Vajda Lajos Arcok Báránnyal 1937 1937

Vajda Lajos made this drawing, Arcok Báránnyal, or Faces with Lamb, in 1937, and it looks like he used ink on paper. The drawing is all about layering. It’s a kind of controlled chaos, isn't it? The lines create a jumble, but somehow, you can still make out the basic forms. I love that you can see the artist figuring things out right there on the page. It’s not about perfection but about the energy of the process. I am drawn to the area around the mouth, where the lines become really dense and almost cage-like. It’s like the drawing is trying to trap something, maybe a word or a feeling. The texture is all in those lines – scratchy, uneven, but full of life. It reminds me a bit of Picasso’s cubist portraits, all broken up and reassembled. You get the feeling Lajos wasn't trying to give us any easy answers. It's more about the questions and the searching, which, for me, is what art is all about anyway.