1953–1958: University of Applied Arts, Budapest; teachers: István Gádor, Miklós Borsos.
After obtaining his diploma he stayed on for a year at the university as a scholarship holder, then returned to Zalaegerszeg, where he worked in the former family workshop, the Zalaegerszeg Tile Stove Factory, until 1969, when he became a freelance artist. His first emblematic work, created while still at the university, was Kakas (Rooster), whose figure – assembled from grip forms: tubes, cylinders, cones, and slices of these, with a green-streaked red glaze and a strongly expressive character – set the direction of his later art in many ways. In 1961 he held his first solo exhibition at the Göcsej Museum and from then on exhibited regularly. In the 1960s his genre figures covered with coloured glaze (Puttonyos (Man with Grape Basket), Ilonka néni (Aunt Ilonka)) became formally more compact and simpler. Alongside these, his early period is marked by glazed plates decorated with animal forms composed of a few lines, figurative glazed stove tiles and reliefs, as well as decorative ceramics (vases, candlesticks, ashtrays).
He created his first public work in 1960 for the elementary school in Balatonföldvár, then in 1965 he was commissioned to make a wall piece for the Children’s Health Care Home in Szombathely. From 1970 on he modeled a series of small and large works decorating public spaces and institutions (1970: Harkány Baths, Az ördögszántotta hegy legendája (The Legend of the Devil-Ploughed Hill); 1971: relief for the Zalaegerszeg indoor swimming pool; 1973: Budapest, Centenary Park, Göcsej térfal (Göcsej Wall); relief for the Zalaegerszeg hospital, etc.). His style increasingly crystallized. On his works the earlier coloured lead glazes were replaced by monochrome clay glazes, with the background of scenes often painted in blue – a favored solution to this day. The rotational sub-forms became ever stockier and more characterful. In his wall pieces he consistently avoids conveying depth of space, alluding to it only when the nature of the depiction absolutely demands it. Thus, figures designed with the principle of typical viewpoints in mind move in the plane of depiction, usually before a neutral background defined only by a few environment-signaling motifs (tree, sun/moon, flowers).
In the 1970s a line of large jugs and bottles with relief decoration blossomed in his art – consciously individual reinterpretations of historic guild jugs. The vessels’ bodies bear scenes whose themes connect to folk religiosity (Korsó apostolfigurákkal (Jug with Apostles), 1970; Szent György korsó (Saint George Jug), 1985), folk art („Igyál betyár!” korsó (“Drink, Outlaw!” Jug), 1970; Korsó életfával (Jug with Tree of Life), 1972), mythology (Dionüszosz korsó (Dionysus Jug), 1983), or particular trades (Halász butélia (Fisherman Bottle), 1975; Vadász korsó (Hunter Jug), 1982). Among the thrown jugs we find antecedents from ancient Persian and Roman goldsmiths’ relief-decorated vessels as well as the masterpieces of old guild potters, and likewise the sculptural practice and experience of millennia condense into the savoury compositions adorning their bellies. His characteristic, folkloric motifs include the Tree of Life and the Magic Stag from Hungarian origin legends, or the sun and moon discs in cyclical relation. They often received green or brownish satin glazes; elsewhere the grainier surface and natural colour of the clay determined their appearance. Alongside the traditional jug form, the following decades also saw similarly decorated amphorae, round flat flasks, and tall, elongated or book-shaped bottles. Within the main groups, themes grew ever more varied, and the combination of decorativeness with inward density of content reached ever higher levels. On the Zala korsó (Zala Jug) (1992), a tribute to his homeland, two vineyard workers carry a huge cluster of grapes on a pole over their shoulders; from the top of a hill rising in the background a thatched Zala press-house beckons; behind the flavourful figures, framed by trees, stands a Göcsej roadside cross bearing the emblematic symbols – the sun and the moon – while in front a stag emerges from the forest. The stag motif carries especially rich symbolism in Németh’s art: totemic ancestor animal, the prey-victim of Scythian and Avar hunting scenes, the Magic Stag of Hungarian legends, the characteristic big game of the Göcsej forests, the deer “panting after the waterbrooks” of Protestant hymnody.
Alongside the relief-decorated jugs he had earlier made jugs that are full figures in themselves (Svejk (Švejk), 1961; Török (Turk), 1963; Kanonok (Canon), 1969; Asszony (Woman), 1975). In the late 1970s and the 1980s a long series of gray – occasionally colored – cauldrons, pots, and cachepots emerged whose forms or lid handles are modeled as animals. By then utilitarian decorative ceramics had receded to the background, while the painted plates were replaced by relief-decorated, often large platters. Their store of motifs largely overlaps with that of the jugs, but the circular format leads to a tighter, medallion-like mode of composition. The surfaces of these splendid display platters are almost entirely filled with figures linked together with witty inventiveness. The alternation of summer and winter, and of the times of day, is rendered by an old man in a sheepskin cloak and hat lying around the rim and a seductive, unclothed young woman, with a half-sun, half-moon disc between them (Nyár és tél (Summer and Winter), 1978). The figure of the crucified Jesus conforms just as well to the round format (A Megfeszített (The Crucified), 1993) as do the biblical and the contemporary Adam and Eve (Ádám–Éva I–II (Adam and Eve), c. 1980). In the latter, the first human couple appears as hippies, with a disc record player instead of the crown of the Tree of Knowledge between them. Equally inventively the Életfa (Tree of Life) (2002), the Szökellő szarvas (Leaping Stag) (2001), or the paired Vadkacsák (Wild Ducks) in flight (2001) fit into this series of works.
