was the notable event of the master, at the age of 90, painting its triptych version, under the title War and Peace. (XXIII.4-6) In the years following, he set upon Nirvana, and the result of this intervention was the work that has now been displayed and restored according to the above. We can see how the elderly István Csók, with his anachronistic compulsion for alteration, and his ambitions for innovation, as a consequence of regrettable technical failings, deformed the masterpieces of his youth. XIII. ÉVA SZACSVAY An ethnographical approach to the works of István Csók This presentation is an experiment to distil firstly the ethnographical picture present in Csók's way of thinking, secondly the ethnographical facts from his works. Not only do the objects of the folk culture appear in István Csók's rich career, but the pictures of the popular community, folklore events, faith and believes and the manifestation of popular religion, that is the peasantry's spiritual culture can be also perceived. A group of paintings suggest the structure and the meaning of an altar. The proof of the change in his art, the Chest with Tulips (cat. 48) suggests a flowery altar-piecelike that is typical in ornamental art of the folk culture, which is highlighted by the Mary association of the baby in "Sárköz" wear in the centre. This work became the central piece of the triptych series, which focuses on the folklore elements, and it leads to the "triptych"altar representing the ideological change. Another group of works provide painterly contribution to the "capitalist village" with popular belongings of the middle-class, such as a wine jug, and with genre pictures that show the lifestyles of servants, day-labourers and the farmer middle-class. The so-called mythological pictures can be interpreted with regard to ethnography, accordingly the results of the folklore research and the powerful effects of the curiosity for the spiritual (mesmerism, occultism) are projected on each other. Finally, we can recognize the recreative characteristic of the constructive process of the folk culture by the widely known interruptions of the creative process; the repetition of the elements and motifs; the"revivals"of pictures; the reconstruction of compositions; and the continuous painting of certain works. XIV. LÁSZLÓJURECSKÓ Folkart motifs in István Csók's art István Csók grew up as the son of a miller in the Hungarian countryside, and therefore the simplicity of peasants'talk, customs, and art (i.e., folk art) were natural for him. Like his contemporaries, Csók painted literary and symbolic themes on large canvases in order to be appreciated, and to meet the expectations of others, as well as his own. However, there's an obvious theme in his work to which he always returns, almost as if for security and reassurance - the world of the peasant, particularly its folk art and fashions. Csók does not follow the norms set by the official art-politics of the early part of the 19th century; rather he finds his themes and their expression in the Hungarian language and culture of "Sárköz" and in the "Socac"culture of Southern Slav origin. He goes to the source of his experiences in Sárköz when he paints the Lord's Supper (cat 7), his main work from 1890, and after 1900 his attention T
