Rhythm of life

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  Solo exhibition, Sfântu Gheorghe, RO | 2018

What I consider important about Péter Madaras’s character is that, at a crossroads of history, he did not adopt a false pose of victimhood. I am reminded of László Németh, who made the exploration of the deeply hidden mysteries of human nature the aim of his art. On how these mysteries become visible, he wrote: “The soul is deep and complex. I may cast a burning torch into it and strain my eyes towards its secrets, yet I can never reveal myself—my nature—in a single work. But a human being is not only nature; a human being is also an undertaking. The capillaries through which life circulates are unfathomable, but the wellspring through which this life bursts forth is visible and audible. There is the person, and there is the role that person is able to assume. One consists entirely of hidden depths, the other entirely of surfaces turned towards the world, and we are both.” For Péter Madaras, the prerequisite for this surface turned towards the world, this chosen role, was to find himself within tradition and to discover points of reference in history from which greater wisdom—and, we might say, artistic sensitivity—could emerge. For these ancient emotions, seemingly timeless, continue to shape us even now, without our noticing. In his case, therefore, we should speak not of a return to nature and tradition, but of an encounter with them, since he committed his own life, his very existence, and all the resources of his art, together with the limitations he accepted along with them. What matters here is that his decision was not, or not merely, aesthetic, but fundamentally moral. It grew out of the deepest layers of his inner being, for what was at stake was the recovery of himself. This determines the mental and abstract character of his works, beyond their apparent formal and material qualities. His anti-intellectual art guides us into the depths of the existential memory of folk tradition, quietly entering our souls as an ideal of humble living. We are now witnessing sculptural space being transformed into sacred space. His is a religious, but above all austere and rigorous, investigation into the value of forms—not merely their stylistic value, but their sacred significance in human terms. Pursuing this alone, digging deep into his own being, he works not only for himself but to bring shared goods into existence, as though evoking this world at the expense of the next, with a calm sensitivity of thought, on the firm ground of tradition. Patiently. The contemporary relevance of Péter Madaras’s sculpture lies in its simultaneous engagement with the inner and outer worlds. Its language points towards an increasing emphasis on the communal dimensions of existence, also embracing the spheres of life and fields of force surrounding art. This accords with René Wellek and Austin Warren’s understanding of the dual dimension of artistic values, according to which art has two aspects, one aesthetic and the other moral. On the one hand, it is pursued as an end in itself and is therefore purely aesthetic; on the other, it is also “a communal ritual and a binding cultural force”—an expression of a human community’s identity, its sense of self. What Bartók observed in peasant folk music—“the embodiment of pure thought, conciseness of form, fullness of expression, richness of means, freshness and immediacy”—also holds true of Péter Madaras’s works. József Bob