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Publications
Ernõ P.
Szabó
The Magic Pencil of the Graphic Artist
Krisztina Rényi
has been keenly interested in the secrets of books since her childhood,
when she was more enthusiastic about children’s books than
about any other toys. She became familiar with the world of Hungarian
folk tales and the selections of Elek Benedek’s tales, whose
old editions she is still preserving meant a determinative experience
for her. As her parents remembered, she was preparing to be a draughts-woman
when she was a child.
At the picture graphics faculty
of the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts she tried almost all the genres,
from the classical techniques throughout litography and to serigraphy,
that was considered quite a new technique at that time. During the
three years of her artist training she almost only dealt with the
last one. At the same time she liked the traditional design technique
as well, that she also felt like trying in books. As a holder of
the Derkovits scholarship at the turn of the 80’s and the
90’s she painted large watercolours that included the possibilities
of picture graphics and illustrations as well.
At the beginning she was inspired
by the original editions of story-books from the turn of the century,
illustrated by great classical illustrators like Arthur Rarckham,
Carl Larson and the masters of the artists’ colony of Gödöllõ
also influenced her to a great extent. Later on, she got to know
the artists of outstanding significance of the recent past, the
living classics of the genre. From among them, the volumes published
by the Esslingen Publishing House ilustrated by Olga Duguina and
Andrej Dugin were of overriding importance for her. They recall
the visionary world of Bosch and other Flemish masters of the time,
the works of the German Nazarens and the English Pre-Raffaelites
abounding with lyric and grotesque elements. Gennagyij Spirin, now
living in New York, became world famous as an artist from Moscow.
Among other things, he illustrated Gogol’s ’The Nose’
and ’Gulliver’s Travels’. She also considers determinant
the works of Frederic Clement, the Polish Elzbieta Gaudinszka and
the Italian Roberto Innocenti.
She considers the symbol of
her carreer as an illustrator the ’Secret Garden’ of
F. H. Burnett, whose whole world and message is very close to her.
She illustrated several books with original lithographies that would
have been a curiosity in a lot of countries of the world, but in
Hungary, because of the poor printing and the quality of paper,
only simple black and white books were made of her works.
Her first colour series was
the water colour illustration of the Armenian story-book called
’Fire steed and lightening sword’. The Christmas book
called ’Engelbert, der Weihnachsthase’ made for the
German Favorit Verlag was also a great success and after the first
edition it was published in several languages. Its original sheet
was later on selected for the International Illustration Exhibition
of Bologna. The colour illustration series of the selection of folk
tales by Elek Benedek called ’Wizard Johny’ was successful
in Hungary. In 1996 it gained the ’Beautiful Hungarian Book’
award for illustrators, in 1998 the Hungarian IBBY award of the
’Illustrator of the Year’. In 2000 she got the most
important international book award, ’Honour List’ for
the same book and she received it at the 27th IBBY World Congress
in Coulumbia.
This honour, the world tour
of the prize winning book and its presence at the book fair in Bologna
suggest that Hungarian folk tales will be published in other languages
as well.
She made the poster and the
brochure of the Day of International Children’s Books two
years ago. The poster was on display in Columbia, at the book fairs
of Bologna and Frankfurt as well and it was published not only in
the international and Hungarian versions but also in Japanese, Iranian
and Greek languages.
It is obvious for the creator
of autonomous sheets and children’s books that she makes drawings
for contemporary works as well. The pictures of ’Strange world
’ containing the poems for children written by Benedek Kiss,
Katalin Mezey and József Utassy or those of Pál Békés’
’Frightened creature’ have also been made by Krisztina
Rényi. She made the drawings of Iván Sivók’s
’Friends’ ears’ and those of Mária Anga’s
’Who will iron the wings of the butterfly?’ with the
same pleasure as those of Mrs Nyári’s ’Magic
of seven colours’, a literary reader for second year school
children. She made illustrations for the novel called ’Fancy-dress
ball’ by Magda Szabó in the series published by Unikornis
Publishing House.
