The New Man, According to SÃ¡ndor Bortnyik

Merse PÃ¡l Szeredi

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Chapter 23 The New Man, According to SÃ¡ndor Bortnyik

In: Cannibalizing the Canon

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Merse PÃ¡l Szeredi

Merse PÃ¡l Szeredi
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 600â626

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004526747_025

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Abstract

This article analyses the 1924/26 paintings by SÃ¡ndor Bortnyik, known as The New Adam and The New Eve. The interpretation of the paintings that has gained general acceptance in recent decades is that the satiric compositions convey a disillusionment with the avant-garde movementsâ belief in social and technical progress. Like many artists in Weimar Germany, Bortnyik in the first half of the 1920s gradually turned away from the utopian avant-garde towards the creation of a ânew unityâ of art and life. The dissolution of traditional art in architecture and design â areas that exert direct influence on society â became a major focus in the Bauhaus programme. Against this backdrop, Bortnyikâs choice of the traditional art form of panel painting in The New Adam and The New Eve prompts several questions. In my article, I argue that The New Adam and The New Eve are not purely satirical works, but works that simultaneously operate on several levels of meaning. Through references to the visual techniques of Dada and Constructivism, these paintings convey both the utopian and dystopian connotations of the ânew manâ of Modernism. Bortnyik thus imbued his pictures with irony, an intrinsic feature of the worldview of one variety of the New Objectivity, so that an overall interpretation of the message of the compositions is only possible after decoding each layer. By identifying the visual paraphrases and allusions in Bornyikâs paintings, I show that his compositions offered a criticism of the theoretical debates between Dada and International Constructivism between 1922 and 1924. Through their use of Dadaist and Constructivist imagery the paintings make an ironic contribution to this discourse and, at the same time, invalidate the programmes of these movements.

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Cannibalizing the Canon

Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe

Series:Â Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Volume: 42Â andÂ Avant-Garde Critical Studies, Volume: 42

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004526747

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 16 Jan 2024

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- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 23 The New Man, According to SÃ¡ndor Bortnyik

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Cannibalizing the Canon

Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe

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