Ervin Baktay, the Indologist Indian
EXHIBITION
A “playful man”: the painter, writer, Indologist, geographer, astrologist, museologist, art historian and Indian. The exhibition on Ervin Baktay is now open in the Ferenc Hopp Museum in Budapest.
| Magyar Múzeumok Online |
2015-03-10 10:24 |
In his times Baktay (1890–1963) was one of the most important scholars of Indian Culture and he was also the most influential spokesperson for this culture with his books, articles and exhibitions. He set out as a painter, but became well-known through his translations, studies and travel books. His family ties were also notable due to Amrita Sher-Gil, the renowned Indian painter, who was his niece. Besides these, his achievements in geography, astrology and art history are outstanding too, and he was the one who built up the cult of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma. However, he was also a playful man and, inspired by his childhood experiences, he set up a wild-west game in 1924 and a North American Indian game in 1931, which was finally acknowledged even by the Council of the Native American Indian Tribes.
This exhibition in the Ferenc Hopp Museum depicts Baktay’s manifold personality and his family’s, partly unknown, history. This history illustrates how this and many other similar landowner families acquired the lifestyle and values of the urban middle class in the second half of the 19th century. The Baktay paintings on display, along with those of some friends, give the visitor a rare overview of the so-called Munich-school, a group of painters inspired by the great Hungarian painter Simon Hollósy. The visitors can also discover the libertine atmosphere of the Greco-Roman symposions held in the puppeteer, Blatter Géza’s workshop in the early 1920’s. Baktay, under the pseudonym Eroinos Baktaios, was one of the leading figures of these sessions.
Through Baktay’s personal environment (his study and his library) and his works, the exhibition sheds light on Baktay’s multidisciplinary oeuvre as well as on his role in the Hungarian Geographical Society and in popularising Sándor Kőrösi Csoma’s scientific achievement. His filmstrip “India” (1956) and a radio lecture on his travels in the western part of Tibet brings his unique personality even closer to the visitor.
In terms of objects, the ones collected in western Tibet are as fascinating as beautiful, and are complemented with further pieces from the Indian and Nepali collection of the museum, many of which were also exhibited in the first comprehensive India exhibition in Hungary curated by Baktay in 1951.
As for Baktay’s North American Indian drive, the exhibition displays some hilarious photos and relics of an imaginary western town and Indian tribe near the Danube where Baktay himself was the sheriff, this time using another pseudonym, E. H. Bucktye. The two silent western movies directed by Baktay are highly entertaining even for the contemporary visitor.
