Aspects of color theories - A Goethe-inspired introduction to a cavalcade of color theories
Copyright (c) 2025 Hatos Pál https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Rita Mátis was born in Pécs in 1967. From 1981 to 1985, she studied at the Pécs Secondary School of Art, then from 1987 to 1992, she was a student of Ilona Keserü at the Faculty of Humanities of Janus Pannonius University, where she obtained her teaching degree. From 1992 to 1995, she studied under Gyula Konkoly at the JPTE Master School of Fine Arts. After completing this, she was awarded the title of "Master of Fine Arts." In 1995, she took part in a study trip to Paris, and in 1996, she stayed in Vienna as a KulturKontakt scholarship holder. In 2005, she spent a month and a half in Grödinge on a scholarship in Sweden. Between 2015 and 2016, she completed her doctoral studies at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs. She spent July 2019 in Rome as a fine arts scholarship holder at the Hungarian Academy in Rome. She currently teaches as an associate professor at the MATE Rippl-Rónai Art Institute in Kaposvár.
Copyright (c) 2025 Pál Gyöngyi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Almost simultaneously with the ON/OFF COLOR symposium and exhibition, four cabinets filled with glass objects were set up at the Rippl-Rónai Art Institute – three in the ground floor hall and one on the first floor – offering a glimpse of the works created at the glass art studio in Bárdudvarnok. For 35 years, the artist workshop has been supporting artists who work with the unique material of glass (and mainly with hot processes) by opening its doors for 7-10 days every summer, when the furnaces are heated up and wonderful glass artworks are created using casting, blowing, and fusing techniques. This short report focuses on the works exhibited at the art institute, which are exciting for the viewer either because of their literal colorfulness or their transparency.
Copyright (c) 2025 Szabó Zsófia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Color, space, sound, movement, and illusion go hand in hand, and this forms the basis of a holistic approach. Electronic-digital technologies allow different signals to be transformed into each other. Different media can complement each other organically, appearing inextricably together; like a melting pot, completely different things can take on a new form. This means, on the one hand, a return to „prehistory” and, on the other hand, the symbolization of the diversity of today's „remix, remake culture”. All this is permeated by the realization that perception is saturated with characteristic, unique and wonderful functions.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gyenes Zsolt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
If the spatial content of two artistically important physical stimuli appears equally in the measurements, or if we can characterize them according to the same criteria, it is natural that we feel the urge to compare them. That is why researchers and artists have been trying for hundreds of years to describe some scientifically correct parallel between colors and musical tones. We also attempt this in this paper, but with the help of a relatively new tool, the digital colorimeter. Since no one has yet developed color harmony guidelines for 7 colors, the creation of color-tones seems to be a great challenge. In Prof. Antal Nemcsics' book, there are also relatively few references to harmonies richer than 4 colors, and he even warns against the mistake of rainbow variegation and rather mentions extended complementary, triad and quadratic harmonies in the color harmony chapter of his book. It is a very mysterious thing and a difficult artistic task to arrange many colors in harmony with each other, as Paul Klee, Amrita Sher Gil or Giorgio Morandi managed, or the kind of color experience we see on the old street facades of buildings in Mediterranean or even Nordic countries without the many colors confusing or shouting each other out. It is completely natural for composers to start writing music in a tonal key in most cases, while painters and designers still do not have such color keys at their disposal, only coloristic clichés – and those too, most of the time inaccurately. This paper tries to fill this gap.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tari Gábor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This paper explores the various forms of typography from the late 1960s to the 1970s, from an experimental approach to the new wave of avant-garde tendencies and the integration of new media into art. In our case, the use of letters is not primarily related to the functional-design graphic norms of typography, but can be examined in a multidimensional approach as an autonomous artistic tool. I interpret works of art based on linguistic signs according to the formal and meaning-conveying functions of typography, where form experiments are at one end of the scale and semiotic dominance is at the other. The subject of my study is the proportion in which these are present in the era and whether the involvement of new media pushes the further boundaries of typography. Geographically, the focus is primarily on events, artists and works from Hungary, but there is also a place for Hungarian-speaking “Yugoslavian colleagues”. The reason why only Hungarian artists living in neighboring countries are included in the study is that their pioneering approach to their work allows for a broader interpretation of the experimental nature of typography. In addition, they have been active participants in progressive art events in Hungary for many years and are thus directly connected to Hungarian artists in our country.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mészáros Anna https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Colored Universe: Media Influence of Color in Astrocultural Contexts
