Vajda Lajos Hegyvonula Hodsarlós Formával 1938 1938

Vajda Lajos made this print titled Hegyvonula Hodsarlós Formával in 1938, and it’s a study in how simple marks can conjure a world. Look at how he uses just black ink and varied strokes to create a landscape that feels both solid and dreamlike. There’s a mountain range in the background made of tiny, nervous lines, and then these bold, almost surreal shapes floating in the foreground. The texture is key here, right? The way the ink sits on the paper, sometimes dense and sometimes broken, gives the whole image a tactile quality. Take that semi-circular form, with the neat, parallel lines inside—it’s so graphic, so flat, yet it suggests depth and volume. And then that smaller shape below, with the vertical strokes, feels almost like a little boat or a strange plant. It reminds me a bit of some of the early Surrealists, like Joan Miró, who were also playing with abstraction and the subconscious. But Vajda has his own unique voice. It’s a voice that speaks quietly, but with a lot of feeling. He is inviting us to bring our own associations to the work and let our imaginations fill in the blanks.