Köpöczi Rózsa: A grafikus Szőnyi – rézkarcok (PMMI – Szőnyi István Alapítvány, Szentendre – Zebegény, 2000)

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Great Plain, light and shadow is sharply separated, and in almost every picture sunravs falling down in beams appear as a heavenly phenomenon. The village houses, people and animals present in the compositions are unimportant characters compared with the great scenes of nature. It is enivitable to recall Rembrandt's etchings depicting the Dutch plain, especially the Three Trees standing as magnificent beings under the sky slashed into strips with shining beams. Though Marcel Brion places this piece among the most objective etchings of Rembrandt, in one of his analyses he writes about how "supernatural lyric" gives an impulse to "pure objectivity". From the very beginning Szőnyi had the ablility to catch the essence of a landscape and represent it with the most simple devices. The conciseness of expression, the sensual representation of atmospheric phenomena can be observed especially in his early etchings. A significant series of landscapes developed from this start by the end of the 20s, whose pieces are not only an important stage of Szőnvi's art but also belong to the most beautiful chapters of the Hungarian history of graphics. The subject-matter of Winter in the Village, Houses at the Foot of a Hill, Village Covered with Snow is very simple: a gentle slope of a hill with trees and houses. Preserving the freshness of the first impression he could transform the sight so that the lines of forces of the landscape, the tectonic shapes appear as forms with meaning, as if he had tried to realize Cézanne's aim: to make order in the mass of impressions. Besides discovering the landscape, it was also important for him to get to know the life of the local people though he remained an outsider all his life. He did not spring from among the village people he chose for his models but he admired their calmness, their still unspoiled relation to nature. During the years spent in Zebegénv he also created his own "small worlds", which were penetrated with the jov of existence, the admiration for simple things and happenings. The peasant figures appearing in the early works are robust and dignified, they almost remind us of the heroes of ballads. At this time Szőnyi considered important to catch atmospheric phenomena tangibly. Thus his potato-pickers, harvesters, reaping peasants can witness real celestial wonders. Later the atmosphere of the works changed: etchings representing ploughing, making and cocking hay followed one another. The life in the village and in the fields appears in them as a slower and slower and more and more peaceful world. Szőnyi's universe is the chosen landscape: the Danube-Bend; and the chosen village: Zebegény. His world is built inward, restricting the range of subject-matters deliberately. The hills surrounding the village, the river, the houses, the people standing in the street, the animals, the small sensations of slow events appear in his canvases, drawings, plates. The barn, the yard, the stable are places of seemingly unimportant activities. However, the events happening there were all worthy of the painter's attention. In spite of all their genre-likeness, the simple scenes, objects, characters manage to get over to timelessness. The technique of sérigraphiés was also necessary to make visible the hardly perceivable poetic quality which distinguishes them from the series of ordinary conversation pieces. The finest prints of them represent the riverside, the water, the people, whose life is linked to the water. In 1932-33 Szőnyi etched a remarkable series of this subject-matter, consisting of several pieces. By that time he had found his place, and realized that he could work only there. He had been over the detour of the Scholarship to Rome, and the journey to the Eternal City shortened deliberately also proved how important the inspirative force of the chosen landscape was for him. János Pilinszkv's thoughts about realism, concrete and realitv harmonizes surprisingly with Szőnyi's works: "... at the end of my life I begin to find out that realism is the representation of concrete as it reallv is ... As a matter of fact, there is a piece of realism in abstract. It practically wants to materialize what is abstract. Concrete has an enchanting and indefinable spell until our death - we'd better be honest and not cheat now - that real art will never be able to renounce." (János Pilinszky: A realizmus varázsa, Új forrás, 1983. 