Verba Andrea szerk.: Új természetkép. A tájábrázolás változása az 1930-as és 40-es években (PMMI kiadványai - Kiállítási katalógusok 8. Pest Megyei Múzeumok Igazgatósága, 2004)

English summary. New Nature Vision - Transformation of Landscape Representation in the 1930s and 1940s

NEW NATURE VISION TRANSFORMATION OF LANDSCAPE REPRESENTATION IN THE 1930s AND 1940s "Experience is the spiritual and moral motion that creates the continuous connection of nature and inner effects. It can come all of a sudden but most often, it is the result of a lengthy series of contemplation. Nature is just as important and significant here as the often uncontrollable inner feelings. (...) Our infinity joins that of the world. (...) Experience is not the effect of a spectacle prcduced on you. Experience is a process starting in our inner world and radiating outward. When the stream of forms of nature affecting you meets the radiation of our inner world, experience is born." Jenő Gadányi, in his writing of 1927, summarizing his ideas on art, gives a model-like wording of the transformation of view, which could be observed in the period and which determined most of the progressive young artists' "new nature vision" in the 30s. The post-impressionist trend of Hungarian painting following plain air tradition was not enough for the youth trying to find their own way. The same was the case with the first great wave of European avant-garde trends having lost their initial dynamism and grown tired by that time, The politicised modern urban culture of the decade before World War II offered an alienated way of living. It seemed to be a fundamental task for the young artist generation experiencing existential anguish day by day to discover the possibilities of artistic renewal on the border of tradition and waysearching. In this controversial situation, following the previous fever of founding artists' colonies, it was not enough to withdraw identifying oneself with the romantic attitude of the slogan "Back to nature!" At the same time, it is undoubted that natural landscape against the chaotic instability of civilized world still meant a classical model for some of the young artists. Besides Jenő Barcsay, some other painters working in Szentendre experienced that the constructive structure of landscape can present itself even in fragment forms, natural landscape preserves the impression of sensible order in the lines of force of forms either coming into being or decaying. The Szentendre program developed around 1935 by Lajos Vajda and Dezső Korniss indicated a new relationship to nature as well. The youth, who, besides the driving force of romantic attitude, regarded natural landscape or/and the details of nature as models and starting points to a composition, had to find new points of view to validate the search for new ways. The new nature vision characteristic of the period cannot be attached to either a style or a static picture; it's appearance can rather be registered as a continuous transformation presenting itself in various painterly techniques. The common denominator can be discovered in the artist's relationship to nature. Instead of an ordinary, sensation-like interpretation of experience, the artist suggests a recognition being born in the field of inner sensitivity, which supposes personal attachment and can visually be determined as a stream-like connection of forms. The characteristic feature of the inner nature vision developed during the experience is a sort of dynamic presence in which the artist "lives" the basic forms of landscape instead of merely describing it. In the process of creation, he/she transforms the detail motifs of a landscape or a plant into a particular inner vision. The period from the beginning of the 30s to the end of the 40s represents several painterly techniques parallel to one another and it produced significant group of works reflecting similar way of seeing though having an individual character. Instead of a descriptive, impressionistic or naturalistic character, the compositions discover the inner, structural lines of force of a landscape. The artist aims at