„The beautiful is that which pleases without concepts of utility or morality” –Immanuel Kant

In memory of Ede Papszt Szenttamási and his daughter Ilona Kumlik

Recently I heard a comment from an artist which could be taken to heart. It concerned how art works are selected for rank of order by museum directors and art dealers for exhibit. It is done by silent agreements.  There is no good or bad picture according to this artist, the good painting is that which does not fall down after it is hung on the wall.
The artist in question arrived to America as a successful Hungarian painter. In America nobody appreciated his art work. One reason perhaps is that the Hungarian character is hard to comprehend especially overseas. However, the main reason is something else. Here at home in Hungary the friends and art loving people know the history behind every picture the painter created and this is how they visualized and appreciated the works he had done. For those people who do not understand the life of the artist or our past and history these pictures seem impersonal. At best, these pictures are looked at and analyzed for artistic techniques such as brush strokes, color and so on but nobody sees in them the life legacy left by their creator.
For these above mentioned reasons I will share a little of the history of a few people who are very dear to me in the “gallery of the beautiful which pleases without utility or morality.”

Ede Papszt

He looked old at the time in 1957 when I first met him. He was a renaissance man, now I can understand him clearly. Perhaps to compensate for many of his life tragedies he painted these beautiful still life pictures. At the age of 18 as a result of an accident he became deaf, he married a teacher, and their son died in the second word war. He was a mechanical engineer, an exceptional bee keeper specializing in raising queen bees, he could read English and speak and read lips in German. He had a full life. Sometimes I wonder that with so many struggles and miseries he still maintained the ability and will to create these beautiful pictures. I thank him.

Ilona Kumlik

Aunt Icó, who is the daughter of Uncle Ede, lived in Australia where she poured her old memories into casting statues. I used to know Uncle Vili, now he continues to live in a bronze statue just the way he was. He has big feet, life loving and life enjoying but a true and honest man. What a great thing to be able to bridge such a distance and time with these art works, after all Aunt Icó was born in 1919. She left tender memories; she had a noble soul.
Her last telephone call came just one week before her death. She expressed her joy in reading a copy of an  article about her father, my unforgettable old friend, published in the Beekeeper Journal 40 years ago which I had just discovered and sent to her. She called at 10 AM our time and she sounded genuinely happy reading this unique article. I am glad that I could give her a surprise gift one week before her death... Previously I used to send her memories and articles about her parents life in Maglód which she always appreciated.

She will be greatly missed. Our whole family liked her and treasured her valuable letters and biweekly telephone calls. She lived a long and valuable life and was mentally alert and active until the end.
She arranged everything for after her death leaving her library and statues to the St. Benedict Monastery in Australia where they will be on permanent exhibit. She also worked out what the layout should be, she photographed the best arrangements and her assistant Zsuzsa Vörös carried out the arrangement at the permanent site.

She made the arrangements for her own funeral. A Roman Catholic funeral mass was celebrated where at the end, at her request, the people sang the Hungarian Anthem. Her ashes were spread around the church garden where her beloved husband’s ashes are.

I have for a long time nurtured the plan that, in memory of her father and her artworks, I would establish this website, although they only could view it from the heavens with smiles on their faces.

Károly Kondrák

Karcsi Kondrák surprised us with his enormous knowledge of history. His whole life he suffered from the so called Rumanian disease, painting pictures of the houses of the Saxons in Transylvania. Unfortunately with the forced relocations and the nationalization of private property their stone crafting shop fell victim to the system. Even after the injury to his kidneys as a result of beating by the Securitate he painted tremendous pictures of the devastated decaying Hungarians such as:  “The worshippers left but the church remained” and his flowers. I remember he never painted flowers when they were at their peak. Torn fate, torn life, torn puddles of flowers in his pictures. His destiny can be seen in his pictures like a fingerprint. This excellent sculptor’s Spring Statue is shown in the Museum of Nagybánya. Also many of his works are in Bucharest and, not the least, in the Hungarian National Gallery.

Margó Matyinkó

A full time economist her whole life she never stopped supporting art. She sacrificed her own dream of painting full time in order to provide the financial support she and her husband Károly Kondrák needed to make ends meet. After the everyday struggle the seeking for harmony can be seen in her pictures.

György Német

They say he was a good painter from the Great Plains. One memory, from two of his painted canvases a school bag had been sewn. My father, a teacher, visited the parents of the kid that owned the school bag and exchanged the bag for a leather briefcase. A good thirty years passed until my father put the pictures into frames because they did not have money until then. At the edges of the pictures the sewing can be seen even today.

If having read this you still have patience:

Indeed the artist could be right, if one thinks back to the purchases of his or her items, it is not just the experience of finding the items but the history behind them that adds to the excitement and makes the ownership of an item a satisfying one even in the case of an everyday item, not to mention in the case of a purchase of an “unnecessary” art piece: a picture or a sculpture.  You ask yourself about a piece is it worth it? You do not know anything about it. Is its price going to increase? It does not matter; you do not want to sell it anyway. Then what is it for you ask yourself. The ownership could be important for you just because you like it. How much more important the ownership could be for someone who has a deeper connection to the item, to its past and to the reality of the roots of its history.
The rest of the pictures do not have such a direct connection to my past memories but it took a lot of effort to get them and gave me the pleasure of new knowledge. One example: I never knew Ervin Baktai personally but I know he participated in the translation of Ramayana, he protested at the Indian Embassy and he made important contributions in 1956.

In the case of the judgment of art, there is no up or down, “the beautiful is that which pleases without utility or morality.”

2009-09-16