Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 23. (Budapest, 2004)
Györgyi FAJCSÁK: Bertalan Hatvány, an unknown Connoisseur of Oriental Art
wrote: "I had considerable problems in choosing a career ... my family took the decision on my behalf, and sent me abroad to study business. In Hamburg, in Berlin, and in New York I sat at my desk and wasted my employers' time writing world-weary poems, in Hungarian ..." In 1925, aged 25, he undertook a "grand tour", making his homeward journey from New York by way of Asia. Afterwards, the spirit of Asia held him in its spell for the rest of his life: "The dreams of my youth sprang to life once more", he wrote in his autobiography. This experience may be reckoned as the beginning of a completely new life for him. After his return home he married", and in 1926 a son was born 12 ; but four years later the marriage failed. Bertalan Hatvány never broke off contact with the business of the family firm; after 1925 he became the nominal manager of the Concordia Steam-Mill Co. Ltd. 13 , but his business activities tended to suffer neglect in favour of his interests in orientalism. Up to the start of the Second World War he remained an important member of the Ignác Deutsch Company. He was a member of the company from 1935, and between 1935 and 1940 he was also an authorised signatory for the company's official documents 14 . Only after office hours was he able - by self-study - to devote himself to the cultural history and art of China and India. It was through this interest in Asia that he came into contact with the then Director of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts, Zoltán Felvinczi Takács (1880-1964), whom Hatvány acknowledged as his mentor. It was from Takács that he derived his approach to oriental art. Takács knew well the value-centred, timeless perspective on art which is associated with the name of Josef Strzygowsky (1862-1941), the noted Austrian art-historian based in Graz 15 . Rejecting the concept of development, the followers of Strzygowsky emphasised the significant impact of oriental traditions on European art 16 . This was the controversy known by his formulation "Orient oder Rom". The followers of Strzygowsky rejected the concept of the continuity of ancient traditions; they viewed Eastern and Western culture as being distinct and independent of one another, and attributed the observed changes in art to mutual interactions between them. They paid particular attention to the culture of the artefacts of the early mediaeval period, the "age of migrations", and in their studies focused on the ethnic group as the principal determining factor 17 . (This approach was later used as one of the main foundations of "racial theory" in the history of art.) These art-historians turned their attention to the art of the Hellenistic East, and by this route opened up new fields of comparative study including the art of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Georgia. Hatvany's interest in Asia was interwoven with the search for his own roots and identity 18 . His studies titled Asia and nationalism^ 9 , and The Jews of China and India 20 , both published in the early 1930s, bear additional witness to this. Meanwhile he led an active social-intellectual life. Hatvány was the secretary of the "Oriental Society of Hungary" (Magyar Keleti Társaság), which was founded by Zoltán Felvinczi Takács in 1932, and on several occasions delivered lectures at its meetings. One such lecture was on Chinese bronzes, statues, and tomb figures; another on Chinese paintings and porcelain 21 . In 1935 appeared the book which is considered as his major work, The Spirit of Asia 12 . In this book he attempted a comprehensive overview of the art and history of Asian cultures, in the framework of a historical timeline. He wrote in the Introduction: "My book attempts to reflect the spirit of Asia, not using the formal tools of science, but rather by means of pictures. The scientific method would present a photograph. The present author however wishes to depict the soul ... And if the book succeeds in promoting the understanding of cultures rooted in a thousand-year history, and of the spirit of Asia which they all share, then the author will consider his task fulfilled." 23 In the steps of Zoltán Felvinczi Takács, and in the spirit of the motto of Okakura Kakuzo 24 , "Asia is one, and eternal", Hatvány tried to present the basic lines of the historical and spiritual development of Asia 25 . In 1933, to mark the centenary of the birth of Ferenc Hopp,
