„A bukaresti Buddha”. Tolnai Ottó és Constantin Brâncuși
“The Buddha of Bucharest”: Ottó Tolnai and Constantin Brâncuși

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the motifs in Ottó Tolnai’s oeuvre related to Constantin Brâncuși. Its starting point is the piece titled Bukaresti Buddha (Buddha of Bucharest) from Tolnai’s volume Virág utca 3 (3 Virág Street), in which a Buddha statue purchased in Bucharest becomes a focal point of memory, cultural associations, and artistic self-interpretation. Through the Bucharest setting, this statue establishes Brâncuși’s figure and his art as a defining point of reference in Tolnai’s poetics. The article traces of Brâncuși motifs in Tolnai’s later essays, prose, and interviews, paying close attention to the recurring fracture or "wound" on Brâncuși’s sculptures, the motifs of pure and raw form (poésie pure vs. poésie brute), and the transitions between the local and the universal. Tolnai’s intellectual influences include the Yugoslav art scene, which played an important role in shaping his early fascination with Brâncuși’s reception in that context. According to the analysis, Brâncuși served as an artistic precursor for Tolnai, one in whose oeuvre Tolnai's own East-Central European, neo-avant-garde poetic aspirations found validation.

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