The role of space art and space media is becoming increasingly prominent in contemporary visual culture. Beyond merely rendering distant worlds visible, space telescopes, rovers, and probes are reshaping the boundaries of human perception. These instruments collect data across spectra invisible to the human eye, prompting scientists to use novel forms of color coding to make cosmic realities comprehensible. In this process, color becomes an active agent in meaning-making, influencing how we perceive and interpret images and symbols related to outer space. False-color imagery, in addition to its scientific utility, evokes the emotional experience described by Frank White as the "overview effect," contributing to a deeper understanding of our cosmic position and expressing the aesthetic dimensions of planetary consciousness. This study examines the meaning-making role of color as a medial phenomenon through selected examples from fine art and film.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ruzsa Dénes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A group exhibition by teachers from the Rippl-Rónai Art Institute at MATE Kaposvár Campus was on display in the institution's gallery under the title ON/OFF COLOR between April 2 and May 4, 2025. The theme was based on the problem of color and colorlessness, and teachers working and creating in various professions and fields participated in the exhibition with their works created in a wide variety of genres and technical processes. The exhibition featured everything from plastic arts and painting to digital art, textiles, theater set design, graphics, photography, and video. Despite the technical and genre diversity, the exhibition presented a well-structured, unified picture thanks to its common conceptual foundations.
contemporary art exhibition by university lecturers
Copyright (c) 2025 Ficzek Ferenc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Questions about the presence/absence of colour
Art has always sought to formulate physical and spiritual ideas, knowledge, and apparent paradoxes related to light and color in the language of forms and colors. In addition to or following their symbolic, representational, and expressive roles subordinate to the subject matter, color values have become equal image-forming forces. In the 20th century, partly as a result of scientific results, the focus shifted to the independent meanings of color and paint, or to color liberated from matter. Stimuli that allow us to see colors arise through physical processes, yet the colors themselves are the combined results of the operation of color perception – hardware of the nervous system, and software of the brain. Color is a quality dependent on the measurable wavelength and frequency of the light range of the electromagnetic field, as well as the energy level of its quanta, the photons, which we perceive physiologically with our vision. Visible color is a complex information package: one strand of it originates in the universe of physical or cosmic light, another in the deep tissue of material world, a third in the biological and chemical structure of the visual organ, a fourth in the brain and visual information processing capabilities of the seer, and in the sophistication of their mental and emotional apparatus. What information do colors carry in themselves and in their space-form-time relations? The study deals with such questions, touching on the most current issues of the relationship between color, theoretical physics, and contemporary art.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lieber Erzsébet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Hatos Pál https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Without Mask. Interview with Csaba Fándly
Actor Csaba Fándly graduated from the University of Kaposvár, Faculty of Arts in 2008, then joined the company of the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár, where he is still a member. During his career, he has worked in many genres, in musical and prose productions, children’s and youth performances, light comedies and more serious tragedies, in both classical and contemporary plays, in studio and on the main stage, but he contributes as a director in the staging of several performances. He has received various awards from the Csiky Gergely Theatre company and audience (Best Male Actor in a Leading Role Audience Award, ”Grandmother” Award, ”Komor” Ring) and from the city (Kaposvár City Service Award). He was awarded the Best Male Actor Award at the SEE Film Festival for his performance in the film ”Early Wedding”. In the interview, he was asked about his start in Nagykároly, the milestones of his acting career, the theatre life in Kaposvár, the creative process, directing and education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Szabó Zsófia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Montage. The opening speech of Kyra László glass artist’s exhibition ”Montage”
”I’m convinced that it’s materials that choose artists and not artists who choose materials. I love it that I and glass are ‘co-creators’, that there is an unplannable, random coefficient when I’m working with this material.” – says Kyra László glass artist, whose glass sculptures were on display in the culture house of Hosszúhetény in September 2024. László graduated in glass art from the Hungarian University of Arts and Design in 2003, is a member of the Hungarian Glass Art Society and a regular participant of international glass symposia and exhibitions. She allows the transparency of glass to prevail in her art, and the material is the dominant feature in her monochrome or limited colour works. She works mainly with flat glass which she shapes using fusing techniques: she is interested in the layering of the material, experimenting with spatial relationships, and her sculptures often deal with the theme of balance, playing with the question of the outside-inside and the contrasts between the malleability and rigidity of glass. The artist’s exhibition was opened by Ferenc Ficzek, whose text is published here.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ficzek Ferenc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The mask is a topic that our students often choose as subject for their creative practices, even if the calling subject is different in their creative classes. The two student-works presented here were produced this year independently of the thematical issue of the journal Artcadia and independently of each other, but both, by coincidence, aim to explore this ambiguous concept currently. Emese Kovácsik, a graduate student of photography BA studies, chose it as the subject of her thesis and her final project (excerpts of which are published here) and she interprets the intentionally or unintentionally absent gaze on the face as a death mask. Martin Glavánovits, a second-year photography student, is hiding himself and the members of his family behind different masks as a response to the digital age’s demand for constant visibility and accessibility. Other student-works from earlier years could also be included here but we chose to show those produced currently. But the mask, this object dating back to ancient times and synonymous with the notion of hiding and revealing, is undoubtably still relevant today, and new layers of meaning are being added to it over time.
