Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 24. (Budapest, 2006)
Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Exibition of Oriental Arts, 1929 - Collecting Chinese artefacts in Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s
worked to acquire samples as well as high-standard objects of crafts and domestic industry; in conformity with the original objective of the exhibition, the artefacts contributed to the promotion of the development of Hungary's artistic industry. However, Xántus 's artefacts proved to be of lasting influence in the field of history of collecting: through his activity, he laid down the basis of the Oriental collections of two major Hungarian museums, namely, the Museum of Applied Arts and the Museum of Ethnography. In the second half of the 19 ,h century, the succession of World Exhibitions displayed the image of a conquered Orient, a world whose different nature and immobility were emphasized. 5 The discovery of economically occupied (that is, colonalised) territories resulted in a recreation of the given culture. It was a made-up image of China that carried the values of the classical Chinese world, which served as a point of reference concerning the conditions in modern China. Chinese art was placed in the very same frame: objects recalling the magnificence of the past were compared with the seemingly bizarre and strange contemporary objects. As for the "past", it meant the porcelain art known from the 17 lh-18' h-century reports of Jesuits and ornamental pieces (cloisonné enamel, jade carvings, lacquer object etc.) produced in the manufactures of the imperial court. Those Oriental objects that were discovered by European crafts became characteristic pieces of collections not only due to the fact that their rationalism corresponded to Semper's triplicity of form, material and function, but also owing to their colours and closeness to nature.'' In conformity with Semper's principles, special attention was paid to contemporary pieces of Oriental ceramics and textile craft, which highlighted the significance of the domestic industry of those Europeans who wished to return to their own traditions. 7 After the 1870s, Japan's art was better known in Europe than that of any other Far-Eastern countries. The objects displayed at World Exhibitions, such as woodcuts, small (lacquer) objects (medicinal boxes [inros], carvings wore under the belt to counterbalance inros [netsukes] etc.), enamelled metal objects, textiles and pieces of furniture served as a starting point for considering Far-Eastern art. When collecting Chinese objects, collectors referred to Japanese types of objects as a sample, that is, they looked for Chinese parallels of Japanese crafts and artefacts. Above all, they preferred figurai carvings made of precious stones and ivory, small-size bronzes (e.g. incense burners), ceramics (e.g. snuffbottels) and woodcuts (pages of Chinese sample books, such as The Hall of Ten Bamboos or The Garden of Mustard Seeds.) Europe was not familiar either with Chinese aesthetics of art or Chinese collectors' conception and attitude towards objects. In the case of Chinese artefacts, it was characteristic categories of objects (ceramics, lacquer artefacts) of the 17 ,h-18' h-century China fashion that served as a point of reference for European collectors. They readily collected pieces resembling to 17 th-18' h-century or 18"'-century artefacts, such as late 19 lh-century Japanese series of ceramics marked with the Kangxi nianhao (1662-1722).The other connection to Chinese art was contemporary European reception of Japanese art: it was usual for customers to purchase the Chinese equivalents of the muchvalued and expensive objects of Japanese art at a considerably lower cost. 19 ,h-century European art history considered the material of a given culture homogenous; however, as a result of Burckhardt's, Semper's and Alois Riegl's activity, the notion of "style" got highly fragmented and could no longer provide a "grip" on Oriental art. European art history viewed the "lack" of periods in the history of style in Oriental arts as timelessness: Chinese art, just as other Oriental arts, was described and displayed as a permanent, eternal and static art. Taking the 17 ,h-18 lhcentury artefacts (porcelains, late bronzes, lacquer works and exquisite carvings) known in Europe as a starting point, ^-^"'-century art was regarded as the culmination of Chinese art. Working out scientific, exact methods of acquiring information was a fundamental pre-
