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Gizella Solti
Please, wait for the image to be loaded! Gizella Solti
14. Gizella Solti Hungary

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When asked to re-weave one of the parts of the Brussels tapestry Mercury Hands over the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs, I requested, was given, and happily wove a small detail of the airy firmament visible on this classic tapestry. Departing from the fixed rules of French Gobelin weaving, I employed a solution that I myself developed. When weaving according to a certain rhythm, I did not cover the coloured warp yarn, leaving it visible instead. In this way, the surface became more striking. By doing this, I wanted to demonstrate my firm conviction that weaving today is a viable and exciting fine arts genre that is suitable for renewal.

      In earlier times, tapestries covered cold and bare walls in castles and churches. Today, such walls are few and far between. Glass walls reject the genre with alarm. Today, museums are the places for tapestry. If they wish to do so, visitors to museums can read from tapestries historical events along with lessons from mythology and the Bible. Earlier, too, believers and others who were curious did this.

      Does artistic activity serve some kind of purpose? Does it teach? Does it intoxicate? Does it stir us up or sooth? To these and to many other questions personal answers can be given. A wall of the Budapest apartment house where I live has a plaque which reads as follows: ‘Through her, Hungarian art secured for the first time an “era-creating” role in the development of world culture.’ With this sentence, Károly Tolnay, the renowned historian of the art of the twentieth century, paid homage to Noémi Ferenczy, my mentor at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts. She was my teacher, in the fullest sense of the term. She taught me my craft, how to think, and my love of weaving.