Copyright (c) 2024 Kovácsik Emese, Glavánovits Martin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In her work titled Suaire, Odile Bernard Schröder applies cream and charcoal to the face of her model, then removes this layer with transparent adhesive tape, which she sticks onto plexiglass to create a contact print. In his work Dermography, János Iván Kárpáti also uses adhesive tape to take skin and hair samples from faces. He arranges the strips of tape on black paper, scans them and prints their image. In her work Mask, Ilka Fedor reflects on the phenomenon of drag queens by removing makeup from a face with adhesive tape thus creating a portrait she can then contact print and enlarge. Comparing these very similar artworks reveal their crucial differences, and shows us that the boundaries between the face and the mask are just as blurred as the boundaries between image and reality.
Copyright (c) 2024 Németh Domonkos, Fedor Ilka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The study examines the complex relation between the human face and the mask in the context of digital technologies and visual culture, as well as through the analysis of some selected artworks. In this interpretation, the face is not merely an expression of identity, but also a social construction and a medial surface. Technological advancements – particularly the use of artificial intelligence in genetic profiling and facial recognition systems – significantly influence how we interpret the face. The mentioned artworks adopt a critical approach to the ethical questions raised by such technologies. Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s works, such as Stranger Visions and Probably Chelsea, highlight how facial reconstructions based on biometric traces reinforce existing social stereotypes. Meanwhile, Trevor Paglen’s projects investigate the ethical and political implications of image databases used in training artificial intelligence. The study also addresses the question whether emotions can be rendered legibly on the face and explores the role of “digital masks” generated by social media culture in the processes of identity formation and self-representation.
Copyright (c) 2024 Pál Gyöngyi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In 1991, András Jeles directed a unique vision entitled Somewhere in Russia at the Csiky Gergely Theatre in Kaposvár. The production was based on Chekhov’s play Three Sisters, but Jeles made an unusual gesture to break with the traditional form of the play: the expected masqueraders, who in the original play are not allowed into the Prozorov house at Natasha’s request, do appear in the Kaposvár production. With their entrance, a completely new performing style begins, combining physical or movement theatre, ethno-music and Gregorian chants, the songs evoking an apocalyptic vision of Russia’s not-so-distant future. The masqueraders wear special, oversized baby heads, and their figures are associated with a specific meaning in the director’s conception. This paper attempts to briefly summarise the interpretation and reception of the performance, with particular attention to the significance of the masks.
Artist attitudes in the work of Picasso and Basquiat in the light of African masks
The tribal culture of Africa and the spiritual visual language of African masks are unavoidable in visual arts. Their presence is almost continuous. Can the quality of their appearance and impact also be described in this way? Do they adapt to social processes and artistic changes? To explore these questions, I will examine the related works and creative attitudes of two artists. One is from the early 20th century, the other from the end of it: Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Cubism and Neo-Expressionism. How did the same source influence their art after 70-80 years and significant changes in art history? Can the creative attitudes of the two artists be described in terms of parallels or differences? I will explore these questions and examine them in relation to each other and to the spirit of the time and social conditions. The most significant and relevant works by these painters, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Flexible (1984), serve as tools for my analysis.
Copyright (c) 2024 Szlama Norbert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Isabella d’Este: Black, Red, Yes, No… Mask or Idol?
