Klemmné Németh Zsuzsa: Szobotka Imre 1890 - 1961. A zebegényi művészkolónia 1928 - 42 között - PMMI kiadványai. Kiállítási katalógusok 11. (Szentendre, 2005)
who had already been the main figures of this trend, attracted several followers. Szobotka soon enrolled in La Palette painters’ school, where Jean Metzinger and Henri Le Fauconnier, two oppositional character representatives of Cubism, were correcting. István Farkas also attended this school at that time. Szobotka tried to elaborate the individual “dialect” of Cubism adequate to him. He always bumped into the duality tensile inside him; his rationally built Cubistic compositions were dissolved in the overwhelming emotions and shining colours. The audience of Zebegény can see a few sheets of one his most important series, the illustrations to the mystery play titled The Annunciation by Paul Claudel. During his four and a half year internment spent in a small village of Bretagne, Szobotka’s favourite reading was Paul Claudel’s work, which inspired his crystal-like compositions built up of dazzling colours saturated with light. It means a real discovery to see the aquarelles of Bretagne together with those of Zebegény. Now, it becomes clear that Szobotka wanted to make you feel the wind playing, the light vibrating and the air trembling even in his Cubistic period. In the 1930s, he got out of the strict grasp of Cubistic way of expression and devoted himself to the sunlit hills of the Balaton and the Danube Bend, the greens of the forests and the ordinary sensations of a village. Artúr Elek’s prophecy came true. He had already written about Szobotka in the 1920s that “he has to find a style that is the most suitable for the development of his talent responding to delicacies. He is especially sensitive to the play of sunshine filtering through colours and breaking on human forms.” His works made in Zebegény can verify that. The motifs familiar in Szőnyi’s pictures, the hills, valleys, forests and the houses of the village appear in Szobotka’s canvases in a way that you can feel the hidden crystal structure even if light has seemingly dissolved the outlines. This way of seeing has the strangest effect in genre-like pictures where both human figures and animals appear in the composition. They share the light and colour system of the surface with the green of the tree leaves or the blue of the sky. However much he was involved in painterly problems, he could always feel the spirit of the countryside whether it was a small village in Bretagne, Saint Brieue or Zebegény. The series of etchings can seem to be a novelty because Szobotka’s graphic work, with the exception of some early drawings, has been unknown for the audience. The difference between various approaches are much more striking in the etchings. Cubistic portraits, expressive figurái scenes and naturalistic landscapes give an exciting impression when they are arranged beside each other. The exhibition of Szobotka in Zebegény can contribute with new data to the exploration of the painter’s life work though posterity still owes this important artist - pushed into the background so unfairly - the summarizing monograph presenting the whole oeuvre. Hegyoldal fákkal Rózsa Köpöczi
