Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 16. 1975 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1978)
Szemle – Rundschau - Fitz Péter: Erzsébet Schaár. The three Marx. p. 375–379.
Tig. 1: E. Schaár; Marx, the three variations individuality — generality" that marked the duality of masks. We witness this Sculptural experience in the case of the three Marx portraits. In the modelling of all three portraits one finds the „printlikeness" in which the hair and the beard are added almost as Separately added items, whether in plaster or in wire. This formation is especially Stressed in the „serene, optimistic" variation, while the „revolutionary, prophetic" work uses wire as a means of reviving the cast mask so that the vitalization of the object is perfect. Comparing the threefold portrait the following connections can be established : — owing to the mask-casting way of modelling, the „revolutionary, prophetic" and the „serene, optimistic" piece belong together; — while the „revolutionary, prophetic,, and the „severe, philosophical" variations form a pair because of their identical psychic condition and the SuggeStivity of their appearence ; — the connection between the „Severe, philosophical" and the „Serene, optimistic" variations is looser in spite of the similar way the hair and beard were formed. When comparing the portraits it can be easily perceived that formally it is the „revolutionary, prophetic" variety which unites most values. Solutions which present themselves separately in the two others are.united here. A bronze variation was taken from the original plaster form. When chosing the variation to be cast in a more precious material, the jury chose the simplest way: to comply with conventions and the supposed „materiality". In the oeuvre of Schaár the question of durable material always means a major problem; in the present case we might be almost certain that the plaster-wire variety realized in stone (or in polyester) and metal would not have been „material alien" — and we would have one more durable masterpiece. Instead they erected a statue of the artist done in her „former style" this being „new" and cast in bronze. (The best solution would be the realisation of all three portraits, placed next to another — thus, without incurring the danger of seriality, one could contemplate simultaneously the threefold aspect of Marx: revolutionary, philosopher, and man.) In Schaár's art, doing a portrait is above all an important means of investigating the personality, the formulation of human existence, and the innermost psychic layers of an individual. In 1974, in her composition entitled „Street" (Székesfehérvár) (Fig. 2) she populated the connecting and separating plastic space with her former portraits' „personalities". In this context the personalities are portraits, Symbolical, hesitating, waiting, „life-carved faced" women in queer situations of symbolic meaning — a real resolution into a different meaning. Their connection and lack of connections is the main problem. In this context even if there is question of lonely, isolated „personalities", the walls between which they live do not only separate, but also unite them, and their vital element is their connection, their interdependence. A portrait conceived in the traditional way and used in a new situation had already affected the preparation of the new works, with various genres converging toward a uniform formation. The result of this endeavour shows in the threefold Marx portrait, in her last work, the portrait of Irma Patkós, and in their placement in the lately realized „Street" (Luzern, Kunstmuseum 1975). Schaár's oeuvre is twofold. Its beginning is marked by portraits as well as minutely modelled women and girls' Statues. This formal and thematical world tends towards accomplishment, while by the end of the 'forties new sculptural problems arise: those of space representation. (Space, windows and mirrors of wood reliefs; simplified modelling of figurines.) By the end of the 'sixties her formal world ripens to match her creative spirit and her 377
