The road to creativity (Creativityi út?)

As summer slowly mellows into our mild autumn, I'm enjoying getting lost in a dreamy 1896 lithograph by József Rippl-Rónai called "Village Festival" (right).

A new acquisition of the Cantor Arts Center, the work shows a summer day in the country. I especially love the sway of the woman's golden skirt. It creates motion in the middle of all that peaceful stillness, just a gentle touch of movement.

Am I biased because the artist was Hungarian? Nem, nem. But this all gives me nice memories of walking down Rippl-Rónai utca (street) in Budapest on my way to Hungarian class. It was in the embassy district, stately and leafy.

It's lovely to live in a place where the streets are named after artists. Not another (yawn) Central or University or Main. We get plenty of roads named after plants, which is all well and good. But in Hungary, I lived on the corner of Katona József (playwright), near streets named after Radnóti Miklós (poet), Balzac, and Raoul Wallenberg, who was a sort of artist in his own way. Also nearby was Jaszai Mari square, named after an actress and now a good place to catch a tram over the Danube.

But you can't win 'em all. One of the roads I remember from Budapest has the picturesque name of Ferihegyi Gyorsforgalmi út, which is typically translated as "Way to Ferihegy Airport."