Mária Szñanthó

MÁRIA SZÁNTHÓ (Hungary. 1897-1998).
"Cleopatra".
Oil on canvas.
Repainting.
It has inscription on the back.
Measurements: 98 x 70 cm; 116 x 88 cm (frame).
In this painting, of clear erotic charge, the author shows the naked figure of Cleopatra in the moments before her death. The protagonist stands in the foreground with her face tilted upwards, her eyes closed and her lips parted in a grimace that oscillates between pain and eroticism. In this image the author does not represent the classic ideal of a Venus of classical beauty, but a young girl in a provocative pose with a marked sensual sense. Thus, we see a coloring of chosen refinement; the colors approach each other due to their neutral background, with which a powdery surface emerges in the figure, which contrasts gently with the brightness of the jewels with which the young woman is dressed. Here there are no unfathomable shadows or solemn hallmarks of chiaroscuro, but rather the luminosity of the snowy body and the expressiveness of the red. The figure, apparently so close, is in reality absent, distant from the viewer. The young woman's availability and attractiveness are attributes of a naive beauty, not an appeal to the beholder.
Mária Szánthó (Szeged, 1897 - Nagymágocs, 1998) was a Hungarian artist whose life and work are situated at the confluence of musical and plastic disciplines. Recognized both for her facet as a painter and for her outstanding piano training, Szánthó is a representative figure of the Central European culture of the twentieth century, especially for her artistic versatility and her belonging to a generation of women who had access to higher education in the arts in a context still marked by gender restrictions.
Born into a family belonging to the Hungarian nobility, Szánthó grew up in a privileged environment that allowed her to develop from an early age a remarkable aesthetic sensitivity, as well as an early access to a high-level artistic education. His musical training was consolidated at the prestigious Hungarian Academy of Music (now the Franz Liszt Academy of Music), where he obtained a diploma in Musical Studies with a specialization in piano.
Parallel to her musical career, Mária Szánthó cultivated a deep interest in the visual arts, a discipline in which she managed to consolidate herself as a painter. Although her pictorial activity did not enjoy the international projection of other contemporaries, her work has an undoubted artistic and testimonial value. Her compositions reveal a sensitive plastic language, marked by introspection, formal balance and, sometimes, by a subtle melancholy that can be related to the socio-political transformations that Hungary went through during the 20th century. His production covered diverse genres, from portraiture to landscape, evidencing a refined technical mastery and a sober chromatic palette, probably influenced by his musical training, which brought a rhythmic and harmonic sense to his visual works.