Fate, the Great Painter | Miniature painter emil Ámin Kazanlár

The art of Emil Ka­zan­lár is di­rely at va­ri­ance with both Hun­ga­ri­an and Wes­tern Euro­pe­an paint­ing tra­di­ti­on and as such is a uni­que co­lo­ur on the pa­let­te of Hun­ga­ri­an fine art with its blend­ing of the most di­ver­se cul­tu­res, re­li­gions and the tales of One Thou­sand and One Nights with an­ci­ent Hun­ga­ri­an myt­ho­logy. Like in Per­si­an and Is­la­mic art in ge­ne­ral, tra­di­ti­on is do­mi­nant in his art too along with the be­li­ef that ideas for­med about the world can be much bet­ter exp­res­sed with vi­su­al sym­bols, i.e. the tools of vi­su­al lan­gu­age, than with words and lin­gu­is­tic con­cepts.

The Ka­zan­lár Tarot se­ri­es crea­tes an en­ti­rely new con­text for the ima­gery of Tarot cards, ty­pi­cally known as cards used for di­vi­na­ti­on and inc­lu­ded in the realm of eso­te­ric­ism. Ka­zan­lár, as a young man, dis­co­ve­red a kins­hip bet­ween the Per­si­an stu­di­es in form, he ma­s­te­red from the Ira­ni­an mi­nia­tu­re pain­ter Hos­se­in Beh­zad, Ma­nicha­e­ist mi­nia­tu­re paint­ing, Su­fism and the Tarot. He pain­ted his card­i­nal se­ri­es bet­ween 1988 and 1994, the 80-card Ka­zan­lár Tarot deck, which was pub­lis­hed in 1996 in Swi­tzer­land in book and card form too. The comp­le­te se­ri­es was ex­hi­bi­ted in Vi­en­na and Swi­tzer­land on se­ve­ral oc­cas­ions, but it was never disp­la­yed in Hun­gary be­fo­re now.

Emil Ka­zan­lár’s art and way of think­ing ex­er­ted an inf­lu­en­ce upon 20th-cent­ury Hun­ga­ri­an art his­to­ry. From 1963 Ka­zan­lár wor­ked in the State Pup­pet The­at­re, which emb­ra­ced the leg­acy of the Euro­pe­an Scho­ol.   It was here that he met Lili Or­szág, of whom he was a stu­dent and fel­low ar­tist for ele­ven years. They co-crea­ted not only pup­pets and stage de­signs for nu­me­rous pro­duc­tions but also mu­tu­ally ins­pi­red each other in their paint­ing. The sac­red na­tu­re of Per­si­an mi­nia­tu­re paint­ing, which Ka­zan­lár also rep­re­sen­ted, along with Ara­bic and Per­si­an cal­li­gra­phy as well as the Tarot and its kab­ba­lis­tic as­pects ope­ned up a uni­que world for Lili Or­szág.

His ex­hi­bit­ion at the Mű­csar­nok pre­sents Emil Ka­zan­lár’s large Tarot se­ri­es, rich in sym­bols and in­ten­ded as ob­jects of me­di­ta­ti­on as well as his works in the genre of tra­di­ti­o­nal Per­si­an mi­nia­tu­re paint­ing.

Cura­tor: Gréta GA­RA­MI 

Con­sul­tant : Szil­via Fa­ti­ma KA­ZAN­LÁR