Dezső Korniss was a founding member of the European School artists’ group (1945–1948). Influenced by Bartók and Kodály, he tried to form Hungarian-rooted modern painting based on folk art, in the 1930s. After the war, the horrors he had experienced pushed his art towards a new, depressing yet mysteriously playful dimension. His Composition with Kite presents endeavours inherited from various isms and folk art elements. The large, uniform abstract colour fields of the background are broken up by geometric forms popular since Cubism. One of the most widely known insects, a firebug, can be recognized in the painting. This motif relates to one of the most exciting artistic trends of the time, Biomorphism, of which the main aim was to present motifs referring to some living organisms.“If I were asked what I wanted, what this art wanted, I must answer with the names of two geniuses: Bartók and Picasso. Both have realized the unity of folk, the human element and Europeanism – one in music, the other in painting.”
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