Leonardo da Vinci’s chalk drawing and Francesco Francia’s, Titian’s and Rubens’ depictions of Isabella d’Este, one of the most influential female figures of Italian renaissance humanism, the first female patron of the arts in history, show considerable differences in the characteristics of the subject, although theoretically, portrait painting is the one among all genres that requires lifelike representation of physical traits the most. Although their different approaches are not lies, they are not quite true either. However, each one is true in some sense. It seems to be an impossible task to answer the question, whose truth it is; the truth of the model, the artist, the viewer or all of them combined? It may be possible that through an inquiry into the matters of ideal and materialised from, the human soul and mysteries beyond, these portrait variants together can bring us closer to a more complete understanding, through showing multiple faces of the truth. This paper wishes to provide some insight on the complex subject of the interplay between mask and work of art, persona and personality, the ideals of the artist and those of the person commissioning the work, personal taste and aesthetic values, through circumnavigating the well-known portraits of Isabella d’Este.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lieber Erzsébet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The existent and the possible. Interview with Erzsébet Lieber
Erzsébet Lieber DLA is a Munkácsy Prize-winning artist, associate professor at the Rippl-Rónai Art Institute of MATE, Kaposvár. After graduating from the University of Art and Design in Halle, Germany, she returned home to teach at the art high school in Kaposvár and then worked as a lecturer and dean of the Rippl-Rónai Art Faculty at the University of Kaposvár. For a long time, paper was the dominant material of her art: paper pulp served as the basis for her artworks, and she was also active as an organiser of paper art symposiums. For the past 15 years, she has produced images using a camera and the computer. The starting point for her works is often a series of photographs that capture the interplay of water and light – she transforms them using various image modification techniques to create abstract compositions that reveal different possible worlds to the viewer. She calls these works ‘objective paintings’ because, despite the use of technology, they are the result of her painterly approach.
György Csepeli is a social psychologist, sociologist, doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, professor emeritus of the ELTE Faculty of Social Sciences, head of the PhD Program in Interdisciplinary Social Research of the ELTE Doctoral School of Sociology. His research focuses on topics related to the sociological and sociopsychological study of national identity, prejudice and social inequalities, and more recently on the socio-economic impact of technology (information society, artificial intelligence). In March 2024, he opened the exhibition of Munkácsy Prize-winning artist Erzsébet Lieber at the Vaszary Gallery in Kaposvár, with the speech published here.
Copyright (c) 2024 Csepeli György https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Being a member of a performance group with a multidisciplinary artistic demand requires a wide range of cultural interests and knowledge, and of course some up-to-date self-confidence and spiritual self-exuberance. Speaking about myself, I am first and foremost a writer, especially a lyricist. I have published two books of poetry, several literary and visual arts reviews and essays, but I also have a degree in fine arts and have studied theater and film. I met Gábor Klencsár, the front man of the band “Éhező Apácák” (Starving Nuns) in 1983 at a screening of a short film of mine, not only by coincidence, as he himself was working as a photographer but he was also an art photographer and had his own filming aspirations. In our “ancient days”, we mainly did performance actions and impressed some viewers and critics with experimental feature films. In 1990 Sándor Lékai joined us, a future philosopher and a persistent researcher in several disciplines next to aesthetics. Therefore, I was forced to give us a name: Singing Academy. And from then on – with the help of István Novák, a veterinary engineer and adventurous medium – we have been entertaining ourselves and the public.
Copyright (c) 2024 Káplán Géza https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In a way, the ‘fusion’ of the different senses on the digital platform and the real-time creative thinking that goes with it, takes us back to a ‘golden age’, an era when communication and art were more holistic. Electronics and digital technology lead our attention back to ‘unity’. The different media, the ‘modules’, are naturally transmuting into each other with the new and newer possibilities offered by technology. Thus the ‘contemporary shaman’ performs a holistic approach, he evokes, remembers, transmits collective knowledge, etc. This essay is primarily concerned with the presentation and analysis of student works created for a course task on the theme ‘Paraphrase’ (2021, 2023).
Copyright (c) 2024 Gyenes Zsolt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Habits in the Light of Everyday Digitalism
This article focuses on everyday habits that are changing as a result of technological developments, and it reviews the series of photographs taken by photography students in the last spring semester. The students addressed the effects of the rapid transformation of mediums as part of the ‘Creative Photographic Design’ course. Not only have new technologies affected our habits, but online identities are also emerging in the digital scene. The presented works, which fall within the genre of experimental photography, show the changes and contexts that have affected the students’ own lives. Such reflections draw viewers’ attention to the issues and dilemmas related to the changing world. Although the young artists take innovations for granted, they have tried to approach all aspects of the topic from different perspectives and have worked on complex issues.
