UITZ, Béla
(1887, Mehala - 1972, Budapest)

Sitting Woman

1918
Oil on cardboard, 87 x 69 cm
Janus Pannonius Museum, Pécs

Uitz used to belong to a group of artists around the journal "Ma". "Sitting Woman" comes from this period. Tthe picture is filled by a woman sitting on a chair with a high back. She is holding the head slightly to the side, and folding the hands in the lap. She is wearing a simple dark-coloured waistcoat, her arms are covered by a light-coloured long-sleeved blouse. The drape in her lap is in strong pleats covering the knees. Although she is depicted in two dimensions, her figure is plastic. Contours are subordinated to plasticity: the coldness of steel blue embedded in light blue dominate the picture. Symmetry is another dominating factor whose monotony is reduced only by the face slightly turned to light. The difference between the back of the chair and the human body produces tension. It is not difficult to discover that the picture is linked to Uitz's later posters. The background is neutral, he painted only the contours of the back of the chair. The material and plasticity of the chair are secondary in making the female character of the picture morr stressed. She is a modern mother, a worker madonna, and a child of the age. Who would not think of madonnas of the early period of renaissance or the simple portrayal of Mary of later periods of renaissance when seeing this picture? In the case of Béla Uitz, wandering in the past is only a tool because he applied lessons and elements of the past in order to integrate them in the picture. He intensified his message by tools of his art while he created something original and modern. One has the ipression that this is a modern picture because he elevated human dignity to an eternal height which is an earthly sense.


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