Houses at Szentendre with Crucifix 1937

Vajda Lajos made this painting, Houses at Szentendre with Crucifix, and it looks like he pieced together shapes in shades of ochre, tan, and brown against a patchy, light blue sky. I imagine him carefully constructing this space, almost like he’s building a house himself, shuffling different forms and testing their fit. I feel like he’s thinking about the architecture of memory, how fragments of places we’ve seen and experienced stick with us. It reminds me of Kurt Schwitters, but warmer. Look at how Vajda layers those shapes. It makes me wonder what he’s trying to capture, this feeling of a place seen through a veil of time or emotion. It is as if the buildings and the cross are not just physical structures, but emotional markers. Ultimately, painting is all about having a conversation with others through time, isn't it? We build on each other's visions, finding new ways to express these messy, beautiful, complicated feelings.