„Mintha álmodnám erdővé válva, – hiába tornyok, sírásók, falak – lombozok legbelül” Bazsonyi Arany 1981–2001 közötti grafikai munkássága
“As if I were dreaming of becoming a forest, – despite towers, tombs, walls – I am leafy deep within” Arany Bazsonyi’s graphic work between 1981–2001

Author(s): Anna Tüskés
Subject(s): Visual Arts, History of Art
Published by: Pécsi Tudományegyetem Művészeti Kar Művészettörténet Tanszék
Keywords: Bazsonyi Arany; graphic art; Hungarian modern art; biblical themes; surrealism; Christian iconography; literary illustration; family motifs; female identity; twentieth-century Hungarian culture
Summary/Abstract: The study examines the graphic oeuvre of the Hungarian artist Bazsonyi Arany between 1981 and 2001, emphasizing that this aspect of her work has received far less scholarly attention than her painting. It highlights the difficulties of researching her graphics because the works were dispersed among museums, institutions, and private collections after her death. The article identifies the period between 1981 and 2001 as the most productive phase of her graphic art, when drawing became an autonomous artistic medium equal to painting. Bazsonyi created several major thematic series during this time, including works inspired by the circus, the Bible, saints, calendars, family life, and personal memories. Her religious graphics reinterpret biblical scenes and Christian iconography in a highly individual and emotionally expressive visual language. The study also explores her literary illustrations connected to writers and poets such as Babits Mihály, Pilinszky János, Petőfi Sándor, and Vörösmarty Mihály. Family relationships, female identity, aging, death, and mourning appear as recurring motifs in both her drawings and paintings. The article stresses that Bazsonyi’s art combined realist traditions with increasingly surreal and associative compositional methods from the late 1970s onward. Her works were deeply influenced by her Christian faith, childhood memories from rural Tolna County, and her close relationships with contemporary Hungarian writers and artists. The study concludes that Bazsonyi Arany developed a unique graphic style that deserves a more prominent place in the history of modern Hungarian art.

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