Occult Hungary: the Spiritual in Art in Hungary between 1945 and 1989

Erzsébet Tatai

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Chapter 16 Occult Hungary: the Spiritual in Art in Hungary between 1945 and 1989

In: Enchanted Socialist Modernity

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Erzsébet Tatai

Erzsébet Tatai
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 393–419

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004747470_018

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Abstract

In post-World War II Hungary, dialectical and historical materialism took hold of intellectual life. From 1948, the communist dictatorship made socialist realism compulsory in art. Although a slow modernisation began after 1956, the doctrine of socialist realism remained in force until 1989. So occult art had no place in the public sphere – in fact, for decades anything that was not socialist realist was in some sense considered occult. Rather than mapping the whole rich and diverse “occult sphere,” in my paper I will highlight a few examples from the neo-avant-garde and abstract artists.

One of the most influential theorists of the underground was Béla Hamvas, who was not allowed to publish and whose previous publications were banned. Many avant-garde artists regarded him as their master, and it was under Hamvas’s influence that Sándor Molnár developed his “painting-yoga”. Gábor Bódy used images from Agrippa von Nettesheim’s De Occulta Philosophia in his video, and Jewish mysticism provides an interpretative framework for some of the works of Miklós Erdély. The abstract painting of István Bodóczky in the 1980s has different roots. He received the catalogue The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890–1985, which gave his art a new impetus with its theoretical underpinning.

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Enchanted Socialist Modernity

Art of Central and Eastern Europe (1945–1989) in the Face of Alternative Spirituality

Series: Aries Book Series, Volume: 41

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004747470

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Dec 2025

Subjects
- Philosophy
  - Philosophy of Religion
- Religious Studies
  - Sociology of Religion
  - Religion and the Arts

Front Matter

Part 1 Persisting Spiritual Traditions in Times of Political Ruptures

Part 2 Utopias between Social Experiment and Esotericism

Part 3 Art as a Spiritual Practice

Part 4 From Spiritual Counter-modernism to the Neo-avant-garde

Part 5 Towards Capitalist Esotericism

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Chapter 16 Occult Hungary: the Spiritual in Art in Hungary between 1945 and 1989

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Enchanted Socialist Modernity

Art of Central and Eastern Europe (1945–1989) in the Face of Alternative Spirituality

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