DOI Heft:
Rozprawy
DOI Artikel:Piotrowski, Piotr; Wilczyński, Marek [Übers.]: Modernism and totalitarism II: myths of geometry: neo-constructivism in Central Europe 1948 - 1970
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28179#0135
MODERNISM AND TOTALITARIANISM II
133
where particularly in the 19th century specific nations and ethnic groups
did not enjoy the liberty of expressing their political aspirations in a
direct manner, provided a good background for such a definition of cul-
ture. Almost everywhere in the central part of Europę culture was that
area where society could express itself much morę freely than in politics
par excellence,49 Thus, the declaration of modernity was primarily of a
morał character, sińce it meant resistance against the regime which im-
posed limitations on artistic freedom, and only in a secondary sense it ex-
pressed some particular artistic interests. The chronological and bio-
graphical distance from any specific - in this case, constructivist -
tradition could probably make such an attitude easier to adopt. Hungary
(as well as Czechoslovakia, although, as we will see, for different histori-
cal reasons) was a classic example of such a situation, unlike Poland,
where the contact with the constructivist heritage remained relatively
close so that the decisions to move from the informel and surrealism to
neo-constructivism were much less freąuent. What is morę, to refer to
Julian Przyboś’s defense of the “vernacular” tradition of abstract art
against the French informel imports, one might say that the boundaries
separating the opposite “wings” of modern art were ąuite distinct. In
Hungary the reverse was the case: the art of Korniss can be treated as a
supreme example of a generał tendency. When in the early sixties the
younger followers of Sandor Molnar from the “Zuglói kor” (“Zuglói
Circle”) initiated resistance against the conservatism of the European
School, they did not choose any particular orthodoxy, drawing from the
so-called Paris School, informel painting, or American abstract ex-
pressionism, as well as from constructivism, and the interest in Kandin-
sky paralleled that in Mondrian and Malevich.50 Morę or less at the same
time, i.e. in the mid-sixties, Tamas Hencze followed, on the one hand, the
path of action painting, putting paint on the canvas with wide, sweeping
strokes, virtually imitating Hans Hartung, while on the other, he ap-
proached through his luminous, cool, illusionist, and almost metallic
poetics of op-art the work of the Polish artist, Zbigniew Gostomski.51
Another artist, a major figurę of Hungarian constructivism, Imre Bak
(incidentally, a member of the “Zuglói kor “), showed a similar attitude in
the sixties, painting, on the one hand, loosely ordered expressive com-
positions, and on the other, disciplined, geometrical, and decorative can-
49 C. Hargittay, “Catalysts of Changes”, in: Free Worlds: Metaphors and Realities in
Contemporary Hungarian Art, ed. R. Nasgaard, C. Hargittay, Toronto: Art Gallery of On-
tario, 1991, p. 21-22.
50 G. Andrasi, “A ‘zuglói kor’ (1958-1968). Egy muveszcsoport a hatvanas evekbol”,
in: Ars Hungarica, No. 1, 1991, p. 47-64.
51 L. Beke, “Hencze among the Contemporaries”, in: Hencze Tamas. Festmenyek/
Painting, Budapest: Mucsarnok, 1997, p. 29.
133
where particularly in the 19th century specific nations and ethnic groups
did not enjoy the liberty of expressing their political aspirations in a
direct manner, provided a good background for such a definition of cul-
ture. Almost everywhere in the central part of Europę culture was that
area where society could express itself much morę freely than in politics
par excellence,49 Thus, the declaration of modernity was primarily of a
morał character, sińce it meant resistance against the regime which im-
posed limitations on artistic freedom, and only in a secondary sense it ex-
pressed some particular artistic interests. The chronological and bio-
graphical distance from any specific - in this case, constructivist -
tradition could probably make such an attitude easier to adopt. Hungary
(as well as Czechoslovakia, although, as we will see, for different histori-
cal reasons) was a classic example of such a situation, unlike Poland,
where the contact with the constructivist heritage remained relatively
close so that the decisions to move from the informel and surrealism to
neo-constructivism were much less freąuent. What is morę, to refer to
Julian Przyboś’s defense of the “vernacular” tradition of abstract art
against the French informel imports, one might say that the boundaries
separating the opposite “wings” of modern art were ąuite distinct. In
Hungary the reverse was the case: the art of Korniss can be treated as a
supreme example of a generał tendency. When in the early sixties the
younger followers of Sandor Molnar from the “Zuglói kor” (“Zuglói
Circle”) initiated resistance against the conservatism of the European
School, they did not choose any particular orthodoxy, drawing from the
so-called Paris School, informel painting, or American abstract ex-
pressionism, as well as from constructivism, and the interest in Kandin-
sky paralleled that in Mondrian and Malevich.50 Morę or less at the same
time, i.e. in the mid-sixties, Tamas Hencze followed, on the one hand, the
path of action painting, putting paint on the canvas with wide, sweeping
strokes, virtually imitating Hans Hartung, while on the other, he ap-
proached through his luminous, cool, illusionist, and almost metallic
poetics of op-art the work of the Polish artist, Zbigniew Gostomski.51
Another artist, a major figurę of Hungarian constructivism, Imre Bak
(incidentally, a member of the “Zuglói kor “), showed a similar attitude in
the sixties, painting, on the one hand, loosely ordered expressive com-
positions, and on the other, disciplined, geometrical, and decorative can-
49 C. Hargittay, “Catalysts of Changes”, in: Free Worlds: Metaphors and Realities in
Contemporary Hungarian Art, ed. R. Nasgaard, C. Hargittay, Toronto: Art Gallery of On-
tario, 1991, p. 21-22.
50 G. Andrasi, “A ‘zuglói kor’ (1958-1968). Egy muveszcsoport a hatvanas evekbol”,
in: Ars Hungarica, No. 1, 1991, p. 47-64.
51 L. Beke, “Hencze among the Contemporaries”, in: Hencze Tamas. Festmenyek/
Painting, Budapest: Mucsarnok, 1997, p. 29.