KONDOR, Béla
(1931, Pestszentlőrinc - 1972, Budapest)



The extraordinary versatility of this artist who studied painting and graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts is apparent in the facts that apart from using various graphic techniques he made paintings, wrote poetry and prose, explored new methods in photography and was and excellent organist. Besides integrating avant-garde trends, his art was able to build on the great traditions of the past in such a way that the stylistic, thematic and iconographic motifs were actually merged in a unique system of expression guided by the sovereign instructions of the artist. He rendered new interpretation to common symbols in his efforts to provide answers to the challenges of our age, in an art that created a personal mythology. Flying and soaring are common themes for Kondor, and these contributed to the creation of weird symbols appearing in the form of insects (Wasp King, 1963), birds and flying structures (The Artificial Cricket's Take-Off, 1960). He changed the symbols of classic and Christian mythology into the sources of ambivalent notions. The angels, the cherubs, the geniuses of creation and destruction are the strangest figures of the Kondor-iconography. His angel figures, his saints and biblical heroes reveal the Good-Evil polarity in man by exploring the temptation of man. In his pictures of Christ he is preoccupied with the contemporary message of the crucifixion (Iron-sheet Corpus, 1964; Christ on the Cross, 1971). The changing face of man existing in this earthly sphere and the tragic roles played in the 'human comedy' are often displayed in contrast with the angels of the celestial sphere, by flashing up ambiguous interpretations and ambivalent meanings. The key to the interpretation of his self-portrait series (Somebody's Self-portrait) showing a disharmony built on asymmetry, is the attitude of facing the irrational. Of his wall-pictures, his panel painting placed in Margaret Island, Budapest (1968) depicting the legend of Saint Margaret is his most harmonic work of art. His monumental oil painting entitled 'Procession of the Saints into Town' (1972) considered to be a pinnacle in his oeuvre was also one designed to be a wall-piece, however it eventually ended up in a museum, because the party that had ordered the painting rejected it. This work of art that offers a variety of interpretations to the spectator and reflects the grotesque and tragic view of history and philosophising world perception of the artist accompanied by ironical half-tones, can be regarded as a synthesis of Kondor's art.


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