(1894, Budapest - 1941, Budapest)

Körhinta 1931 Tempera, fa, 80 x 100 cm Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Budapest

A festmény kompozíciós képlete egyszerû: a ponyva alatt kavargó embercsoportot a háttér egyforma, papírmasészerû házai keretezik. Az esti égbolt kékeslilájába szokványos templomtorony símul. A figurák méltóságuktól megfosztott, arc nélküli emberek. A mozdulatok és gesztusok ismétlése, azonossága adja a jelenet pikantériáját. Az ünnepi alkalom zajosságától megilletõdött kamaszlányok és ifjó menyecskék, mint szemérmes elsõbálozók, mulatságosan uniformizálódtak: nyársatnyelt tartásuk, párhuzamosan ölükbe ejtett kezük, egymás mellé és mögé sorakozott fejkendõjük fehér háromszöge a távoli házikók monotóniáját ismétli. Ebbe a patyolatfoltba a busa fejû, idomtalan, majomkülsejû kikiáltó lopódzik be. Aba-Novák emberábrázolásának e ragyogó példányát a manipulátorok sunyisága teszi torzzá.

ABA-NOVÁK, Vilmos (1894, Budapest - 1941, Budapest)

Carousel 1931 Tempera on wood, 80 x 100 cm Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

The composition formula of the picture is rather simple: a group of people whirling under the canvass is surrounded by identical houses in the background as if they had been made of paper. An ordinary church tower melts into the bluish-purple sky of the evening. The figures are deprived of dignity and their faces. Gestures are repeated and identical - this is what makes the whole scene picquant. Adolescent girls and freshly wedded wives, embarrassed by the loudness of the festal occasion as if they were debutantes, are funnily uniform: their stiffness, their hands dropped in their laps in a parallel way and the white triangles of the scarves beside and behind one another repeats the monotony of the houses in the distance. A barker steals into the white patch: he is big-headed and has an amorphous appearance as if her were a monkey. He is grinning with his toothless mouth and apologizing at the same time: the procession is over ... This superb example of Aba Novák's portrayal is added by the slyness of the manipulators. The malicious attitude of the painter makes this hubbub artificially generated into a puppet show to which the stylized potato faces give themselves without any joy. Figures sticking to the vertical posts in angular postures. Bald-headed gangster-like young men who have become red in the face from the light of the red-brimmed roof operate the carousel and the commotion with it as if they were devils playing with puppets.

Type: genre Time-line: 1926-1950