Horváth János Milán szerk.: Horváth János Milán kiállítása (Kaposvár, 2009)

The setting or its characteristics and atmosphere are determined by the very emotion, but it can not be localized. Occasionally, the common, real perspective becomes grotesque as if we saw it through a prism or parabola mirror; at some other time it dissolves in the background. We do not come across items that make up an environment: plants, elements of nature, landmarks, details of architecture, or mysterious occurrences of light are very common that come from unidentifiable mystic sources under the horizon or from behind the viewer. Colours of gloomy yellow, mystically pulsing blue, peculiarly vibrating green, glowing-trembling red mix within one composition, sometimes depicting an illusion-glory behind the vision that only the beholder can comprehend around the vision, the characters can not do so. The visions often have more than one meaning, but it is not the characters in the picture that visionize, they only help us get the real message. We are aware of their characteristics of Trompl'oeuil, so they can be defined as a picture on or behind the picture rather than a picture within the picture. Actually, the characters are so-called actors that perform certain roles, or if we view them as a whole, they personify some moods, inner feelings. Although the titles of these pieces of work are classical, sometimes they refer to stories from the Bible (Orpheus, Dante variations, Exodus, Golghota, etc.) The artist employs them as a frame to adjust them to his own message. The cut-out of these pictures are usually rather narrow, the figures fill the space completely, or they make up the composition often appearing in half-length. The role they play is based on an inside logic that is difficult for the beholder to follow, so interpretation may rely on one's associations and individual explanation. Still, it is not arbitrary as the artist provides us with the basic criteria using the above devices to become absorbed in meditation. However, we are not given a code to solve the inner events of the soul and its emotional manifestations. The viewer's only opportunity to identify himself with the pictures is to use his own scraps of recollections from his subconscious when decoding them at the last steps of the process of interpretation. Doing so, it becomes clear that certain works of János Milán Horváth are such projections of inner motifs or emotional shocks that are connected to particular situations in life. They can spread from birth to death involving philosophical, sometimes sophistic pondering about the relationship between the human being and the transcendental sphere, the meaning and object of life and even death, the struggle between darkness and light, and the perpetual recurrence. Another time they visionize a feeling associated with a certain situation in life: tranquillity, pleasure, love, fear, loneliness. In his most emblematical picture entitled Nyitott kapuk (Open gates) - perhaps the best example to understand the essence of his art - on the left hand side of the foreground, with his chest showing, the figure of a man with an unemotional face offers the viewer to identify himself with him looking through openings behind one another where the figure of a woman is standing or bending while the last gate opens into a garden in blooms brilliantly illuminated. Here are the stations on the path of life hoping for a final fulfilment. Everything seems to be predestined, can be observed or analysed with a detached rationalisation, but there is a faith hiding behind it that takes cover in the depth of things, the orderly nature of life, a faith that primarily defines his art. László Kostyál