Kostyál László: „Hirdette utcákon tereken” Németh János művei köztereken és középületekben (Zalaegerszeg, 2004)
„Professed in the streets and squares ...”
its height is quite low compared to its width. It is located at the side of a circular water surface - an ornamental well - to allow the church (when observed from the opposite side) to tower above it. The blue mirror (the bottom of the basin is painted blue) duplicates the view, providing an extremely striking image when seen under the floodlights at night. The legend of the miraculous stag and ancient Hungarian symbolism are derived from the same source. The relief and the church, due to their character, harmonise with each other, and the well serves as an allegorical element reflecting the heavens on the surface of the water. The frame of reference focuses not on the paganism of the ancient faith, but on the identity of Hungarians. The cross on the top of the church tower dominates the scene. In the centre of the frieze we can find the miraculous stag, his head bowed, sipping from refreshing water rippling down both sides. Above the stag a sun-disk turning into a crescent moon is shining, and a few stars are twinkling between the branches of the stag's antler. He has made a shelter for himself among the trees in the surrounding woods, and on the ground between the trees sleep the legendary brothers, Hunor and Magor, with their bows and quivers lying beside them. On the other side, under the shield of a wind-torn tree two chargers are grazing and a peeper is twittering in the tree. The distant ancestors of this tree and the sleeping figures might be of a similar nature to the motifs in the friezes bordering the descent to the crypt of the cathedral in Pécs, carrying complementary narrative elements (from the 12 th century, however). With all this said, it might merely be the creator's mentality that bridges the two works. The drinking stag itself is carrying the total cosmos on its antler branching like a tree, and its symbolic meaning is associated with the tree of life, a fact further emphasised by the water motif. We might associate the tree of life with creation, the water of life and the headspring. The soothing juice of the tree of life feeds the stag, the symbol of life bearing the cosmos in this depiction. The two brothers found a resting-place next to this spring, which is one of the major thoughts expressed by the combination of the church, well and frieze in Százhalombatta. As a gesture to the genius loci, at both ends of the relief ribbon references are made to the origin of the name and history of the town. The barrows refer to the name of the settlement and the galley to the town having once been an ancient Roman port. An office building in Zalaegerszeg is ornamented with a frieze entitled Allegory of Zala, which was sculpted in 2002. It continues with the techniques from the first piece of the series, the frieze of the Keresztury House completed twenty years earlier. After two decades the structures have become clarified, the forms refined and the crowded nature of the composition resolved. There are more natural motifs among the symbolic and pictorial elements, and the print of the Göcsej men's hands shaping the landscape is only portrayed in the upper stripe by the well-kept vines and the outline of the church in Böde, which dates from the Árpád age and is considered the most typical symbol of this period. The entire piece feels more concrete and organic, and the separate, independent life of the specific details ceases to be important. In the foreground there is a meadow redolent with wild flowers, and in the background there is a contemplative deer on the hillside and a playful lizard running about; on a ridge a forest belt is symbolised by two trees, and there is a twittering birdie in the shroud. The next ridge represents the civilised environment. The vineyard next to the church is not simply a vineyard, but is an obvious Christian symbol as well. The sky is ruled by two birds soaring free; there is a sun and moon motif above the church (the inclusion of which was not by chance), and a star between the birds symbolises cosmic eternity. The nostalgia we may feel towards the paradise we have lost is expressed by this work, which lives nowhere but in the artist's imagination and János Németh knows it equally well that most of us secretly long to return to this place. 18
