Fűrészné Molnár Anikó szerk.: Komárom – Esztergom Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 3. (Tata, 1989)

Történelem - Dr. Szíj Béla: Jókai Mór és a képzőművészet

ed professor larczy and his daughter in India ink, as well as the Pálfís'son; they are not ready because the paint dries very slowly. . ." In another letter from Pápa he writes to his parents that: „I gathered a few things", among which „some pictures for my sister Mari". In the 1841-42 school-year Jókai studied at the Reformed College from Pápa. The school has preserved faithfully the memory of its great student and determined the town to erect a statue for him, as well as for Petőfi who also studied there. The former pupils of the College who possessed drawings or paintings by Jókai donated them to the collection of the College. In such way got into the collection of the College, as a donation of László Székely's, the portrait of Béla Székely who used to be a teacher of the College. (This portrait has been identified by the author of the present study). Besides portraits Jókai drew flowers with great passion. This fact shows his great passion for plants. In the collection of the Petőfi Literary Museum one can find for example that drawing which gave a true copy of different flowers. On it he immortalized 23 motives in such a way that he presented completely the flowers, as well as the details (leaf, capsule, siem). Next year in spring he did not continue his studies at Pápa. He continued them at the Reformed College from Kecskemét. In his sketch-book he immortalized his aquaintances from Kecskemét, and he sketched the characters of Miklós Jósika's novels - Abafi and Az utolsó Báthory -. In 1845 he went to Budapest where amidst the literary success he got aquainted with a lot of results of the fine arts. Later he himself wrote reports about exhibitions, mainly about the exhibitions of the Pesti Műegylet (Art Association of Pest). If we study his writings refering to this subject we can state that he honestly respected the results of the slowly developing national art. He understood in his youth that his contemporary artists had to lay the basis of the arts because - due to historical reasons - the arts were underdeveloped. All his attitude was penetreted and guided by the following statement: „We had only a little; perhaps it was not outstanding but we could appreciate what we had". 193