House Painting

Children were painting a house, Imre Szombathy’s house made for exhibition at the expo, for the first time in their lives. They were listening to Beethoven’s Pastorale symphony, the movement evoking nature, while they were painting the house’s walls. We didn’t ask for a theme, we didn’t explain anything. 

Music was playing, and they were painting. I have no idea how they found out where the head of the dragon they painted should be placed, how it should fill the house’s wall. They stood on chairs if they had to paint higher up. They painted a delightful flowery wall around their dragon. 

The ten-year-old Berci painted an old magician with a hat and a beard. In the story, the houses, the city surrounding the Magician became black, birds flew away. Finally the beautiful fair-haired little girl left the dark and sooty place. 

The Wizard

The story is of the painting by ten-year-old Berci Benyó.

Berci: In my picture, the main figure is an old man. He is very old, and he knows a lot of things that people don’t know nowadays. There is a gleam sparkling in his eyes but he is there to take away everything that is valuable. He even takes away the last flower, and clears away the colour from all things. The old man is really a wizard from fables and he also takes away the tales and stories. Then he casts his spell on the birds and they become completely grey. 

There is only one other living figure in the picture, a little girl. The little girl is holding something in her hand, a rectangular-shaped thing, an electronic device, even though her hands appear empty. 

The wizard decides to leave the city for good, but behind him the smoke, the factory, the jet fighters remain. The only plant life that remains are thorny thickets. The greyish colours remain, and so does the little girl who would rather go away. The old man is living among people now. He is leaving the city as if he were leaving his home.

The old man is not happy to go and both the girl and old man are sad. He is going somewhere, no one knows – even he doesn’t know – where, to a place where he would be tolerated and where he would be willing to stay.

I think the picture is quite scary, as the music was quite scary, too.

Klara: How did this story come to you from Beethoven’s music? 

Berci: There were grand and forceful parts of the symphony: explosions, dark and scary music, and this became the city and the jet-fighter swooping by. Then there were sad parts, these became the little girl and the old man. And there was a part when all the birds flew away. 

There was also a part when the little girl nearly dropped the gadget. Of course while I was painting I could not always pay attention to what was coming, but I could clearly see this picture already when we were listening to the music for the first time.