Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 2. (Budapest, 1974)

Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs en 1972

following references and possible discussions. The references of the session, which will be held by the competent professional heads of the Ministry, of the Academy and of the Museum, will deal, first of all with the future, the profile, the prospect of the Museum of Applied Arts, and in fact according to the classic quotation: "this is our job and this is not little." But besides merely the future, for the proper and due demonstration and consciousness of the past, in order to project the historical and scientific position of the history of the Museum, which has to be written, we want to mention some names: late men of the Museum, we called them formerly "museist" instead of "museologist" as nowaday, excellent historians of art: Gy. Vegh, J. Höllrigl, E. Kőszeghy-Winkler, K. Csányi, S. Mihalik, all these names deserve to denote chapters in the historiography of the Museum of Applied Arts. Worthy honour to their memory! And now only two more ideas, first: let me point our the importance of the direct connection between the work of the Museum and that of the University on the area of the history of applied art. We know very well, that the few years students spend at the University cannot give complete knowledge about the infinitely large field of the history of universal art and that the would-be experts coming from University to Museums have only gained their knowledge for what they are expected to know through studying the most important periods, the most prominent masters and schools, the most excellent works of art as well as analysing and interpreting the phenomena which only show trends in progress. This is so, not only in architecture, sculpture, painting — the grand art in other words — but also in applied arts, that means in — arti minori — to the same extent. But the historical borders of the fine arts and the so called applied arts are more and more mingling in the course of universal scientific-historical evolution in our days: silversmithwork, textilwork, ceramics (including also glass work with respect to silicate), metalwork, woodwork, leatherwork and all the others appeare more and more in an organic unity on the horizon of history, in unity with the traditional categories of artistic forms of sculpture, painting and even architecture too. Let me give you only two examples of the domain of our Italian renaissance studies: there could be no result reached in the study of the paintings of the quattrocento without studying intarsias and the study of quattrocento's sculpture cannot be successful without acquiring knowledge of ceramics and maiolica of the period

.. . Therefore and for this aim the education at University level, the instruction of experts of art historians has to be in an organic unity to produce the universal and general history of arts. To this end it is necessary that experts of the specialized masterpiece-collections in museums should rise above their attitude concentrating only on one genre, moreover above the merely "aspect of classes in the Museum" and this way they would contribute with intensive activity to the education of those, who first are working next to them and later — according to the merciless change of generations — will once become the guards of the art treasures of the Museum. Permit me to mention our second idea: the Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art, which is working under the aegis of the highest international organisation of the universal history of arts, the UNESCO presented its latest findings in history of arts at several international conferences and according to their references at the Budapest conference in 1969, it did not and 206