Reflecting on his three decades of diverse artistic activity, it can be noted that alongside his design work—which may appear dominant to the casual observer, with its realisation of medical and household devices, caravan and boat designs, information systems, exhibition installations, toys, and playgrounds—his oeuvre has always included the creation of sculptures, graphics, and paintings. In a 1998 biography, the artist noted the seemingly supplementary creative sphere: “In reality, I never started painting or drawing; rather, I never stopped. Of all the materials, wood is the closest to me. Therefore, I create my sculptures from wood.”
In 2004, Anti Szabó János held an exhibition in Gödöllő, representing his unique art world, which grows freely and independently, detached from functionality and technological requirements. The exhibition displayed an exceptionally varied collection, selected from works created in the 1980s, 1990s, and the years following the turn of the millennium: oil paintings, ink, walnut stain and pencil drawings, etchings, watercolours, small wooden sculptures, and reliefs. The exhibition allowed us to clearly observe that, alongside a few drawings and small sculptures depicting human figures and compositions capturing details of Gödöllő, nature—or rather, fragments of nature isolated from the greater whole: flowers, leaves, buds, foliage, branches, roots, mushrooms, birds, and small animals—was the subject of all of Anti Szabó’s works. The precise representations, based on close observation, akin to illustrations from scientific texts, attest to the artist’s thorough preparation and craftsmanship. Yet in his creations, which discover and showcase the strange beauty of nature’s fragments, the real-world motifs he started from fade into the background. The artist subtly modifies known forms and familiar structures, sometimes gently, sometimes radically transforming them, occasionally elevating them to a new level through artistic imagination. In Anti Szabó’s compositions, ordinary scenes are transformed into fantastic visions: his oil paintings depict thriving root systems and tangled branches as secret-filled, inner projections of the soul, while his smaller depictions of nature, rendered with finely modelled colour or intricate line work, evoke an intimate, lyrical tone. A distinctive manifestation of his creative method is evident in the richly textured wooden reliefs, which rise from the flat surface of the wall into free space, forming cascading, intricately constructed shapes from identifiable and abstract leaf forms, carved from and assembled using different types of wood.
Viewed through the lens of August Wilhelm Schlegel’s two-hundred-year-old reflections on the relationship between fine art and nature, Anti Szabó János’s works take on a sensitive, nuanced light: “If … we once again broaden the term ‘nature’ to include all things, then it becomes clear that art must take its subjects from nature, because there is nothing else. In its bold flights of imagination, it may become supernatural, but never outside nature: it must always borrow the components of its creations from a real, existing reality, no matter how much its wondrous activity transforms them. In this sense, it is unnecessary to prescribe that art must imitate nature, for it is compelled to do so; and there is no need to fear that it could ever achieve anything else. Thus, the more accurate maxim is that art must shape nature…”
Rather than focusing on a broad and extended depiction of nature, the artist adopts a research-driven attitude that delves into and transforms its details. This innate, insatiable enchantment with nature (and naturalness) could be justified and made relevant by the increasingly tragic situation brought about by the harmful effects of 21st-century civilisation. However, it is more appropriate to draw our conclusions from the artist’s nature-oriented way of life and perspective, his still-intimate relationship with the ever-narrowing and endangered natural environment. We must then relate these conclusions to the life principles and artistic pursuits of the creators who worked at the Gödöllő artist colony a century ago. Discovering the parallels and connections, we should refer to the enduring spirit of Gödöllő, the persistent survival and promotion of Gödöllő’s artistic traditions, when observing the majestically free art of Anti Szabó János—art that capriciously moves between artistic fields, forms, genres, and techniques, far removed from current artistic trends.
Tibor Wehner
art historian