2.) By the mid-3()s Szőnyi's art had got farther and farther from the monumental, expressive tone ot the beginnings. He had left behind the excitement of The Myth of Love or the heroic, floodlit, monumental figures of Drinkers. The painter became more and more involved in examining the happenings of everyday life around him. He was interested in the microworld of the landscape and the village, their inner structure and values gained a new meaning in his pic24 tures. At the same time he seemed to be observing his models, the village people from a distance. Representing his figures he neither emphasized individuality nor used the devices of psychological description, he much rather characterized them with the posture and gentle gestures. Only an outsider can observe things so comprehensively and from such a distance. Szőnyi's eyes were needed for us to perceive what is otherwise hardly perceivable. He tried to stop and make timeless the short moments that were so rare in the life of simple people who worked hard all day. When they can halt in the street for some minutes without any serious reason, when the light of the evening sun flashes on the white walls of the houses, the inconceivable colours, forms and lights materialize for a hardly perceivable, quicklv-passing half an hour. In several paintings and drawings of Szőnyi can we see female and male figures who are loitering seemingly without any purpose and arrangement in the space of the picture. We cannot help recalling Courbet's multi-figure compositions. The 19

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h century master applied a long-forgotten archaic compositional method in a lot of his paintings: he separated each figure and ranged them in an additive way - let us think of the famous picture titled Studio. Can it be the same in Szőnyi's case? It is worth thinking about this question - because in Werner Hofman's words: "... in the history of art problems often occur coincidences that are deeper than correspondences brought about through an impact" though in Szőnyi's case we may have to find another solution in spite of the striking similarities. From among Szőnyi's works the Wrestler may have the most in common with "the lonely heroes" of the great predecessors. The picture does not fit in the range of the typical Szőnvi etchings either in its subject-matter or style though it is not inferior to them in qualitv. Szőnvi very rarely painted or drew clowns or showmen. After his early nude compositions he rather chose his models from the people of the village or his family. He was not interested in outcasts, defenceless figures living on the confines of society, who do not belong to the order though depend on it. The Wrestler is one of the few exceptions. Thus can we detect the secret thread that attaches Szőnyi's oeuvre to the recent predecessors like Courbet and Manet. We do not know who the model of the Wrestler was, what experience motivated this strange composition almost unique in Szőnyi's oeuvre. We can obtain an interesting result if we compare it with other etchings e.g. the Women Standing at the Riverside, whose panel-picture version is one of Szőnvi's masterpieces. In the smallsize etching of several figures the posture and gestures of the middle woman is almost the same as those of the wrestler, so the real difference between the two figures is even more striking. The Women Standingat the Riverside, just as the landscapes made in Zebegény and the other works of compound program, reflects truly Szőnyi's view of life characterized by turning inwards, cutting himself from the outer world, which, however, served the search for an inner harmony. He defended himself from the overcivilized, dehumanizing way of life of the age, and rather chose a self-imposed emigration, the worlds of retirement. Thus we can explain more or less why a trembling figure similar to the wrestler occurs so rarely among his models. His showman is the Whetter, who is showing his skill in the middle of the street, is almost suggesting the bystanders, all eyes are fixed on his hands. Though the standing figures are sketched with only a few lines, they are very characteristic. They have almost been dissolved in gazing, which is directed upon the event happening inside the space of the picture. This kind of concrete direction is exceptional as in the majority of Szőnyi's pictures figures are just loitering, their attention is neither linked by a central desire, nor influenced by the others' presence. The series of etchings made in 1933 is a good example of how far Szőnyi got in representing statelike existence. Tonality almost completely disappeared from the surface of the Whetter, Carriage in the Street and Danube Harbour. He elaborated a strongly-reduced technique that was based on the characterizing force of line. He got nearly as far as the signlikeness of Japanese wash-drawings. The space of Harbour, the street scene is represented with a bold perspective line, like the strip of the bank or the receding parallels of the fence. In the Whetter the setting does not appear any more, the caricature-like figures are standing in nothing, their spatial position is determined by their relation to the whetter. The characters are formed without any details, the figures are only signed with some appropriate lines. Posture becomes the only means of characterization. The gestures drawn precisely, the characteristic out-