|
The painting represents the artist's mother.
"An old woman whose face is full of wrinkles and determination - well, this is the artist's mother whose portrait he painted a lot of times. She is like an idol cut out of an oak tree," says Károly Lyka in his book on the artist. In Nagy's oevre, the series of portraits of his mother represents a separate chapter, it is a subject matter which keeps returning not only during his first period from the turn of the century until the 1920s but later in his memory, too. Serenity, introvertion, simplicity, monumentality and inactivity characterize the picture which has depth just like Rembrandt's pictures. The painter drew his mother's portrait with energetic and dynamic coal lines and exploited a variety of tones to draw his mother's portrait. He produced mystic lighting by applying shades of golden yellow, thus, the portrait is almost radiating from the inside. The head slightly leaning forwards gives the impression as if the figure were meditating, sinking into her thoughts and remembering her life full of struggles. As an analogy in content and composition, Derkovits' "Woman with Head Kerchief" (1937) can be mentioned in spite of differences in style.
|
