Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 3-4. (Budapest, 1959)
HOPP FERENC KELETÁZSIAI MŰVÉSZETI MÚZEUM - Ervin Baktay: Report on a vovage of study to India 1956/57
Toward the end of February I visited Shantiniketan, spending there about eight days as a guest of the V ishvabharati University which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore. Shantiniketan is still the stronghold of the "Bengali School" of painting, and the students of the Art School are trained in its spirit, although the modern generations of Indian artists turned, led mainly by the influence of Amrita Shergil, against its traditionalism. Thus the atmosphere was not quite favourable for my lecture on the art of Amrita Shergil, the great pioneer of modern painting in India, who was Hungarian on her mother's side, and died at the age of 29 years in 1941 ; yet, the young students of arts reacted in an enthusiastic manner to what I said concerning the artistic development of Amrita, which was partly based on the teachings of Hollósy, 1 interpreted by my modest self, for 1 had the good luck and honour of being Amrita's first art teacher at the beginning of her amazing career. I hope to have served the development and advance of the younger generation of artists at Shantiniketan, even if the venerable représentants of the old traditions seemed to be a bit upset by my statements. — On the other hand, most excellent work is being done at Shantiniketan by the teaching of classical music and dance. It was of special interest to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Etadi Ghosh, a Hungarian lady (Etelka Boglár), widow of a well known Indian philosopher and literary man, who has been taking part in the cultural work of the Vishvabharati University since more than 20 years. Now, as there is some talk of a new Hungarian translation of the works of the great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, she seems to be the most suitable person to do it, for she knows the Bengali language perfectly, and her knowledge of Hungarian stands on a high literary level. I went to Calcutta at the beginning of March, and delivered a lecture on Alexander Csoma de Körös, the Hungarian pioneer of Tibetology, at the Asiatic Society (formerly Asiatic Society of Bengal), in whose old building he lived for many years, between 1830 and 1842, working on his Tibetan Grammar and Tibetan — English Dictionary. — Besides this I spent most of my time studying the rich collections of old Indian art in the Indian Museum where the w r onderful specimens are also closely crowded together, due to limited space. Leaving Calcutta 1 travelled to Orissa. Here three important places preserve the great architectural and sculptural achievements of the X th and XII th centuries : Bhuvaneshvar, Konarak and Puri. As I have thoroughly studied the latter two at the time of my first sojourn in India, my attention was now mainly turned toward Bhuvaneshvar. About a thousand temples existed once here, and some ninety of them are still to be seen. These temples are excellent examples of the so-called Nagara style and belong, with their extremely rich sculptural decoration, to the most admirable monuments of Indian art. It is only a pity that the Brahmanic orthodoxy prevents the visitor in entering the temples which are still used as places of worship, and are therefore in good repair. It is the more annoying, as there are many places in India where the foreign visitor is permitted to enter the temples, with the exception of the sacrosanct innermost part of them. It is desirable that these things should be uniformly regulated all over India — without offence, of course, to 1 S. Hollósy (1858 —1918) was a pioneer of modern painting in Hungary. The author of present paper studied art under his leadership.
