Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 19. (Budapest, 2000)

Béla KELÉNYI: Biographical Details from the Year of the Fire-Monkey

BÉLA KELÉNYI BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS FROM THE YEAR OF THE FIRE-MONKEY* In 1999 a Tibetan thangka, or painted scroll, passed into the possession of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts from the estate of the photographer Miklós Rév (1906-98). The scroll is one of a series depicting the life of Tsongkhapa (13571419), in his day a great renewer of Tibetan Buddhism; another piece from the same series is to be found in Győr's Patkó collection, started by Imre Patkó (1922-83). Namely in the autumn of 1956, Patkó - then divisional head at the foreign broadcasts section of Hungarian Radio — was given, along with Miklós Rév, an opportunity: to join a Hungarian expedition to Tibet as a journalist, and to travel extensively in the country.

1 "Nineteen fifty-six — this was the Year of Fire-Monkey in Tibet." With this sentence, rather succinct considering the events in Hungary at the time, Imre Patkó and Miklós Rév began their book, which for a long time after 1945 was almost the only general work available on Tibet in the Hungarian language. Conceived in the spirit of SinoHungarian trade ties and "friendship", the expedition provided a chance for Budapest's Institute for Vehicle Development and the Csepel Vehicle Works to find out whether the newly-developed motor for Csepel lorries was suitable for steep mountain roads; and for the test-route a journalist and a photographer could be taken along. As Patkó himself writes, this was to all intents and purposes the first Hungarian expedition to reach (Middle) Tibet. The two authors tried to make good use of their time in the country: they assiduously made contact with Tibetans and Chinese from very different walks of life and even met the Dalai Lama. As one would expect, the book bears the mark of the 1950s, although Patkó not only describes "construction of the new Tibet", which had been "liberated peacefully", but also — in most cases based on interviews he himself conducted — provides a general summary of knowledge concerning Tibet; on the other hand, Miklós Rév's artistically composed photographs give a highly graphic picture of the country at that tune. Even today the "Patkó — Rév" book can in many ways be regarded as a valuable document. The authors do not disclose where they obtained or purchased the two thangkas depicting the life of Tsongkhapa; these merely appear among photographs in the book illustrating Tibetan art.

3 The caption to 111. 198 describes the thangka in the Patkó collection as a "characteristic Tibetan painting of a prayer-flag from the 1700s". Mixing up the two scrolls, the caption for 111. 208 relates one of scenes (No. 27) as "The Dalai Lama on His Throne". From all this we may conclude that the authors could not have known from the donors or sellers the identity the figure presented in the pictures, nor the situation in which he is shown. Although clearly many series depicting Tsongkhapa'

s life were made, the visual system of the series presented here employed always follows the same patterns.

4 Giuseppe Tucci was the first to express the view that these depictions were based on a fifteen-part * This study has been supported financially by the National Scientific Research Fund (TO 25755).