Composition (Hugging) 

Editor: This is Lajos Kassak’s “Composition (Hugging),” and the medium is acrylic on canvas. It feels like the painting is striving for balance. These distinct geometric forms seem to reach for each other across the canvas, each having a specific location. What symbolic meanings are conveyed in this work? Curator: That title, “Hugging,” unlocks a deeper symbolic potential here. The interaction of geometric forms isn't just about balance, it’s about connection, codependency, and even tension. What feelings are brought up for you when considering that the artist selected "hugging" as the most important thematic idea of the piece? Editor: I see the embrace now. With the inverted triangle nestled into the semi-circle shape, there is a sensation of support. It makes me consider, however, the shapes above; is it tension between the more free-flowing shapes and the rigid box shapes above? Curator: It's not about the *depiction* of the hugging embrace so much as a feeling evoked through carefully orchestrated shapes. Consider the cultural memory embedded within these shapes; squares often represent stability, the grounding or familiar, circles suggesting wholeness. Do these resonate in a Hungarian cultural context, perhaps influenced by the avant-garde movements of his time? Kassak was trying to capture universal ideas about relationships. Does this contrast resonate on a human level? Editor: I guess that makes sense, that a cultural feeling gets embodied in such a shape; but these basic shapes are human-independent. The artist abstracts figures and landscapes down to those basic components of feeling or place. Curator: Exactly! He distilled human experience. The geometric language speaks of a deeper structure to feeling. Thinking about it, the way a painting, poem or piece of music creates its internal set of symbols helps it to echo our own, sometimes deeply. Editor: It’s like mapping the internal landscape through abstraction! I hadn't thought about these shapes acting almost as words in a symbolic alphabet. Curator: I think, reflecting on how artists leverage cultural visual memory will unlock the way forward for us both!