The work – with its emphatically symmetric composition inspired by the visual elements of the baroque altar – is a locus, which simultaneously bears reference to the golden age and an idyllic world (landscape), mimics nature’s cyclical character and creates the notion of mythic time. The whirling, flowing phenomenon, with its blend of golden tempera and gold dust, retains the symbolic meaning of both live-giving water and gold as the source of economy.
The painterly perspective, which is so characteristic of Mátrai’s works, and his earlier, recurring motifs (Mass in Barracas, The Parting of the Red Sea), are equally present in Landscape. This time, however, rather than using a projector and creating a videobased piece, the artist works with water, paint, wood and foil.
Landscape is not about producing an illusion, but about vision presented as reality, about rendering an apparition real, about representing a picture of the imagination. It is mostly in this that Mátrai’s installation differs from the works of other contemporary artists engaging a similar thematic, such as the well-known – mostly urban – installations of Olafur Eliasson, Julius Popp’s high-tech word-waterfalls, and Fabrizio Plessi’s works reflecting on the boundaries between reality and illusion.
The aurulent Landscape, which draws both on the traditions of contemporary art and art history, can also be interpreted here and now, within the context of the changes that affect Műcsarnok, as an institution.