Ex Libris (1920)

Aladár Kacziány was an outstanding figure and perhaps the last great master of Art Nouveau art. He studied at the National Royal Hungarian School of Applied Arts, then continued his studies in Rome and Florence on a scholarship. His first public appearance after his return home was at the Autumn Exhibition of the Kunsthalle. His oil paintings, watercolours and even graphic works are strongly influenced by Italy. He had his first successful exhibition at the National Salon in 1919, followed by regular exhibitions at home and abroad. Dante's Dream was awarded the Dante Prize. He was a member of the Association of Spiritual Artists, founded in 1924. He regularly exhibited his oil paintings, watercolours and drawings at the association's exhibitions at the National Salon and later at the New Salon (later the Studio). In 1930 he painted the side altarpiece of the Minorite Church in Eger. In 1933 he was appointed as a teacher at the School of Applied Arts, and from 1934 he became a full teacher, retiring in 1948.

Kacziány's ex-libris is akin to the works of the Pre-Raphaelites. The English movement idealized bourgeois society from a romantic point of view, idealizing the Middle Ages and the paintings of Raphael. The movement was followed by several artists in Hungary from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their influence can be seen in the community organisation of the artists of Gödöllő and their efforts to revive the craft tradition, and especially in the changes in drawing and applied graphics. The modern Art Nouveau style of clean outlines, decorative grids and unique, artistic letterforms, monograms and graphic symbols drew much inspiration from English art. The most important representative of this new modernity and sensibility was Lajos Gulácsy. Kacziány's ink paintings are characterised by mystical symbolism, stylization, detailing, naturalistic, rigid shaping. The composition of the work follows the Renaissance pictorial structure with the building and the characters in the foreground and the perspective landscape in the background.