Gates in existence

In the renovated graphic exhibition hall of the Museum of Fine Arts this year, we will once again exhibit contemporary works in the company of works of old masters. At the present, second exhibition, we put the graphics of the great classics of landscape art in dialogue with the wood depictions of Sándor Holland. The exhibition explores the relationship between man and nature and the possibilities of symbolic interpretation of the tree in different ages. In most cultures, the tree is a motif that goes beyond itself and has a symbolic meaning. According to the original myths, it embodies the axis of the world that connects the regions of the universe, the lower and the higher worlds. The cultly sanctified tree is a carrier of immortality and knowledge, through which man can connect to the transcendent. The symbiotic relationship between trees and man has been poetically expressed in ancient myths and in the earliest works of natural science. While in classical ancient times the various trees were associated with deities and persistent heroes, the book of Psalms compares the happy man to the tree: “It is like a tree planted on the waterfront, which bears fruit in due time, and its leaves do not wean. Success crowns every action.” (Zsolt 1,3). Id. According to Pliny’s Natural History, trees and forests are the greatest gift that nature has given man. The exhibition, which features more than fifty works of art, not only touches on the highlights of European landscape art, but also provides an overview of various graphic techniques such as pen drawing, coloured woodcut, copper frame, glass frame, acrylic. All this is made possible by the rich material of the Graphical Collection, including the significant collection of objects that Hollán Sándor gave to the museum between 2003 and 2019. Hollán – a sensitive observer of the inner forces inherent in trees – left Hungary in 1956 and has since linked the workshop to Paris in the winter, while spending the summer in Gignac in southern France, where he travels the countryside and returns to his selected trees to observe their vibrations and make meditative drawings of them. The thematic units of the exhibition raise universal artistic problems that have challenged and posed challenges to artists, regardless of age. These are, for example, the creation of a portrait of a tree, the ways of depicting the forest landscape, the possibilities inherent in drawing before the subject, the depiction of the forces of nature, the representability of light conditions and the issue of shifting from objective reality. Classics of wood painting and landscape art – including Wolfgang Huber, id. In addition to the works of Jan Brueghel, Claude Lorrain, Camille Corot – we also showcase works by creators who have specifically inspired Hollán Sandor, such as Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn and Nicolas Poussin. In our time, when planting a tree can arise not only from the desire to beautify our environment or from the intention to preserve memory, but also from the gesture of common concern for the fate of our planet, we rightly ask the question: what messages are the vital actors of the living world, the trees, transmitting through the investigative gaze of artists? How do they appear in the most personal means of expression of the artistic creative process, in the art of drawing? To draw a tree is to observe it carefully, to connect deeply with it, to reveal its magical message. The exhibition is curated by Tóth Bernadett, art historian at the Museum of Fine Arts.