From an early age, Líviusz Gyulai's life has been permeated by his love of reading –he used to carry books home from the library in Sopron every day, so it is no coincidence that his ironic and strangely atmospheric prints are most often inspired by literary works. Critics noticed his literary attachment as early as the 1960s: 'With a practiced hand, he finds the dramatic nodes of a literary work, unfolding them on his pages with great care for both the external and internal requirements of style. He does not depict a single scene or a fragment of the plot of the work, as if "exhausting" one of the drifting events or mood swings but communicates his thoughts on them to the viewer. His endeavour is more akin to the needs of the thinking reader, who rebuilds the literary work for himself on the "stage of his soul". This is what gives Gyulai's work its special charm'[1], as a critic remarked about him in 1966.
And his drawings are not only supplements to written works but can rather be interpreted as works of equal value in their own right: 'I am a graphic artist, a book illustrator. I have no greater nor lesser desire than to be truly the writer’s companion in the work I am to illustrate.' Yet his illustrations also stand on their own as independent works of art.
Líviusz Gyulai has illustrated the pages of several major works of Hungarian literature, but in such a way that 'he finds the perfect style and technique for each of them, and yet in each case he remains unadulteratedly Líviusz Gyulai'[2].
He created pen drawings for Karnyóné (The Widow of Mr. Karnyó) and Dorottya, for example, both pieces by Mihály Csokonai Vitéz. In the latter composition from 1977, he placed on the shoulder of the famous Venus of Milo (also known as the Aphrodite of Melos) a hybrid figure, part Baroque woman, part bird, while the page for E. T. A. Hoffmann's Tomcat Murr shows a creature that is half-child, half-cat.
Earlier that decade, he illustrated Sándor Weöres's Nárcisz és Psyché (Narcissus and Psyche). The title page of the work evokes the so often seen bare-breasted Rococo female figure, her flowing hair set within a Rocaille frame. He has created illustrations for Mihály Fazekas's Lúdas Matyi (Mattie the Goose-boy) and Mikszáth's Beszterce ostroma (The Siege of Beszterce), as well as for Krúdy's Szindbád (Sinbad), Antal Szerb's A királyné nyaklánca (The Queen's Necklace), and, in 2002, for Győző Határ's Pepito és Pepita (Pepito and Pepita). A year before the latter, he published a reinterpretation of Babits's Jónás könyve (Book of Jonah), one of Líviusz Gyulai's most ambitious undertakings. With this work – according to István Orosz – he takes his place alongside Lajos Szalay's drawn Genezis (Genesis), Mihály Zichy's romantic interpretation of Madách, Sándor Liezen-Mayer's illustrations for Faust and Bubenkius's engravings for Orbis pictus. He created several graphic works inspired by Babits’s aforementioned poem and produced even an animated film from its story.
This series presents a novelty: the poet’s own handwriting appears beneath the drawings. 'Gyulai [...] fashioned images to accompany Babits's script – an angular, calligraphic writing, schooled in the Art Nouveau era, yet softened into wisdom and restraint. [...] What strikes one at once is the wondrous harmony between writing and image. As if the same hand had guided the pen – as though a single nib had traced its course across both paper and stone.'[3] It is as if, while reading the work, the poet and the illustrator merge into one. '...Babits's Jónás könyve inquires, among other things, into what we can and what we must do when we perceive the world as morally corrupt and drifting toward ruin. "Mi közöm nékem a világ bűnéhez? / Az én lelkem csak nyugodalmat éhez. / Az Isten gondja és nem az enyém: / senki bajáért nem felelek én." ("What have I got to do with this world's sin? / 'Tis only peace my soul seeks pleasure in. / Let it be God's concern and never mine, / I answer not for others' pain and crime." [translation: István Tótfalusi]) Jonah flees from the Lord's command, longing for a quiet solitude where he can hide from both his fellow man and from God. He feels that he has nothing to do with other people, believing that it is God's task alone to care for them. But can we truly live so? Líviusz Gyulai’s graphics provide a clear answer: no – none of us can escape the Lord's command. Each of us has our own task entrusted to us.'
The chronicles of past centuries also captured his interest: in his series entitled Szamártestamentum (The Testament of the Donkey) – subtitled Középkori francia mesék és bohózatok (Medieval French Tales and Farces) – and in his paraphrases of Villon, he evoked a piquant atmosphere through a style reminiscent of woodcut technique. ‘The formal roughness of these series is particularly apt in conveying the chief characteristic of Villon’s thought: the sudden twists that sharpen contradictions – while at the same time revealing the illustrator’s own remarkable gift for the grotesque mode of expression.'[4]
He also produced graphics for Carmina Burana (which can be seen on the wall of the Champagne Bar in the prestigious Taverna Hotel in Budapest), but also for works by Shakespeare, Cervantes (Don Quixote), Defoe (Robinson), Molière (The Miser), Bürger (Baron Munchhausen) Sterne (A sentimental journey through France and Italy), Balzac (Les Contes Drolatiques), and, among the later authors, Leacock. All of these without exception creations of striking beauty. His works often depict portraits of historical figures, such as his depictions of Henry VIII (Henry) or Queen Elizabeth I (on a Shakespeare's memorial sheet).
