|
Just as in many of the artist's paintings the small and large motifs of the town of Szentendre reappear like old acquaintances, in his biographical memoirs he often revokes in sensitive, poetic reflections the atmosphere of this small town, its inhabitants and the events that took place there. Artists have had different approaches to Szentendre. Some were attracted by the picturesque sight, some by the landscape structure surrounding the town, and some found in it a means of artistic self-expression. To Bálint's friend, Lajos Vajda, the town offered an original model of a new type of universality in the cross-section of the Eastern and Western cultures. For Bálint, Szentendre represented the memory of the place where he could feel at home. The reflections of real events associated with fears and joys and unexplainable anxiety gain embodiment in the animated fragments of the townscape, as can be observed in his painting entitled 'Magic Night in Szentendre'. In the foreground of a deep-dark blue sky there is a small yellow house that in the words of the artist, has become saturated with the "merciless yellows of the sun", and it reveals the artist's soul in shimmering arabesques and enjoys the protection of the grid in the window (displaying the common symbol for protection) against the enlivened dark shadow that grows into a threatening dimension.
|