Her latest work is the book
of Mária Feuer called ’Dragon tale’ whose typographical
plan has been made by Johanna Bárd. Her next work will be
’The most beautiful fairy tales of the world’ by Zsigmond
Sebõk which is ripe for a new edition again after hundred
years, accompanied by the drawings of a graphic artist of our times
inspired by the hundred year old collection of fairy tales.
Ildikó
D. Udvary
Dragon Tale
This volume,
Mária Feuer’s ’Dragon tale’ is a fabulous
meeting of dragons conjured up in words and drawn in pictures. It
could not have been illustrated by anybody else but Krisztina Rényi,
whose characteristic and unique rendering this time also conveys
her attraction to Eastern philosophies and ideas. It would be a
vain effort to force exact parallels of representation on the drawings,
but on the whole, we can feel the presence of the world of Chinese,
Persian and especially Indian Islamic fairy tales in them.We can
see and feel that we are walking in a field that cannot be confined
in space and time. The characters of Mária Feuer’s
tale do not expect us to make historical identifications and they
even lead us into the realm of spirit and soul with their symbolic
actions, connections or clothing.
The
creators of the body of the book, Krisztina Rényi and Johanna
Bárd have worked out a special iconography: they do not want
to hold our attention by the magic of novelty, but with the natural
way of linking the single parts. The basic fabric of images and
colours is created by gold, dark blue and the clean white sheet.
The chapters start with small pictures in circles. Circles, as meditative
means for representing the world have been accompanying humanity
since their awakening of consciousness, beside the nameless masters
of mandalas, the famous renaissance artists often applied this form
of immages as well, although from different starting points.
Except for the first round shaped
picture, in which queen Boholca is dreaming in her tower room in
the brightness of the night, in the other ones we can see mythical
animal figures, most often in a stylized form, combined with plants
referring to the world of Pre-Raffaelites and art nouveau. Another
group of round shaped pictures is excusively based on the arabesque
like linking of flowers. The drawings that show the clean style
of Persian miniatures and mandalas are especially exciting. The
mask mandala at the beginning of the chapter called ’The day
of the fire dragon’ leads us into the mysterious world of
Tibet.
The style of Krisztina Rényi
is mainly characterized by exact, subtle delineation, by elegant,
minutely elaborated forms and a dynamic, lively world of colours
that are characteristics of the classic art of drawing. This technique
of drawing considered traditional both in Eastern and Western art
is not an assumed manner for her but a basic principle determining
al her artistic attitude.
When she illustrates Hungarian folk tales she works with forms delineated
by subtle lines in a similarly absorbed way. She does not change
styles within one work, she does not look for different techniques
that suit a given text, but she adjusts her own authentic language
to the literary subjects she represents.
The animals and flowery medallions
appearing in the chapters suit much more the spirit of the text
than the given event the text is about. It is especially true about
the multitude of wonderful animal figures, the birds coordinated
to the main characters. The peacoks, phoenixes live within the lines
of the book also without any reference to them. There is a whole
page picture in every chapter of the ’Dragon tale’,
accompanied by several smaller drawings that appear almost accidentally
in the pages.The counterpoints of the colourful winding lines and
arches are harder geometric forms in every page. This harmony, this
visual rhythm praises the co-operation of the graphic artist and
the designer. Images of man and nature, phantasy and reality are
interwoven like the forms of an arabesque and become characters
and symbols of a phantastic journey. The pencil of the artist conjures
up and revives the images that cannot be told by words. The exuberant
energy and abundance of colours is always balanced by the proportions
of white surfaces so that the imagination can soar and quiet down
in every chapter.
The harmony of the three authors
is a rare virtue of the book, the cohesion of text and sight, the
autonomy of the genre, and last but not least the fastidiousness
are not indispensable when real values are created even if many
people nowadays think they are superfluous.
How nice it is, that instead
of the nightmares of the modern world dragons of a happier time
can frighten us, at least while we are holding this excellently
illustrated book.
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