Page 43 - Studio International - May 1965

Endre Nemes

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never lost faith that in the end he would be able to
testify to what it is to be a man of the 20th century.
And what other generation has been called upon to
suffer such fear and trembling, such darkness of the
soul, such naked human existence. such tortures of
Sisyphus and Prometheus 7 And what other generation
has so tragically sealed the knowledge thus won with
its own blood 7
Not often in the run of modern exhibitions does one
find oneself gazing at a star of the first magnitude, but
in the person of Endre Nemes such a star has come
into view. It must be due to the relative isolation of
Northern Europe from the rest that Nemes has not
yet been generally acclaimed as a new master. Never­
theless. master he is. and that not only in his command
of vast technical resources, but in his capacity as
creator of visionary signs, forms, ideograms with
which he has enriched the world of art and instructed
the human understanding. No other age has been in
such measure as our own so intent upon expressing
ideas in pictorial symbols-upon saying with the rich
resources of shape and colour what in other times was
said with the spoken and the written word. On the
other hand: the speed at which we live demands signs,
for modern man perceives and reacts with speed.
Direct visual communication is becoming ever more
precise and through its means ideas can be indicated
and grasped that would have cost the philosopher of a
hundred years ago long efforts of cogitation and the
physicist of the first half of the 20th century similarly
long efforts of mathematical and logical demonstration.
And the sign is a necessity, for we have not yet been
able to create appropriate and valid symbols for our
new culture. and it is in the sign thc1t the transcendental
meaning is manifested.
In his abstract paintings Nemes has struck a personal
note which distinguishes him from other artists of his
generation. The elements that have combined to give
Nemes his special prominence are in the first place
stylistic and in the second place psychological; and
added to these there are his choice and treatment of his
4 subjects and his painter's power of expression. The
same applies with equal force to his extensive output
in all modes of the graphic art. in etching, lithography,
monotype and dry-point-only not in the woodcut,
a technique that does not lie within the scope of his
painter-like sensibility or in his temperament.
The art of painting, since Surrealism, has not advanced
by sudden leaps but has developed slowly, step by step.
There has been no direct break through like that of
Cubism, or sudden irruptions like that of Abstractionism
or Surrealism. Today the lines of demarcation between
figurative Realism on the one side and abstract
Realism on the other are mobile and lack any clear
definition. Graphic elements no longer play any
dominant part. At one time a figure was just a figure.
a human being was just a human being. Today the
question is one of a new knowledge: what is this or
that from the standpoint of a metaphysics beyond
science 7 We are set to read riddles. It follows then
that the problem confronting the painter is stated in
new terms. although in essence, as ever, the solution
Endre Nemes must be found strictly within the limits of tradition.
is holding his first What is needed is that a new form shall be found for
one-man exhibition in ' ' - - � . the content of our new experience, and here it is that
Great Britain at . . Endre Nemes occupies the centre of our interest. He
the Drian Galleries � - � -- "- ,r- • is certainly one of the most significant artists of his
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from 5/29 May ,. generation. ■
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