Taj Mahal (c. 1928-1929)

Ferenc Zajti (1886 - 1961)

Information

Size

60 x 43

Material

Pastel on paper.

Price

9,000 USD

Signature

Signed bottom left: Zajti

About

Although painting accompanied him throughout his life, he considered the research of the origins of the Hungarian people to be his defining task. Zajti was the chief representative and promoter of Turanian principles and dealt with Hungarian prehistory. He translated and illustrated the work "Zarathustra Zendavesta" into Hungarian, and he is credited with the founding of the Hungarian Indian Society, of which he was the president for 17 years.

 

In 1925, he started the Avesta Library series, which included studies by Aurel Stein, Ignác Goldziher and Professor Jivanji Jamshedji Modi of Parsi, among others. In 1928 he received Rabindranath Tagore in Budapest. Obsessed with the Hun-Hungarian Sisty theory, Zajti researched the geographical location (land) of the Sassanids, the Eastern Black Huns and the Pardis (Parduses). According to his theory, the Hungarians came to today's country from Bihar. In 1928-1929, he spent a year and a half in India for research in this direction, where he visited, among other places, Gandhi's residence and talked to his students. After returning home in the fall of 1929, he presented the results of his research and his 960-item collection of objects and documents in the Dome Hall of the Museum of Applied Arts.

 

In 1931-1932, at the invitation of President Kemál Atatürk, Zajti visited Ankara and Constantinople. He gave lectures in the group of the Turkish Historical Society, whose president was Kemál Pasha himself. In 1931, he presented his works in a joint exhibition with Gyula Rudnay in Constantinople. In 1943, his book, the Hungarian Millennium (Skytha - Hun - Hungarian race identity) with 350 illustrations, was published again. 

 

Based on the striking similarity between Indian and Hungarian decorative motifs, Zajti wanted to prove his ideas of kinship by drawing parallels between Székely gates, headstones, flowers of Kalotaszeg sewing boxes and Indian decorative motifs. For his drawings, he took as a basis the drawing teacher and painter's, Jenő Tóth's drawings and watercolours, who had spent two years in India between 1911 and 1912 collecting and drawing Indian motifs, also convinced of their identity with Hungarian folk motifs.

Related Themes

Pre-War Figurative Art

(1922 - 1950)

Travel & Orientalism

(1850 - 1980 )

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