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

mental confusion of the post-Trianon period, theories of a possible relationship between Hungarian people and Asian "nomadic peoples" (that is, the Chinese, the Korean and the Japanese) did not fall on barren soil. In 1920, the Turanian Association parted from the society and became a most extreme advocate of the idea: it propagated the superiority of Turanian culture and, having got disappointed in "the West", it strove to find the notion of the nation's genesis in the idea of an "Oriental nation" (in a highly extreme version, an "Oriental race").

38 The Turanian Association catalysed interest in the Far East between the two World Wars. The research activity of its scholarly members (the geographer Jenő Cholnoky,"' the linguist Lajos Ligeti

40 and the art historian Zoltán Felvinczi Takács) belonged to the very best products of contemporary science. Zoltán Felvinczi Takács wrote in his article published in the Túrán in 1920 that the study of Far-Eastern cultures (that is, the cultivation of Chinese language and the research of the migration period) is the focus of sinological research.

41 His activity centred on two issues. He dealt with Buddhist art, which was considered as the major systematizing principle of FarEastern art, and investigated the interconnections of the material cultures of the migration period. In several works of his, he highlighted these issues making references to the artefacts of the Ferenc Hopp Museum's Chinese collection.

42 While conducting research on Buddhist art, he paid special attention to its Asian interrelations; he dealt with the relations of Indian-Chinese art

43 and the influence the Turfan discoveries exercised on Chinese painting.

44 When examining the art of the migration period, he made references to the Chinese-Hun relations,

45 in particular, he called attention to its art-related aspects. The 1929 Exhibition of Oriental Art As the introductory remarks of the catalogue says, "The great interest shown in Oriental art inspired the Association of Hungarian Collectors and Art Lovers to display the art of Turkey, Persia, India, China, Japan and related regions within the framework of an exhibition."

46 The Association of Hungarian Collectors and Connoisseurs

47 was established in Budapest in 1928; its main objective was to patronage art and coordinate collectors and museum experts. Károly Csányi, director of the Museum of Applied Arts and Dr. Pál Ary, a lawyer was elected chairmen of the association; Dr. Lajos Petracsek, a lawyer became the director. From 1929, Dr. Homann, Elek Petrovics and Gyula Végh, director-generals of various museums and Frigyes Glück, an art collector were the honorary members of the board. To serve it members, the association organized lectures and collecting tours; as for long-range objectives, they intended to establish a collectors'library. Owing to Frigyes Glück

's hospitality, they had the opportunity to hold their monthly meetings in the banquet-hall of Hotel Pannónia. The official paper of the association was the journal A műgyűjtő [The Connoisseur]; it was published and edited by Vilmos Szilárd, a collector and curio dealer. The Exhibition of Oriental Art opened in the building of the Museum of Applied Arts, in May, 1929. Károly Csányi and Zoltán Felvinczi Takács selected the artefacts and wrote the Hungarian and German catalogues of the exhibition.

41

* The Budapest Exhibition of Oriental Art formed an organic part of the series of international Oriental exhibitions; numerous Hungarian visitors saw similar exhibitions of private collectors' Oriental artefacts in Vienna

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1 and in Berlin.

50 Károly Csányi, an organizer and connoisseur of the exhibition maintained close connections with Hungarian collectors. It is worth mentioning that he assisted in the production of collections, such as that of Emil Delmár and that he arranged the Old Hungarian Carpets exhibition of the Association of Carpet Lovers in 1924.

51 It was him who selected the Turkish, Persian and Indian artefacts and all the carpets for the exhibition. The first trace of Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, the other organizer's connection with collectors, was the small sculpture exhibition arranged by the Szent György Guild in 1912 it was him who described Oriental artefacts in