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

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lines, express everything that Szőnyi thinks about this world, and they also carry message about his own place in this order. Contemplative behaviour is not far from the painter's mind, he is related to the characters of his own pictures. He liked observing events from afar. From a distance every unimportant detail loses its significance, and only the important gestures expressing real values and the poetry of devicelessness that remain. At the start of his career in the early 20s he tried making portraits as well. Most of these early studies are linked to the pieces worked out in great detail, mentioned earlier, like Abandoned Mill, or Draw Well. He may have etched the portrait of the Old Woman of Kecskemét after the preliminary study drawn at the Kecskemét artists' colony. The features of the old village woman sitting for the artist can be recognised in some graphic works of Imre Nagy and Vilmos Aba Nóvák as well. The detailed network of lines applied for representing the wrinkled face can rarelv be detected in other portraits of his. As opposed to the portrayal of his late pictures, at that time he had considered psychological characterization and portraying the individual character important. When examining the range of his portraits we can find few works representing recognizable people who did not belong to the family, or whom he etched on commission. The genre of portrait in the classical sense is not typical of either his painting or graphics. Szőnyi is much rather distinguished by group portraits, generalizing, distance-keeping portrayal and eclipsing individuality. The presence of portraits of children and works elaborating the subject-matter of motherhood is not accidental in the oeuvre of the artist of lyric temper. He must have been inspired by the personal experience of being a father though the classical iconography related to the subject was not far from his painterly world, either. Thus were produced the several compositions of mother with child, some of which are monumental, others are entirely lyric or fine. Thev have one thing in common: they try to make universal this eternal yet at the same time everyday and deeply human subject. His portraits of children deserve special attention. First it may seem surprising, but we can observe the very same generalizing, distance-keeping manner in the portraits of his children or full-length representations as in the canvases or drawings depicting village people. These children's eyes are also looking into space, their facial expression is a little hard-set but their figures are surrounded defendingly by the velvety black background constructed of an even and fine network of lines against which their faces seem to shine. So far we have taken into consideration the main stages of the creation of the etching oeuvre of 200 pieces. A very important source for dating and identifying the works was Lajos Nándor Varga's Collection of Data. (Lajos Nándor Varga: Adattár a művészi grafikához. Rézkarcolók 1900-1936, Bp. 1936. Published by the author.) The graphic artist, who followed Viktor Olgyai at the Department of Graphics of the Academy of Fine Arts, collected very precisely the data of all the plates and prints made by prominent Hungarian artists dealing with etching between 1900 and 1936. By 1936 István Szőnyi - according to Lajos Nándor Varga - had made 180 etchings, 12 high-etchings, 3 woodcuts and 5 lithographs. If we accept the data of this authentic catalogue we can establish that Szőnyi's etching activity had more or less stopped by 1936. It is difficult to find the explanation why he gave up this genre. He may have felt he had exhausted all possibilities, and could not improve his problems were surely not technical - but rather tried to find new ways leading in other directions where etching had no role any more. In the later period of his life he sometimes took the copper plate and the etching needle. At the end of the 50s he made some sheets worthy of mention. When looking over Szőnyi's oeuvre - whatever point of view we examine this career from - we always arrive at the sadness of the too early end. In the last years of his life the rediscovered Italian landscape, the treasure of Rome, the harbour of Fiumiccino and the sea threw the old master's creative fantasy into a fever. As a result of his last journey to his daughter, Zsuzsa Szőnyi, several interesting tempera pictures, drawings and etchings were made. This last period unfortunately could not accomplish itself though he left Italy for home with a lot of plans and sketches, and he prepared for an exhibition of his works made there. This exhibition, however, did not open in his life. We cannot know for sure when he took the etching needle in his hand again. What is certain is that in Italy he drew some sketches in pen and ink specially to prepare his etchings.We also have some plates and the pilot-print depicting the cypress trees, the harbour of Fiumiccino and the seashore familiar from the drawings already We know about a few etched self-portraits and portraits from the 50s as well. Apart from them no important works occured from the period after 1936. That's why we were so astonished to find two surprisingly mature-style monumental plates, which had been kept in the storeroom of the Szőnyi Museum. No mention had been made of them in any books on Szőnyi. Nor have they been published anywhere. The real subject-matter cannot be revealed from the titles - Mourning and Accident - on the descriptive cards, either. It was only after the change of the political system that the attention turned towards these two etchings. Thus was revealed the real origin of these works. The old master paid homage to the revolution of 1956 with these etchings. Szőnyi was staying in Zebegény on 23

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1 October. His acquaintances told him about the events. On the effect of the dramatic news he began to draw immediately. He prepared for the etchings with charcoal sketches. The composition of Mourning follows the iconography of the classical piéta representations. A young boy is lying dead with outstretched arms in front of a crouching sturdy female figure outside a barricade. The concise, heavy portrayal of the characters is in sharp contrast with the airy and hardly signed forms of the background. The figure of the mourning woman can remind us of the working class women of Daumier. She is surrounded by the backlight as a glory, making the poor setting solemn. The other sheet is named Accident. The title seems to hide the real subject-matter. With the composition of the picture Szőnyi returned to the old additive construction. The robust male figures ranging one after the other are carrying a dead body above their heads. Their figures rise above the horizon. The huge figures fill the space of the picture completely. The dramatic keynote of the funeral procession is determined by the monotonous rhythm. Originally on the lower edge of the sheet the date of the outbreak of the revolution could be read: MCMLVI. X. 23. On some pilot-prints the numbers can still be seen, but on the plate only the aster wreath accompanying the numbers has remained. The two etchings are unique in Szőnyi's oeuvre by all means. In his art he never responded to concrete political or historical events. He tried to seclude the events of the outside world from creation. Producing the Garden Bench in the middle of World War II is a good example of this idea. He painted his most radiant picture in the darkest times. According to Lajos Németh's characterization "he expressed in its purest form the contemplative attitude retreating behind the trenches of art, he was the earliest to reach the pure picturesqueness of Nagybánya artists." (Lajos Németh: Modern magyar művészet, Bp Corvina p.

77) Szőnyi did not accidentally use this technique to work out the gloomy subject-matter. He knew very well that the devices of etching, the drama of black and white lines, the self-imposed asceticism were suitable to express his feelings of that time. These two important sheets are the worthv end of the grandiose graphic oeuvre. It also indicates that he was able to renew, there career could have been continued as "during his creative work an etcher takes the plate in his hand again and again, and incises and etches again and again. He works on the copperplate as a farmer tills the soil, until it becomes perfect, until the right proportion of light and shadow is formed. He does not hesitate to take the plate in his hand again to place all his figures, so that the light could shine even in the dark corners and the clouds could be torn apart." (Marcel Brion: Rembrandt élete, Bp. Corvina p. 10) Szőnyi tried to achieve this final state in all his life. Preparing for his last exhibition he complained in a letter to his daughter that an artist loses his lion's claw before his accomplishment. His life was over just when his desire was awakened to return to the technique of etching, which requires great attention and practice, a lot of renunciation, patience and asceticism. He was driven by the same passion as all the others pursuing this technique: the desire to fix the spiritual presence, to leave a mark - in this case in the strict sense of the word in the form of a print. Ernő Marosi compares the intention of the print-makers to the prints honoured as relics (the sudarium or the shroud of Torino)." A creative action is what is named invention, capriccio or fantasy, the content of which is usually a deep message like in the works of Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya, Gauguin", or in the works of István Szőnyi. (Ernő Marosi: Az európai grafika hatszáz éve, Művészet 1986/1 1, p.53) 25