One of the main currents in János Németh’s art is formed by his autonomous sculptures. Alongside figures drawn from mythology and folk religiosity, as well as relaxedly standing, seated, or reclining genre figures, an animal kingdom of remarkable variety has come forth from his hands. With visible delight and original humour, he brings out the essential characteristics of each species – horse, goat, stag, raven, bull, buffalo, lion, greyhound, baboon – the list could go on; each has a unique and unmistakable personality. The figures borrowed from Greek mythology (Poszeidón (Poseidon), Vénusz (Venus), Kentaur (Centaur), Sellő (Mermaid), Neptun (Neptune), Szirén (Siren), Zeusz és Európa (Zeus and Europa)) or from Catholic folk belief (Madonna, Szent Ferenc (Saint Francis), Szent Flórián (Saint Florian), Szent Antal (Saint Anthony), Keresztelő Szent János (Saint John the Baptist)) are not the coldly spiritualized, immaterial beings of some abstract sacred pantheon, but robust, genial, and lifelike anthropomorphic creatures who, despite their sometimes abstract appearance and invented forms, seem utterly real and human. The natural openness of his full-breasted, meditative female figures and the unassuming simplicity of his quietly humorous male types are utterly devoid of affectation.
Although the formal evolution of his sculptures over the years was neither striking nor systematic, it can nonetheless be traced. The predominantly compact, block-like forms of the 1970s gradually opened up and, even with their sturdy proportions, became somewhat more elongated. The limbs occasionally detach from the torso, and although they rarely convey dynamism, the compositions have become somewhat more animated. Changes in the internal articulation of the sculptures are particularly noticeable in the faces. In early works the eyes, nose, and mouth were rendered only symbolically: two buttons for eyes, one small lump for a nose, two little rolls for a mouth. Later they became more sculptural – the eye first a ring, then a ball set into an almond-shaped socket with the pupil emphasized; the nose a truncated cone; the lips arched, naturally tapering, biconical cylinders cut lengthwise.
Among his public works, the most popular are undoubtedly his reliefs, as he only rarely created free-standing statues. Perhaps the most complete synthesis of his art is this line of reliefs that pay homage to the landscape, culture, and people of his native region. On them appear the characteristic motifs of the Zala hills, the traits of its flora and fauna, the elements of its legends, and its inhabitants dressed in folk costume. The reliefs of the Keresztury-ház (Keresztury House, Zalaegerszeg, 1983), the Kölcsey Grammar School (Zalaegerszeg, 1989), the Hungarian Embassy in Canberra (1990), and the Forest Hungary Office Building (Zalaegerszeg, 2002) marvelously combine simplicity, folk character, monumentality, grandeur, and intimacy. Through the faith, warmth, and deep affection of the people who live here, Németh bears witness to this land – and it is precisely this that makes his expression feel authentic and sincere.
His Madonna of Egerszeg (Krosno, Poland, 2009), adorning a house on the town’s main square, is likewise a textbook example of condensation of symbols. The Virgin stands on a crescent moon, at whose two points shine the sun and a star. The crescent may also be interpreted as a boat floating upon the sea of life. The lower body of the Madonna forms a Tree of Life, and among its branches, before Mary’s womb, appears the coat of arms of the beloved city, Zalaegerszeg. In her two hands she holds the Hungarian and the Polish coats of arms; upon her head is a crown – not a royal but a celestial crown, since both nations venerate Mary as their Queen of Heaven. Her figure is at once a cosmic intercessor standing above the created world, a goddess of fertility, a primeval mother, Queen of Peace, and a protecting saint. The shared religious experience linking the two nations could scarcely be expressed more aptly or concisely.
Over the course of his career, Németh seems to have consistently traced an abstraction process starting from classical forms, whose stages involve emphasizing essence by eliminating details and simplifying into massive volumes, then transforming these into rotational bodies on the potter’s wheel. The word “seems” is crucial here, since his path in fact began right there in the 1960s (that is, that’s when he entered ongoing processes), and although most of his basic forms are still wheel-thrown, he has long since been able to subordinate his own rules to the specific demands of each individual work. His style could have developed toward a cubist–constructivist mode of shaping, yet in that way he could not have given visual form to those truths and the wisdom inherent in them that he brought from the peasant–small-town cultural sphere – truths that he keeps re-articulating to reaffirm his unbreakable ties to the simple people living among the Göcsej hills.
Of course, János Németh is not a folk artist. His ceramics are autonomous works of fine art, not applied art. For him, folk figurative art is not merely a source of formal renewal, but the imaginative crystallization of a worldview that preserves the thought of dozens of generations and provides answers to all essential questions. His artistic universe encompasses elements of the ancient Hungarian and overlaid Christian worldviews, the treasury of Hungarian legend, fragments of Egyptian and Greek mythology, and numerous aspects of twentieth-century rural folklore. The Magic Stag, Zeus as bull abducting Europa, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Francis, the frivolously chubby nude woman, the work-weary peasant, and the gingerbread hussar motif all coexist harmoniously. The essence of his artistic world lies not merely in the harmony of the rational and the irrational, nor in the search for a cosmic mode of thought and universal meaning, but above all in wisdom, sincerity, and faith – for among the many traits of his art that each merit detailed analysis, the deepest secret of its impact resides in these.
János Németh is rightly regarded as one of Hungary’s most important contemporary ceramic and sculptural artists, though it is often noted that he will likely found no school. His authenticity is unique and unrepeatable. His life and professional achievements transcend themselves and serve as lessons for all.
[2016]
The author is art historian