Izsó was the most peculiar personality of the time. He was the first and the only artist for a long time that raised Hungarian sculpture with a strong popular-national approach to the level of Hungarian art which can be related with that of Petőfi and Arany in literature, or Erkel and Liszt in music.
His first master was István Ferenczy who recognised his talent very early. He went to Vienna, then to Munich where Sad Shepherd (1862), his first work was accomplished. He was still under the influence of ideals of the reform age, he portrayed an idealised folk figure, but subdued power and energy can be sensed which are about to break this peace.
After years of hardship, Izsó decided to return and as he had been waiting for major commissions in vain, he produced statuettes of folk figures, e.g. Dancing Peasants. Series of bozzettoes characteristic of his life portrayed body and movement in a number of varieties and were daring expressions of national character still retained. The close connection between liveliness and passion, body and clothes, and the expression of body delicately portrayed make sketches come to life indicating that Izsó was destined for more significant tasks.
Of these tasks the statue of poet Csokonai (1871) in Debrecen was the first and unfortunately the only one which was completed by Izsó. He modelled the young and cheeky, yet distinguished poet, an ideal, with the statue. He is wearing Hungarian costumes, forms and details serve the demand for monumentality. Although Csokonai's statue took much of his time, he accomplished several portraits before and after it of which the portrait of Pál Almásy Balogh (1864), a doctor, is worth mentioning. It is a sculpture in the proper sense of the word, it is lifelike and well composed, it is the portrait of a distinguished person.
Full of energy, he began to work on the statue of Petőfi to be erected in Petőfi tér in Budapest. The message of the statue is addressed not only to us, Hungarians but to humanity. Unfortunately, the untimely death of the artist hindered him at finishing it which was left to Adolf Huszár who added his style to it: the figure who is reciting a poem with traditional pathos does not match Izsó's idea any more. The statue of Dugonics erected in Szeged had the same fate: it was completed by somebody else. Izsó's career could never reach a peak because his art was not appreciated and he died of tuberculosis. His works made him a significant artist of the late 19th century.
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