Copyright (c) 2024 Zagyvai Sári https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Internationally renowned South African artist William Kentridge is known for his extraordinary versatility, working in animation, sculpture, scenography, filmmaking and more. Since the early 1990s, he has collaborated on several productions with the Handspring Puppet Company, famous for their unique puppets. Their performance Ubu and the Truth Commission was created in 1997 as a reflection on the political situation after the first free elections in South Africa, and it aimed to examine the activities of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was established as an institution for the painful but necessary uncovering of the past, to listen to the victims and perpetrators of apartheid. The theatrical performance paralleled Alfred Jarry’s Ubu story with the crimes of apartheid, making the issue of punishment and/or forgiveness of crimes its central theme. Both the social performance and the dramaturgic adaptation of the South African past are closely linked to the concept of rite, and this paper draws attention to these relations.
The art magazine as an alternative rite of presentation in contemporary art
The presentation of artworks is a complex issue. In many cases, the exhibition space designed for a work is distorted, changed, or overwritten by circumstances. Therefore, a surface that is far from any conceivable physical space is a sensitive point for such a representation. An art magazine is a great example for this. It converts the artwork from its physical dimensionality to a two-dimensional space. This transfer should only be done in a sensitive and professional/artistic way. This is what makes this act of presentation special. It does not involve an objective communication position, but it presupposes a kind of personal ritual. Therefore, I assume that the appearance of art magazines, which might seem natural and neutral to outsiders’ eyes, raises more questions than their mere presence would justify. Among these questions, in my article I will deal with the commercial aspect of magazines and the editorial choices. I take a closer look at whether the previous two factors influence some communication aspect of the displayed artwork, and I also examine how magazines edited by artists can differ from magazines edited by professional publishing organizations.
Sophie Calle’s ”Your turn, baby!” and the ritual of photographic image-creation-act
The present paper analyzes the theories of Horst Bredekamp’s image-act and Philippe Dubois’s photo-act in the context of Sophie Calle’s exhibition A toi de faire, ma mignonne (Your turn, baby!), held in Paris at the Picasso Museum from 03.10.2023 to 07.01.2024 and it draws on the shift in image and photo-theory resulting from the ritualisation of photographic image-creation. Sophie Calle’s work develops a unique style through an inextricable mixing of the intimate and the public, reality and fiction, her own life and art. In her oeuvre the act of image-making, while seemingly merely documentary, has in fact an effect on the image-maker, the model and the viewer of the finished image. The arrangement of the images and texts makes the viewer an active shaper of reception. The everyday situations are elevated into rituals authenticated by the act of making a proof (photograph or video).
The limits of traditional art interpretation: the reception of Rembrandt and Chardin in 17th- and 18th-century France
The study aims to examine the reception of Rembrandt van Rijn’s revolutionary painting technique characteristic of his late period in France in the 17th and 18th centuries. Contemporary art theory excerpts often compare the painting of the Dutch master with the art of Jean-Siméon Chardin, a French painter, popular during the Age of Enlightenment. After presenting the reception of the technique based on the dense use of paint, which divided art theorists of the 18th century, the study attempts to address the following question: is there an ideal distance when viewing paintings? With our inquiry, we will see how the works of the two painters lead to questioning the traditional art interpretation practice.
Rembrandt, Chardin, impasto, French art theory, reception
Copyright (c) 2024 Iván-Szűr Zsófia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Preface by Pál Hatos to the HORIZON thematic issue of Artcadia
Copyright (c) 2023 Hatos Pál https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The farmer and the hunter. Interview with Mária Pecsics
Mária Pecsics DLA is a Rudolf Balogh Award-winning photographer, associate professor of the Rippl-Rónai Institute of Art at MATE and Head of the Media Department. She teaches documentary photography, contemporary photography and self-management of photo projects in the photography BA and MA degrees and media design BA programmes. Her creative work moves from documentary to fine art photography, using an objective and detached approach to describe the essential aspects of the relationship between people and their environment. She is the founder of the Attila Hazai Memorial Foundation, created in 2016 to support the work of artists who are open to intermedia arts. In 2018 she co-organised the Photography and Literature Conference and co-curated the FOTÓképREGÉNY (Photonovel) exhibition.
Copyright (c) 2023 Pál Gyöngyi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0