"what did I want back then?"
"you wanted to be your own person." Frida

"you don't paint because you're good. you paint because you'd die if you didn't paint." Frida

"the straight line is godless." - Hundertwasser

"it was always my intention to bring pleasure to many people. I would like to share beautiful and useful things with people which have a meaning to them and enrich their lives." - Hundertwasser

Blurting out

In Impressionism, I wrote how artists, over time, sought to reflect their feelings rather than imitating the world. Technique became just an instrument to take it all out. Things happen to you, you see things, you feel things and it's too much, too messy, too heavy - maybe they are not that heavy but they weigh on you, because you are not normal -- you have to blurt it all out. This simple fact is your anchor. You take things in and you let them out - they pass through you but in the process, you change things. What comes out is not the same as what went in. You are blended in it, and when people see what comes out of you, they see you.

I went to three exhibitions in Budapest and just watched Frida. I want to jot down a few notes about them - they won't make sense, just a few impressions.


Hundertwasser

Deep, thick, electric blue is Hundertwasser's colour. Michaela Frey uses details from his work on gorgeous jewellery, that's when I first heard his name. He draws (and then paints) like a small child, his work is so much like a dear friend's, she might be his reincarnation. Lines, colours, windows, raindrops, tears, faces blend into each other, but each piece has something clever in them, a small drop of meaning that quickly appears. And he's not discreet about it, his descriptive titles give it away. He wants to be understood.

Vaszary

He painted nudes and still lives and scenes from First World War and Parisian life and Italian beaches - he painted what he lived and witnessed, basically, but his dark style, simple lines like a caricaturists', the contrasts, the thick strokes of paint, which almost make some objects jump out, account for most of it.

Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky

I didn't quite get Kandinsky's work, but I still liked looking at it, especially "light construction" (because of its name :) and "blue" - which was a beautiful, curvy boat! His work either reminds me of elaborate machines (sometimes decomposed, sometimes intact, but very important and deliberate), space stations or biological forms - ameba or something complete with all its compartments.

Klee's plant according to rules, above the water, legend of the nile and winter hills were all very simple but powerful. So were Andre Derain's the Road to Beauvais and Henri Laurens' sculptures.