Through one of the artist Nagy Imre’s most well-known works, we commemorate the 50th anniversary of his passing.

The oil painting entitled “The Family at Rest” is a defining work from the artist’s early period, in which the most characteristic compositional and thematic elements of Nagy Imre’s painting can be observed. Its simple, everyday subject — villagers tired after working in the fields, spending their midday rest, with the landscape and the home in the background, and a cart heading home along the winding road — is presented with sensitivity. The depth of the image opens up perspectives, enclosed by the sky rising above the horizon and spreading abundant light. The background, with its hills and the curved lines of the cart road, guides our gaze toward the village glimpsed beyond the hills.

Human in the landscape — robust, strong figures shaped by work. They seem familiar, as they appear in many of the artist’s paintings. We see compositions characteristic of Nagy Imre’s style: the man exhausted from work, leaning against the haystack, resting beside his dog with his legs spread apart; the peasant woman breastfeeding her child, a woman who knows no rest; the straw hat lying on the ground, the objects needed for the midday meal, and the hills following one another in their lines, with the wide-open fields.

This landscape is not a map! It is the image of the so-called “home” — the place where heaven and earth meet, where the sacred and the profane belong together.