Whatever period he chooses for his theme, his drawings radiate his love of art, of women and of the life’s delights, his mentality is playful and philanthropic, his pictorial expression is innovative and unique. It is difficult to find true precursors or parallels among other artists to his work, and yet each drawing marks a station in his constant evolution. 'From the very beginning, his works [...] pulsate with this unmistakable excitement, that intellectual adventure that the master invites us to undertake. There is the teasing of the game. The deadly serious game, which treats even the atmosphere, the dreamed idyll, as its toy [...] And in organic unity with all this stand the finest traditions of European culture and art, together with the brilliance of technical mastery and craftsmanship, that ennoble even the most modest materials. A cultivated provincialism that clings to classical values, a generosity that sweeps across the horizon of wholeness.'[5] The atmosphere and the decoration of his works evoke bygone eras: he was especially fond of employing Rococo setting, while 'each of his creations conveys a lesson in its own distinctive mode of expression: with humour, with jest, with love and wisdom, with cheerfulness and often with a sardonic grimace.’ In the art of Líviusz Gyulai, the grotesque and humour are essential elements, always emerging from somewhere, whether in his graphics or his animated films. Equally characteristic is his penchant for the erotic playfulness in his depictions.’[6]
One of his most famous graphics is his 1989 lithograph entitled Rinocérosz kecskével (Rhinoceros with a Goat), about which István Ágh writes: ‘If the works of Líviusz Gyulai were to appear in one's dreams, one's awakening would be very beautiful. The monsters would not frighten us; even the rhinoceros could be a gentle giant, loved by birds, for its earth-hard skin is a nourishing mould they can peck. That dark, cumbersome power would tolerate, even enjoy the presence of the indomitable, uncrushable little bird. The wandering artist can sit nearby to the side and record undisturbed the harmony of grandeur and smallness. Thus, under his hand, the symbol of fear is transformed into a still image of peace.’[7]
The rhinoceros motif also appears in other works, such as the 1984 Orrszarvút rajzoló férfi (Man Drawing a Rhinoceros) and the Holdleány (Moon Girl). In his work Öreg Casanova (Old Casanova), an elderly man in Rococo attire with an elongated face pulls a cart in which a young woman with uncovered breasts sits enthroned with her eyes closed. Behind the man's figure crawls a small lapdog with a skull-like head, in its drooping ears is echoed Casanova's curly, frilled wig, foreshadowing the inevitable.
In the pen drawing entitled Magányos lovas (The Solitary Rider), the soldier seated on a long white horse, gazing at the horizon also conveys the theme of human solitude. In the drawing entitled Sárkányt legeltető szűz (Virgin Grazing a Dragon), both the bare breasts and the fearsome-looking yet gentle creature’s figure appear; the enormous, squat animal has even horns on the head.
Whatever subject Líviusz Gyulai chooses, his works radiate humour, playfulness, and a positive vision of the world: ’You may not even know how lucky you are. You were born lovable, and every expression of yours reveals love. I envy you, for you are so passionately devoted to life, art, humour, memories of the old days, the instructions of the venerable masters, the written word, women, friends, nature, animals and objects’, wrote György Szemadám on the occasion of the graphic artist's 65th birthday.
Líviusz Gyulai also moves with ease in the world of motion pictures. As a child, he was already drawing illustrated storyboards. In his first short film, Delfinia (1976) a little girl 'imagines herself in a bucolic, exotic world', the Új lakók (New Tenants) is about centaurs, as is Tinti kalandjai (The Adventures of Tinti), in which we follow the escapades of a mischievous young centaur. The winner of the first international online animation festival was the Golyós mese (Spun), while in 1997, he represented Hungary for the second time at the Cannes International Film Festival with the film adaptation of Jónás (Jonah). His earlier plan for a Krúdy film had never been realized, but Szindbád, bon voyage! (Sinbad, bon voyage!) was completed in 2001, followed a year later by Az én kis városom (My Little Town).
Líviusz Gyulai's long career has been remarkably diverse and varied. The quality of his work has remained constant, even though he himself has looked back on certain pieces with a critical eye. One thing is certain: what matters most to him is being able to draw uninterruptedly in his home in Pestújhely: ’Medieval plagues and wars are ravaging the world today, and this is the atmosphere in which one must, day after day, bend over the drawing board, the stone, the block, stand once again in front of the easel, and create the environment in which there flickers just enough faith to make it worthwhile. In the midst of so much madness, in a storm of information that batters us – though it also holds much excitement and admirable richness – we wander more and more lonely. And I, meanwhile, sit my butt down and lay dot after dot like a fly. Bloody wars are raging, and I act as if nothing was happening. These are the quotation marks – my little inner conflicts, my grotesque question marks – that I have to place around my fascinations.’[8], he said in a recent interview.
[2016]
[1] György Horváth
[2] István Orosz
[3] István Orosz: Gyulai Líviusz: Jónás könyve (in: Időutazás álló- és mozgóképeken)
[4] Magdolna P. Supka, 1967
[5] István Antall: Az irónia irónja. In: Gyulai Líviusz: Időutazás álló- és mozgóképeken
[6] Excerpt from Gabriella Shah's welcome speech at the 2014 Salgótarján opening
[7] István Ágh: Különös, boldog világ. In: Gyulai Líviusz: Időutazás álló- és mozgóképeken. Te-art-rum. Budapest, 2002, 7.
[8] Időutazás álló- és mozgóképeken. p. 23.