Bocskay Vince’s sculpture is realistic in its outlook, figurative in its language, and centred on capturing the human form. Interestingly, his oeuvre falls into two sharply distinct groups, both in spirit and in time: the small sculptures created as part of his independent artistic programme, and the monumental public memorials produced on commission. During his “small-sculpture period”, which lasted until the turn of the 1980s and 1990s and the Romanian Revolution, portraiture was his most important genre, though he also created individual figures and figure groups on occasion. The materials of these works were primarily fired clay, terracotta—which he had fired in the kilns of the pottery workshops in Corund—as well as plaster. Even at this early stage, the depiction of the human figure stood at the centre of his art, and he portrayed his figures with a grotesque outlook and ironic qualities. “For him, the most fascinating subject has always been the human being; the types best suited to express his ideas were all around him. The absurdity of the world, the grotesque mixture of social phenomena is just as striking here, and the great examples of art history, the inspiring force of literature, can be found at any moment, anywhere.”—wrote Miklós Kund Nagy, the artist's monographer, about his works from this period. With his figures reshaped into unusual proportions and his distorted portraits, the sculptor presents characters and types, while at the same time formulating attitudes and responses to the challenges of the world. In the terracotta composition Ablak (lit. Window) (1978), he depicts three figures leaning out of a window, observing the world from behind a curtain. They are unbothered by the fact that, because the cloth clings to their faces, they cannot see anything at all: it is the contrast between curiosity and unfulfilled desire, the absurdity of the situation, that creates the strange tension of the work. It was the spirit of the age, the historical reality of the time, that drew the artist’s attention to the figure of Nero (1974), laden with negative connotations and symbolic meaning since antiquity. The excellent art historian István Borghida wrote the following about Bocskay’s rendering of Nero in a 1990 issue of the journal Folyam: “Bocskay’s Nero is no caricature. It is a magnificent statue. A short, stocky, waistless, and thus not at all flexible male figure in the nude, who attempts to compensate for the smallness of his physical self with the magnitude of his power. It is an officious figure in the sublime pose of the ancient Greco-Roman gods holding a scepter, fully aware of his own dignity. The more seriously he takes his pathetic role, the more ridiculous he becomes. Tragically grotesque, he does not sense his own grotesqueness, while his viewers perceive the tragedy of the situation all the more clearly.”
In Vince Bocskay’s vast oeuvre, which began to unfold in the 1990s, this series of small sculptures—which are by no means a large volume of pieces—breaks off, and the powerful ironic-grotesque tone established by the works modeled in clay is also pushed into the background: the monumental compositions, which are commissioned and erected in public spaces, demand a different manner of presentation. Regarding the contrast between the tone of his previous internally motivated works and his monumental compositions, and the change in style, the artist commented the following: “The theme served as an excuse to project my mood... I can actually do that now, because modeling a historical figure is also portraiture, but it’s still different. I have to suppress my tendency toward the grotesque, and that is very difficult for me. I can’t wait to have enough time to return to the grotesque small sculptures I used to make before I started receiving public commissions.” The historical turning point in Romania, the new social situation and order, and the improvement in the situation of the Hungarian community in Transylvania created opportunities for Hungarian sculptors to fulfill commissions, create monumental compositions, and, more importantly, create sculptures commemorating Transylvanian Hungarian history and depicting the region’s key figures in history, culture, science, and art. In the past twenty-five years, Vince Bocskay has created more than twenty monumental compositions, primarily memorial statues and historical monuments. Initially, he produced busts carved in stone and cast in bronze—the figures of Sándor Petőfi (1991, Sovata) and Kelemen Mikes (1997, Zagon)—in his workshop. This was followed by a shift to full-figure memorial portraits, where numerous distinguished historical figures—including György Bernády (1994, Târgu Mureș), Vilmos Apor (1998, Gyula), Count Imre Mikó (1998, Sfântu Gheorghe), Áron Márton (2009, Cluj-Napoca), and János Kálvin (John Calvin) (2014, Sfântu Gheorghe)—were immortalised in bronze or andesite. These figures by Vince Bocskay are depicted in the spirit of classical sculptural ideals: they are cohesive, dignified compositions, captured in a standing, relaxed posture, characterised by large, clean surfaces that avoid excessive detailing. He characterises them with period-appropriate attire and gives them a unique identity with a distinctive portrait. He no longer raises his figures onto high pedestals; his compositions are most often placed at ground level. The sculptor uses quite different means in his monuments related to historical phenomena, turning points, and anniversaries. However, his monument to the persecuted and victims in Odorheiu Secuiesc (1996), the millennium monuments in Oradea (2000) and Cristuru Secuiesc (2001), the monument in Târgu Secuiesc commemorating the 1848/49 Revolution and War of Independence and the heroes and victims of the two world wars (2002), the Don Bend Monument in Târgu Mureș (2005), and the 1956 Monument in Cluj-Napoca (2006) are also works that concentrate on the essence, displaying only a few symbols and attributes. Regarding the Târgu Secuiesc and Târgu Mureș monuments, Nagy Miklós Kund recalled the following: “The monument (2002) dedicated to the heroes of the 1848 Revolution and War of Independence and the two world wars, which is placed in front of the long, old building of the barracks in Târgu Secuiesc—originally founded by Maria Theresa as the Székely Katonai Nevelde (Székely Military Institute)—is built horizontally. The long, low wall of highly polished andesite is asymmetrically divided into two sections. The vertical gap, which breaks the wall and culminates in arcs resembling cemetery headstones, is covered at the top by a large, hollow helmet, like a vase, pierced by swords from 1848, like a bouquet of flowers. The names of the fallen are listed in rows on the two wings of the dark granite. The symbols are unambiguous. The monument to the heroes of the Don Bend (2005) at the entrance to the Catholic cemetery in Târgu Mureș is unusual and, at first glance, may seem unconventional. Bocskay broke with the traditional, classically more chiseled solutions that are common in our region; seemingly intertwined, irregular shapes connect and melt into one. However, if we look closer, it turns out that it is by no means an abstract work, but simply that since the clients had no particular constraints, the sculptor’s imagination was able to work more freely.The destruction of the soldiers who became cannon fodder, the shattered, annihilated, sacrificed army, assembles into an apocalyptic vision, thanks to the artist ingeniously combining elements of reality familiar to all of us—human arms, hands, the wheel of a railrode car, pipes, and other things—to create a modern, effective, realistic statue.” In other words, by distancing himself from traditional shaping, from monument clichés, and from customary symbols, the artist was able to speak with an individual voice in this field too, showcasing sculptural values and forming an ingenious sculpture composition.
The past of Vince Bocskay’s oeuvre—which falls into two sharply distinct periods and groups of works, and which included his activity as an art teacher up until the early 2000s—is significant. Its continuation depends on community-oriented public art demands in Transylvania (and Hungary): if further commissions or successful competition entries arise, his work will most likely continue within the monumental framework that opened in 1990, unfolding in new creations that build upon the experience of his earlier works. However, if he were to withdraw from public spaces in the near or distant future, his career would continue by returning to the direction of his previous small-sculpture work. Even then, we would be enriched by finely crafted compositions that create an intimate world and reflect a distinctive personal vision, summarising important messages about and for the current era.
[2014]