Radio România Internațional

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  • Fine Artists in World War One

    Fine Artists in World War One

    World War One, also known as the Great War, was also the first world-level conflict that enjoyed an abundant illustration through film shots, photographs and fine art images. Fine artists from all sorts of combating countries traveled to the frontline, of their own free will, or commissioned by various institutions, in order to capture scenes from the battle but also the atmosphere on the frontline.



    Romania made no exception. On June 23, 1917, one year before the Great Union of 1918, General Constantin Prezan issued an order mobilizing a great number of painters to the frontline, as well as top-flight graphic artists and sculptors, since they were assigned to create documentary images for a future military museum. The director of the Institute for the History of Art Adrian-Silvan Ionescu will now be speaking about the artists who were summoned to serve the Romanian flag not in arms, but with the pencil and the sketch book.



    Adrian-Silvan Ionescu: “The army already had a film and photo department, but everybody agreed that a painters touch was probably more important than the rough and realistic presentation provided by the camera. Some of the artists who were called up had already been reserve officers, as well as others who had no military training whatsoever, they werent even conscripted, yet they had been granted the honorary lieutenants ranking, also being offered the required pay grade. Part of that group were, among others, sculptors Ion Iordănescu, Ion Jalea, Cornel Medrea, Oscar Han, as well as painters Teodorescu-Sion, Traian Cornescu, Camil Ressu, Alexis Macedonski, Nicolae Dărăscu, Petre Bulgărăş and many others. To complete their work, these fine artists were commissioned at a short notice. They began in late June, while in September they already prepared an exhibition, at the Fine Arts School in Iasi.



    In order to better capture the fierceness of the fights and the efforts of soldiers, these visual artists did not hesitate to venture into the front line. Some of them even fell victim to gunfire. Such was the case of the talented sculptor Ion Jalea, who, while on the Marasesti battlefront, doing some sketches, was hit by a projectile and lost his left arm. What did the artists works look like?



    The soldiers daily drama and their miserable life in the trenches were the main topics, as art historian Adrian Silvan Ionescu tells us: “The scenes of violence and fierce battle are not dominant. The daily life in the trenches, with its routine that included reading the newspaper and taking the wounded to the hospital, along with the scenes with prisoners, are more frequent. Artists do no longer venture, as they did during the previous wars, to capture impressive battle scenes with cavalry attacks, artillery blasts and bayonet attacks which they had probably never witnessed. Glorifying the war was no longer the goal of these battlefront artists, but rather a realistic presentation of it.



    It was not only the artists officially summoned by general Prezan who did their job on the Romanian battlefront. There were also independent painters. Among them was Iosif Iser. Although he officially worked with the Armys Geographic Service and drew up maps or menus for the superior officers dinners, he also found the time to paint or draw scenes from the daily life in the trenches. Among the artists who were not under the patronage of the General Headquarters was also Costin Petrescu, the author of a large fresco inside the Romanian Athenaeum.



    Art historian Adrian Silvan Ionescu gives us details about the other visual artists: “Victor Ion Popa, an admirable draughtsman and a highly cultivated man, co-founder of the Bucharests Village Museum, a playwright and a literary and art critic, was a constant collaborator of the press at that time, which he provided with both humoristic and highly expressive works. Another visual artist who was not part of the General Headquarters group was Sabin Popp. He was affiliated to the air fleet stationed in Barlad. He was even involved in an accident once. Popp was almost thrown out of the cockpit at a swerve, but he managed to cling to the wing and escape a terrible death. Sabin Popp was initially quartered at an infantry battalion, then transferred to the air fleet where he had enough time to paint and draw portraits of soldiers.



    The way in which these artists illustrated the tragedy of the Great War can also be admired within the exhibition opened at the National Art Museum in Bucharest.

  • 19th century shops in Bucharest

    19th century shops in Bucharest

    A town of merchants, Bucharest has developed around a neighbourhood known today as the Historical Centre or the Old Town, an area that has been boasting up to this day numerous shops, stalls and inns offering accomodation and good food. In time a commercial type of architecture specific to a merchants’ town developed here, which can still be seen today, as some buildings have been preserved up to present.



    Art historian Oana Marinache gives us more details about this kind of shops:” We have some very deep cellars here, some dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. In time, new buildings were erected on top of these cellars. None of them is specific only to the 19th century or the second half of the 18th century. The various stages of construction works, some conducted in different periods, can be identified by studying the cellars. It is very likely that, at first, these buildings only had a basement and a ground floor, serving as shops where various produts were sold. In time, the new generations of merchants, as in Buhcarest we can speak of entire mearchant families from the 19th to the 20th century, decided they needed extra room for their business and added one or even two storeys to their buildings. The new storeys usually served as residence for the merchant family who worked downstairs or were rented out. There were also cases when the rooms upstairs served as offices for the building’s owners or for other people who rented them for the same purpose.”



