Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 5. (Budapest, 1962)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM - MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Ferenczy, László: The Collection of Corean Industrial Art. A Gift of the Corean People's Democratic Republic

LÁSZLÓ FERENCZY THE COLLECTION OF COREAN INDUSTRIAL ART, A GIFT OF THE COREAN PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC The Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts has become augmented recently by a collection of modern industrial art. After having been enriched by the collection of Chinese industrial art of our day, the Corean Council of Cultural Relations sent to our Institute of Cultural Relations a collection of 85 items, consisting of more than 120 objects of industrial and folk's art respectively. They have been transmitted to the Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts. The whole collection was exhibited shortly after the donation in the Institute of Cultural Connections in Budapest in September 1958. The exhibition was a great success. Owing to it, the Hungarian people became more acquainted with the culture of the friendly Corean people. Corea's industrial art, looking back to a past of millennia, claims a special place in the art of Asian peoples. But in spite of its long history and outstanding results it did not become by far so well known in Europe among collectors or by museums, as that of China and Japan, mainly because of Corea's seclusion. The development of Corea's industrial art took a greater swing in the first centuries A. D. At the time of the Three Kingdoms (first century B. C. — seventh century A. D.) the state of Paktche exported industrial art objects to Japan. In the eight and ninth centuries objects of precious metal, textiles and lacquer wares were transported to the Chinese provinces neighbouring Corea. In the sixth and seventh centuries Corean craftsmen were invited to Japan. Mainly during the Koryo-period the ceramic art made a further progress, beside the craftsmanship in metal and lacquer. Corean products, above all celadon-glazed ware, were much appreciated beyond their frontiers too. Chinese art exerted an inspirative and fructifying impact on Corean art throughout millennia, as it did on the art of other Far Eastern peoples. Coreans became acquainted with Chinese art more closely at the time of the Chinese colony at Naknang (108 B. C. — 313 A. D.). The arts of metal, lacquer and pottery in Corea, like almost every other branch of art, betray a very strong Chinese .influence. But Corean folk's artists not only transformed the borrowed forms and decorative motives according to the taste of their own people but they created also thoroughly new works in some branches of industrial art. The Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century and later on, at the end of the sixteenth century, the wars connected with Japanese intrusion hindered the