Bakos Katalin: Ellentétek szintézise, Konecsni György plakátművészete 1932–1948 (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2005/5)

Palma-Okma megmarad (Everything Breaks, Palma-Okma Remains) (1935), Senator (1935), Az elegáns világ fogasa csak Diósynál (The Coat-Rack of the Elegant World from Diósy Only) (1936) -, the primary graphic idea is supplemented by several accessory, anecdotal elements. The same is true of the gasworks poster already mentioned. More complex devices often blending opposite elements were in tune with changes taking place on the international scene. Similar transformations occurred in the work of the German Herbert Bayer, who had been a proponent of a purer, rational formal language, and that of the French Cassandre, who, though more facile and colourful, had similarly been a strict constructor. They now began mixing abstract elements with realistic particulars, plane-like elements with plastic ones, and extending the principle of photomontage to details drawn or painted. The formerly surprising daring of constructivism became habitual, and, as a result of the need for novelty, advertisement graphics blended the latest inventions the other branches of fine arts produced. It drew on the characteristic atmosphere of metaphysical painting and the striking associations of images and ideas of surrealism, while it maintained some of the features that had recently characterized it. The world of constructivism focussing mostly on a technical civilization did not all together disappear, being supplemented by symbols of durability, motifs of antique art, as haunting mementos. In Konecsni's art, this process matured in the period between 1945 and 1948, the zenith of his artistic career. Almost every single design he exhibited at the National Salon in 1948 was a bull's-eye (cat. nos. 47-62). This was due to the fact, on the one hand, that these were self-commissions, the artist working without any external constraint, and, on the other, that the new cultural-political line did not yet take shape and hinder the surge of poetic, dramatic and striking ideas. Though at this time, until nationalization took place, major companies continued to advertise, the many participants of the first national poster exhibition, including Konecsni himself, chose the idiom of antiwar protest, reconstruction encouragement or health enlightenment out of personal conviction. There were many designs displayed because this was more of a programme exhibition than a muster of results achieved in a longer period of time. The political posters of the period after the war, including those by Konecsni - such as: A kenyér itt kezdődik (Here Begins Bread), Minden dolgozó pártja a MKP (The Party of All Workers is the Hungarian Communist Party), A tettek pártja MKP (HCP - the Party of Action), És mégis lesz kenyér Nemzeti Parasztpárt (And Yet there Will Be Bread - National Peasant Party), Felszabadulási emlékkiállítás (Exhibition Commemorating the Liberation) (cat. no. 25) - were often reprinted, exhibited, analyzed, and held up as examples for future generations of graphic artists. The symbols created from the animation of the hammer and sickle emblem and the archetypal form of the cart wheel directly continue Konecsni's suggestive and associative poster art that had evolved in the 1930s, and constitute important stations in the history of Hungarian poster art. Our exhibition displays works unknown to today's generations in the freshness and vivid colour of painted surfaces Konecsni had always wanted to see his posters. Dobolok (I am Drumming), A Szabad Nép a valóságot tárja eléd (The Szabad Nép [Free People] Reveals the Reality to You), Még mindig (Still) (cat. no. 52) and Építs, az idő sürget (Construct, Time Presses) (cat. no. 53) affect through the striking power of montages, the contrasting of plastic and plane elements, the suggestiveness of a visionary presentation. A relief-like depiction and fine stylization characterizes the figures of the mother and her child in A család egészségéért (For the Health of the Family) (cat. no. 57). The suffering of the figure ploughing in És mégis lesz kenyér is rendered perceptible by the desolate landscape and exaggerated foreshortening (cat. no. 51 ). Konecsni's masterful and illusionistic handling of facture in the design entitled Egészségvédelmet az újjáépítésben (Health Protection in Reconstruction) (cat. no. 58) is suggestive of the bullet-pierced walls of a Budapest destroyed and the terror of bomb-shelters, contrasted with a flower symbolizing life withering in a cellar. Expressed in so many words, this seems verbosity; condensed in image, it is effective metaphor. György Konecsni was a seminal artist of his time. His posters made for travel and commercial purposes in the 1930s and for anti-war and election purposes between 1945 and 1948 have become emblematic. In the genre of graphic design, "he transmitted the up-to-date aspirations of the thirties, the objective forms of Bauhaus, the surprising visual achievements of surrealistic association, and, later on, a relaxed, calligraphic sketching or geometric shapes concentrating on essence to tens of thousands of people. And, in the meanwhile, he never remained a mere interpreter, he was a poetic translator of universal tendencies into the language of the art of poster. He moulded everything he touched so as to fit Budapest, adding society, history to images; he turned new means of visual expression into common places or household shapes in the noblest sense of the word." (Géza Perneczky)