MAGICAL SQUERES

At the request of my friend, the scholar and visual artist Rinus Rolofs, I will attempt to explain the meaning of the magical squares visible in my pictures. Of course, they were all inspired by Albrecht Dürer: the famous Melencolia. In 2014, when Dürer’s engraving turned 500 years old, I drew the accompanying Melencolia commemorative paper. Dürer inscribed the year of creation in the bottom two squares: 15-14; I inscribed my own year in the same place: 20-14. In his work, the sum of the squares’ columns, rows, and diagonals is 34.  I won’t go into why it’s specifically 34 here, because I’ve written about it in detail in my book Selected Conjectures (Válogatott sejtések). For me, this number is 212, which I like because it’s a palindrome. 

With my etching The Drawer, I also wanted to evoke the 4×4 magic square of the *Melencholia* engraving. Here, the sum of the rows and columns is exactly twice 34, that is 68. Dürer inscribed the year of creation in the bottom two squares: 1514; in my work, 2022 appears in the same place. That is when this work was created. 

The magic squares in the 3D image depicting a rhinoceros and an elephant (In memoriam Valentim Fernandes) are a bit more complicated, because here the sum of the columns, rows, and diagonals of one magic square is 1515 (the year Dürer created the Rhinoceros), while in the other, this number is 2026: that is when I created this painting, so it is a recent work.

IN PARIS - WITH ESCHER

 

A friend of mine in Paris sent me a message saying that she had seen my work at the major retrospective Escher exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris museum. Alongside the master's works, the exhibition also featured pieces by several artists who can be considered precursors or successors of M. C. Escher. Piranesi was there as a predecessor, Reutersvard as a contemporary, and I was there as a successor with my work Stairs. Since the exhibition, which has been open since November, will only be open until March 1, I had to hurry. I was really surprised by how many people are still interested in Escher today. The gatekeeper threw up his hands: all tickets had been sold in advance. I was forced to admit that I also had something hanging in one of the rooms, so I was lucky enough to get in after all. The Stairs (sometimes also exhibited under the title Time Sights) was transferred to the Paris exhibition from the Maurits Collection in Italy. It seems that I have several pictures in the Maurits Collection, at least according to the information on the Internet. I am also attaching The Corner House. 

PSYCHIATRY NEWSLETTER

Let me boast of the great honor that some of my work has been requested for publication by the editors of the newsletter History of Psychiatry for the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych). If you click here, you can see the pictures and read about what British psychiatrists are doing these days.

CUBE (2)

 

THE ILLUSTRATION IDEA BOOK

The Illustration Idea Book: Inspiration from 50 Masters by Steven Heller, Gail Anderson. The book presents 50 of the most inspiring approaches used by masters of the field from across the world. Themes covered include creating characters, symbol and metaphor, illustrated lettering, inventing worlds, and caricature. The result is an instantly accessible, inspiring, and easy to understand guide to illustration using professional techniques.

DÜRER - 550

Master Dürer would now be 550 years old. I can’t stop myself from putting some of my paraphrases here, works inspired by Albrecht Dürer’s works or themes.

EXHIBITION IN BRUSSELS

 

Click here to see the virtual opening of the exhibition of István Orosz with welcome words of Tamás Iván Kovács, Ambassador of Hungary in Belgium and Luxembourg, presentation of Dr. Dirk Huylebrouck, doctor in linear algebra, Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven and short introduction of the artist, István Orosz.

You are welcome to visit the gallery of the Cultural Institute Brussels on weekdays from 10AM to 4PM upon prior registration via info@bmki.be. 

 

 

PARADOXONOMETRY - EXHIBITION IN ISTANBUL

The exhibition of István Orosz, entitled Paradoxonometry, can be seen in the gallery of the Hungarian Institute in Istanbul between April 8 and May 28.

 

 

 

 

ON THE BEACH (OUR NOSES)

 

PARADOXONOMETRY IN ANKARA

A MELANCOLIC POLYHEDRON

I started five years ago and finished in the last day of the last year this Melancholy Memorial Print. In 2014, when I started, the famous print of Albrecht Dürer was just 500 years old. In the original work of Dürer there is a magic square, whose bottom row contains the entries 15 and 14, which together yield the year of creation. I also came up with such a magic square, in my square the numbers 20 and 14 are in the right place. The sum 212 can be found in the rows, columns, diagonals, each of the quadrants, the center four squares, the corner squares, the four outer numbers clockwise from the corners, etc. Actually, there are 86 different combinations of four numbers. You might ask why 212 results? Add the numbers: 2 + 1 + 2 = 5. I've been working on etching for just five years. Ha-ha ... that's a joke, of course. Anyway I've done a lot of things in the meantime, but five years is okay.

The most important motif of the picture, however, is not a number square, but a large stone. A big polyhedron.It seems irregular, but if we look closely, it shows a lot of interesting regularity. The vertices of the polyhedron projected vertically to the ground yield a hexagram, that known as star of David too.

I've done quite a lot of work on this polyhedron. I used it like a quote in some of my pictures, and I've done several graphic paraphrases as well. I also noticed that there is a skull hidden on the porous surface of the stone. Of course, I also examined the object from anamorphic points of view. Also I wrote several studies about it, though they were written in Hungarian. Now here are some pictures - as a reminder that a melancholic year is coming.