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Vajda's career of ten years can be linked mostly with Szentendre (1935-41). Because of its baroque towers, churches with icons, references and narrow streets recalling history, this delightful little town became the site of new artistic trends in the early 1930s. Vajda was particularly influenced by constructivism, abstract art and film while he was in Paris in 1930-34. At that time, he prepared photo montages. On his return, he relied on traditions of folk lore and he functioned as a link between East and West in order to study general tasks of art, e.g. individuality, subjectivity and connections.
At the appearance of fascism in 1935-36, he prepared icon heads and self-portraits with icons. "I am in search of a new subject matter, I am building something in myself," he wrote to his wife in summer 1936, "I am trying to find out what the essence of the world is. I always deduce from the concrete, the 'real' to get to ancient forms." When he refers to icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church in his pictures, it does not mean that he is linked with local or universal traditions, but it signals a simplification of forms to geometric plain forms and heads become balls to symbolize the universe. This is an early picture of this period. Wide, loose lines embrace the oval face as if hair, its plasticity is due to light blue spots covering the surface as if a net. The eyebrows and the nose are integrated, which makes them seem to be ornaments. Eyes which are multi-contoured recall eyes in icons: they are wide open and look into the distance. The head is placed on a long stiff overstable neck. The head is a lyric and timeless expression of delicate sensitivity.
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