    In time, especially during the quick modernization process in the second half of the 19th century, the commercial activity in Bucharest also intensified. A number of new shops were opened and the buildings started being narrower and extend horizontally either because the space was too small or because the parcels of land were divided between heirs.



    This is how things were in the Bucharest’s centre, as on its outskirts, close to the rural areas, these shops were no different from the ones specific to villages. They had the aspect of small cotages, of underground houses or low-rise houses with basements. On the outskirts of Bucharest, merchants’ houses had a porch, just like peasant houses did at the time.



    In the center, however, the artchitectural influences were diffferent. Oana Marinache: “What we actually see here dates back to the years before the Great Fire of 1847. These buildings went through some radical changes chiefly in the second half of the 19th century. After getting contact with other trade centers, mainly with German-speaking centers in Brasov, Sibiu and even Vienna, the architecture of these buildings radically changed. Gradually, some of these merchants, mainly those belonging to the middle-class, but also those in the upper classes who were mainly of Jewish descent, could afford building some sort of department stores resembling those in Paris or Vienna, shops selling a variety of products. One of those high-end shops, mostly frequented by women, was ‘Au bon gout’ as most of the local shop owners used to borrow names from the French space.



    The store was owned by Jewish traders. Ownership deeds include the name of a certain Mr. Ascher. In line with the trend of the time, he commissioned architect Filip Xenopol to design of one of the largest buildings in the old city, between the Lipscani and Stavropoleos streets, where the Chrisovelloni bank stands. Actually, the building stood up until 1925, and it was one of the largest stores in the city.”



    Bucharest inns, as famous as the stores, have disappeared in time too. Those that have survived have been drastically made over, as compared to their original architecture, as historian Oana Marinache told us: “Definitely, many people have visited the ARCUB Cultural Center, where the old Hagi Tudorache inn used to stand or the famous ‘Hanul cu Tei’. These are examples of commercial architecture from the early 19th century, although they have undergone many refurbishing and restoration works, especially in the 20th century. Also, Hanul lui Manuc (Manuc’s Inn) is still standing, probably the best known landmark of the Old Center in Bucharest, which has been restored by preserving the characteristics of early 19th century architecture.”

  • Residences of the Stirbey Family

    Residences of the Stirbey Family

    The Stirbey Family, sharing the same bloodline with other leading ruling families in the Romanian Principalities, such as Bibescu, Brancoveanu and Cantacuzino, played its crucial role not only in the principalities’ modernization process, but also in Romania’s capital city. Ruling prince Barbu Stirbey was born into the Bibescu family but was adopted by the last descendant of the Stirbey family. He ruled Wallachia between June 1849 and October 1853, and a second time from October 1854 to June 1856. The principalities’ modernization process had already begun, as well as their opening towards Western Europe. Prince Barbu Stiebey had no objection to that, quite the contrary, he had his own contribution, to that effect. His descendants continued to get involved in Romania’s policy.



    One of his most noteworthy descendants, who bore the prince’s name, Barbu Stirbey, was the president of the Council of Ministers, Minister of the Interior and an interim Finance and Foreign Affairs Minister. He was also an honorary member of the Romanian Academy between the wars, a close advisor to King Ferdinand and Queen Marie. Jointly with his father, Alexandru and his brothers and sisters, they owned several residences in Bucharest and abroad, which today are part of Romania’s cultural heritage. Furthermore, ruling prince Barbu Stirbey had a property in Nice, known as ‘The Orestis Mansion’ where he spent the last part of his life. In turn, his son, Prince George Stirbey, who was a diplomat, retired somewhere nearby Paris, in Courbevoie, where he had bought a palace of his own. Art historian Oana Marinache studied Stirbey family’s residencies in Romania. This helped her discover that many of the family’s properties were acquired when Barbu Stirbey married Elisabeta Cantacuzino. Oana Marinache:


    ”When Barbu married Elisabeta Cantacuzino Pascanu the assets of the family grew larger, thanks to a great number of properties that in the old days could be found among the property list of Constantin Brancoveanu’s family. So we can say that the ruling prince amassed a sizeable fortune, mainly made of land property. He had estates in Olt, Dolj, Vilcea, Mehedinti, in Romanati county (as it was known back then). In the second half of the 19th century, families had a different approach to family and marriage. For instance, prince Alexandru, who stayed in the country, married a member a boyars’ family from Moldavia. That’s how the Stirbey Family came into the Brusturoasa, Mandresti and Darmanesti estates, as well as large forest properties, with industrial exploitation. In Bucharest, there are a great many houses of the family as well, apart from the former Princely Palace, today’s Stirbey Palace on Victory Road, refurbished by price Alexandru”.



