DOI Heft:
No. 384 (March 1925)
DOI Artikel:The work of Livia Kádár
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21402#0155
THE WORK OF LIVIA KAdAR. a
MADAME LIVIA KAdAR'S draw-
ings are small, one might almost say
miniatures, and Truth, her opus magnum
(from the point of view of size), to which
she devoted nearly six months' work, is
no bigger than a page of The Studio.
Her art, though its effect is in the main
decorative, has a creative intention, and
her collection of some fifty works consti-
tutes a little world where everything seems
real and even organic, for the unreal,
which is its substance, has been carried
to the last degree of perfection to obtain
this illusion, a a a a a
This young Hungarian has the poetic
gift; she has the faculty of perceiving at
the same time the visible and the innate
reality which lies beneath the visible,
combining them and making use of both.
One might say that symbolism is her
native language. Her later works differ
from the early ones not by a greater
mastery of technique (as may be seen by
comparing the present examples with her
drawing of Tristan and Isolde, reproduced
over her maiden name, L. Mihaly, in The
Studio, volume 82, p. 82); from the
first she was in possession of a full technical
equipment. The difference lies rather in
the underlying motive, which was origin-
ally purely decorative, but which, in the
more recent works, has become pre-
dominantly spiritual. 0 a a a
Each of Madame Kadar's works con-
stitutes a complete and classic entity in
itself, but it is difficult to find a phrase
which will accurately sum up the whole.
Everything is founded on the means of
expression—thought out for pen-and-ink
work, with full appreciation of the pos-
sibilities and limitations of the method.
There is extreme concentration and an
entire absence of literary feeling. One of
her drawings perhaps represents Spring.
We see a smiling god, and in front of him
thirteen small figures, single or in pairs,
then animals and birds. The whole is
filled with a sense of the divine. Or per-
haps she gives us a picture of maidens
holding out their arms to the unknown,
and behind them—Life. In everything
there is the same purity of expression, the
same rigid, almost mathematical con-
struction, the same interior richness and
harmony—the whole gamut of sentiment,
purged of all sentimentality. She gives
expression to her feelings and says what
she has to say by using motives such as
stars, monsters and serpents ; and above
all by her technical method, which, in its
repetition of certain signs, attains to a
silent dynamic force which is very ex-
pressive. The procedure of stippling which
she employs brings about such an extra-
ordinarily microscopic texture that at
times one feels tempted to ask whether it
is the work of a dwarf. a a 0
In her engravings her aim is similar—
to express her dreams in forms consonant
with her nature. In her naturalistic en-
gravings an element of chance may enter,
" ST. SIMEON STYLITES "
PEN DRAWING
BY LIVIA KADAR
149
MADAME LIVIA KAdAR'S draw-
ings are small, one might almost say
miniatures, and Truth, her opus magnum
(from the point of view of size), to which
she devoted nearly six months' work, is
no bigger than a page of The Studio.
Her art, though its effect is in the main
decorative, has a creative intention, and
her collection of some fifty works consti-
tutes a little world where everything seems
real and even organic, for the unreal,
which is its substance, has been carried
to the last degree of perfection to obtain
this illusion, a a a a a
This young Hungarian has the poetic
gift; she has the faculty of perceiving at
the same time the visible and the innate
reality which lies beneath the visible,
combining them and making use of both.
One might say that symbolism is her
native language. Her later works differ
from the early ones not by a greater
mastery of technique (as may be seen by
comparing the present examples with her
drawing of Tristan and Isolde, reproduced
over her maiden name, L. Mihaly, in The
Studio, volume 82, p. 82); from the
first she was in possession of a full technical
equipment. The difference lies rather in
the underlying motive, which was origin-
ally purely decorative, but which, in the
more recent works, has become pre-
dominantly spiritual. 0 a a a
Each of Madame Kadar's works con-
stitutes a complete and classic entity in
itself, but it is difficult to find a phrase
which will accurately sum up the whole.
Everything is founded on the means of
expression—thought out for pen-and-ink
work, with full appreciation of the pos-
sibilities and limitations of the method.
There is extreme concentration and an
entire absence of literary feeling. One of
her drawings perhaps represents Spring.
We see a smiling god, and in front of him
thirteen small figures, single or in pairs,
then animals and birds. The whole is
filled with a sense of the divine. Or per-
haps she gives us a picture of maidens
holding out their arms to the unknown,
and behind them—Life. In everything
there is the same purity of expression, the
same rigid, almost mathematical con-
struction, the same interior richness and
harmony—the whole gamut of sentiment,
purged of all sentimentality. She gives
expression to her feelings and says what
she has to say by using motives such as
stars, monsters and serpents ; and above
all by her technical method, which, in its
repetition of certain signs, attains to a
silent dynamic force which is very ex-
pressive. The procedure of stippling which
she employs brings about such an extra-
ordinarily microscopic texture that at
times one feels tempted to ask whether it
is the work of a dwarf. a a 0
In her engravings her aim is similar—
to express her dreams in forms consonant
with her nature. In her naturalistic en-
gravings an element of chance may enter,
" ST. SIMEON STYLITES "
PEN DRAWING
BY LIVIA KADAR
149