Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 11. (Budapest, 1991)
RENNER Zsuzsanna: Baktay Ervin, mint művészettörténész és muzeológus
Given the common features of representation and composition, Baktay presumed that by the time the reliefs of Amaravati were carved painting had also developed in the same region but there were no rock-cut halls established where frescoes could have survived. The style and spirit of 2—3rd century plastic art, however, was preserved by the frescoes of Ajanta. About the new mentality forming the animated style of Amaravati and creating the new dynamism and freedom of expression which constituted such a striking contrast to the more static and typifying tendendy of former - particularly North Indian plastic art, Baktay expounded his views in a paper on the relationship between Buddhism and Indian art contributed to the symposium organized in Delhi on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha's parinirvana 2 . Here he argued that the art of Amaravati had been directly influenced by Buddhism, which from its birth kept breaking the shackles of Brahmanical conventions both in the social and the cultural sense. The dynamism and vivacity of Amaravati art could not have evolved without this awareness of liberation. Buddhism made its impact even on Hindu art, as is strongly felt in the monolithic Hindu rock temples of the 7—8th centuries. Baktay's attitude to Islamic art is also significant. In contrast to the greatest contemporary authorities on Indian art B. Rowland and A.K. Coomaraswamy, Baktay regarded Islamic art in India as an integral part of Indian art history since, he held, it was just India where a particular type of Islamic art, differing from the Islamic art of Arabia, Persia and other countries and showing typically Indian features in all branches of art had developed. Islam had an impact on the everyday life, mentality and art of India and vice versa: Indian influence is strongly felt in local works of Islamic art. As this interaction initiated a new phase in Indian - particularly North Indian - art history, Islamic art in India cannot be neglected as something non-Indian, especially since India would be the poorer without it. The art of India provided several more original ideas concerning different problems of Indian art history, none of which can be enumerated here. An important factor promoting the birth of this significant work of Hungarian Indology was that between 1946 and 1959 Baktay worked as curator of the Indian collection at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Art in Budapest, and during these years he was almost exclusively dealing with the study of Indian art and with looking after the collection of the museum. By his own account, he would not have been able to write his book without the experience gained there. After the war, the Indian collection of the museum badly needed somebody to take care of it and Baktay was the best person for this task. First of all, he formulated his ideas about the development of the collection: he made a survey of the missing types of objects and of those that were only represented by insignificant pieces. With this in view, he selected objects for purchase. During his years in the museum, he acquired many pieces for the collection. The Indian collection, comprising the Nepalese, Tibetan, South-East Asian, Indonesian and even the Indo-Chinese collections, raised many problems and provided Baktay with numerous exciting subjects for research. Baktay was especially interested in Indian stone sculpture, miniature painting and Nepalese metal scupture; on these subjects he published articles in scholarly journals and in the annals of the Museum of Applied Arts 3 . With regard to the formation of the museum's Indian collection, one should re-