    The former Princely Palace or the Stirbey Palace has survived to this day and can be seen on Victory Road, which is Bucharest’s oldest and most important avenue. Listen to Oana Marinache again, who this time will be providing us with a timeline for that building.



    ”It is an old boyar’s house, initially owned by the last of the Stirbeys, while in the early 19th century it was passed on to young steward Stirbey. Prior to becoming the ruling prince of Wallachia, he too commissioned a French architect, Michel de Sanjouand, who over 1833-1855 refurbished the old boyar’s house, upgrading it into a building everyone could envy. The residence is built in neo-classical style, which back then was in fashion. It would undergo major changes, but the most important of them is its enlargement over 1881 and 1882, operated by Friedrich Hartmann. He was a German architect who worked for the Stirbey family, and who, despite all the trending styles at the time, stuck to the initial construction and enlarged the building, also adding a tower. It was also him who built the stables that sadly were brought down by the present owner in late 2008.“



    In the early 20th century, the Stirbey family started collaborating with architect Nicolae Ghika Budesti on a number of private projects, restoration works and the building of new residences. Here is Oana Marinache again:



    “On Grivita Road, close to the Royal Palace on Victory Road, there was a palace owned by prince George, prince Barbu’s younger brother, who died tragically in WWI. The palace used to be emblematic for the centre of the city, since 1911 until WWII. The ruler’s nieces too built their own mansions nearby, resorting to the same architect, Nicolae Ghika Budesti. These houses are still there, near Victory Road. We believe that the Palace on Grivita Road was bombed, but we do have the plans and photos of the palace. Many of the residencies outside the city were turned into either hospitals, as it happened with the mansion in Voila, near Campina, which still is a psychiatric hospital, or into something else. In Darmanesti authorities set up a children’s summer camp. Then the palace was left to decay, then reclaimed by the daughters of the Stirbey princesses.”



    Another famous family residence is the one located in Buftea, near Bucharest. The estate is dominated by the palace built in the Romantic style, although the architect is unknown.




  • The Ethnographic Museum in Lupsa

    The Ethnographic Museum in Lupsa

    Situated in the Aries Valley, in the region known as the Moti Land, in the Western Carpathian Mountains, the village of Lupsa is home to one of the ethnographic gems of the area: the “Pamfil Albu” Ethnographic Museum. The result of teacher Pamfil Albu’s life-long work, the museum’s collections are representative for the trades specific to the area, namely mining and farming, but they also illustrate people’s everyday life in the past. Currently, the curator of the museum in Lupsa is Pamfil Albu’s daughter, Monica Rotaru, who told us more about the edifice:



    “ My father was a teacher in Lupsa, and his father-in-law was a also a teacher and priest. My grandfather, Sebastian Ceapa, was very much interested in making a monograph of the commune and needed documents. That is why he asked my father to search those documents. Traveling here and around, my father noticed that some old objects had been simply thrown away and neglected by villagers. This is how he got idea of bringing them together and making a collection for school. This is how my father started collecting items for the ethnographic museum. Visiting people’s houses he saw many things that he knew that would be extremely valuable in the future. In just a few years, from 1937 until 1950, he managed to gather over 2500 items of all sorts, made of wood, stone or textile materials, ceramics and actually everything that can be found in a community. He displayed the items in two rooms in an old school, but they soon became too small. It was then that he decided to establish a museum and got support to do that. Near the church in the centre of the village there was a building built in 1872 which belonged to the church and he asked for that space. The church donated the building to the state, and later became home to my father’s collection. In 1950, when the collection was quite large, my father donated it to the state. He understood that by doing that Lupsa could become a representative place for the Moti Land, and even more, for the entire area of the Western Carpathian Mountains. “



    Therefore, the museum started being organized as such after 1950, and Pamfil Albu was helped by the then director of the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania, based in Cluj-Napoca. Pamfil Albu died in 1990. During his life he taught his daughter how to recognize and assess quality objects, passing on to her the collector’s spirit. Today Monica Rotaru knows all about the museum’s heritage and continues to collect old objects from the people of Lupsa. Monica Rotaru:



    “The collection is quiet varied. It includes objects related to the locals’ occupations starting with the secondary ones: fishing, bee growing and hunting. Then there are the objects related to primary occupations such as farming and animal breeding. We have a room with objects specific to a sheepfold. The museum also includes an area where my father tried to present, in chronological order, all the grinding systems used to grind wheat after the harvest. On the first floor, for instance, visitors will discover tools specific to wood working and wood bucket making. As of 1980 we have run out of funds for acquisitions but I used my own resources, because the locals continued to bring me various objects for the museum. This is how I managed to gather tens of objects, mainly wooden ones.”



    Today the museum, located in the main street in Lupsa, which links with the main road crossing the Moti Land and leads to traditional mining settlements such as Rosia Montana, is admired by both Romanian and foreign tourists who are happy to discover there objects that they thought had been lost for ever.