Radio România Internațional

Tag: The Kiss

  • August 22, 2023

    August 22, 2023

    STRIKE Trade unionists from Romania’s
    Fiscal Administration this morning staged a warning strike also picketing the
    Finance Ministry in order to protest the measures proposed by the Executive in
    Bucharest to cut budget expenses. Trade union leader Dorin Modure said that
    among the claims there are also those on maintaining the employees’ incomes as
    well as a proper statute. He said there were several abortive attempts at
    negotiating with the government and does not rule out the idea of an all-out
    strike unless the protesters’ claims are met.






    ATHENS At the informal
    meeting staged in Athens by the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on
    the bloc’s enlargement towards the Western Balkans, Prime Minister Marcel
    Ciolacu has presented Romania’s support for Ukraine, as well as the challenges
    the Romanian farmers are facing against the background of the situation caused
    by the Ukrainian grain exports and has proposed the setting up of a European
    mechanism to manage these exports. He has also briefed the European Commission
    president Ursula von der Leyen on the situation at Romania’s borders, adding
    that the country needs additional financial support in order to step up the
    process of streamlining its infrastructure. Ciolacu has also requested the
    European official to step up joint efforts for Romania’s accession to Schengen.
    In Athens, the Romanian official also held talks with his Greek counterpart as
    well as with president Zelenski to whom he has given assurances that Romania
    supports Ukraine until its final victory and after that for the country’s
    reconstruction.






    WIN The
    Romanian women’s national volleyball side defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina 3-2 in
    Turin on Monday night in a match counting towards the European Championship’s
    Group B. This has been the second win of the national side at the 2023 edition
    of the European Championship in a group led by the en-titre European champion
    Italy, which boasts 9 points. Italy is followed by Bulgaria, Romania and
    Switzerland, each with 6 points, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 5 points and Croatia
    with only one. Romania is today playing a decisive match against Bulgaria as
    the first four sides will qualify for the round of 16. The European Women’s
    Volleyball Championships takes place until September 3rd in Belgium,
    Italy, Estonia and Germany. We recall that at the previous edition in 2021, the
    Romanians occupied the last but one position, ranking 23rd.
    Romania’s best result in a suchlike competition was in 1963, when the national
    side obtained the bronze medal.






    ART The famous
    sculpture The Kiss of the great Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi has
    arrived in Bucharest, where it stays for ten days. The work, which is part of
    the collection of the Art Museum in Craiova, southern Romania, is on display at
    the Art Safari Love exhibition in downtown Bucharest where it could be admired
    until August 30th. This masterpiece was made in 1907 and was
    presented to the public in 1910 during the Young Artists’ exhibition in
    Bucharest. The Kiss is an internationally important masterpiece being
    considered the first modern sculpture of the 20th century. The
    sculpture is the first in a series the artist worked on for more than 40 years.


    (bill)





  • Constantin Brâncuși National Day

    Constantin Brâncuși National Day

    Since 2015, February 19 has been a day of national celebration in Romania. And that because the one who would become one of the most powerful, charismatic and gifted Romanian artistic personalities, the sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi, was born on February 19, 1876, in the village of Hobita, in southern Romania. Therefore, on this day, a large number of events dedicated to him are held across the country.

    After graduating, in 1902, from the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, the young Constantin Brâncuşi took the road to Paris, where, in 1905, he was admitted to the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. He refused to do an apprenticeship in Auguste Rodin’s workshop, saying the famous words: Rien ne pousse à l’ombre des grands arbres. (ed. Nothing grows in the shade of large trees.). Brâncuși started exhibiting in the City of Lights where he created the first version of the Kiss, a theme that he would resume in various forms and which would culminate with the Gate of the Kiss, part of the sculptural ensemble in Târgu-Jiu, a city in his native region.

    He rented a workshop in Rue de Montparnasse and came into contact with the Parisian artistic avant-garde, befriending Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp. He participated in group exhibitions in Paris and Bucharest, inaugurating the cycles of Bird in Space, The Sleeping Muse and Mademoiselle Pogany, but he also exhibited in the United States, where he made a huge impression from the very beginning.

    Between 1914 and 1940, his artistic creativity reached maximum levels. His works in the cycles Bird in Space and Ovoid, as well as his wooden sculptures date from this period. The ʹGeorges Pompidouʹ National Museum of Modern Art in Paris hosts an important number of works by Constantin Brâncuși, inherited by Romania, but gladly accepted by France, along with everything in his workshop, after the refusal, in the 150s, of the communist government in Bucharest to receive them after the sculptor’s death. He died on March 16, 1957 and was buried at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

    In a Romania characterized by socialist realism, Brâncuși was seen as a representative of cosmopolitan bourgeois formalism and therefore not to the liking of the regime. However, in December 1956, his first solo exhibition in Europe opened at the Art Museum in Bucharest. It was not until the 1960s that the sculptor was rediscovered in the country as a national genius. What place did Constantin Brâncuși gain in world sculpture? A central figure in the modern art movement, he is considered one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. Innovative, his works are among the most appreciated and by far best-selling creations of a Romanian artist in history. They are also ranked fourth in a list of the most valuable works of art in the world. (MI)

  • September 7, 2016

    September 7, 2016

    PHONE TALK Romanian president Klaus Iohannis has talked with the president of the European Council Donald Tusk about the summit in Bratislava, which has on the agenda, among other things, the EUs future after the Brexit. In the phone call, Iohannis said the EU countries must remain united and committed to winning the citizens trust in the European project adding that for Romania, the consolidation of the EU is a strategic objective. President Iohannis will be having talks in Berlin on Friday with German chancellor Angela Merkel about the preparations for the summit in Bratislava due on September 16th.



    TENNIS The worlds fifth tennis player, Romanian Simona Halep, is today taking on Serena Williams currently ranked world No. 1 in women’s singles tennis, in the quarter finals of the US Open, the years last Grand Slam tournament with total prizes of 22 million dollars. We recall that Serena leads Simona, 7-1 in their head-to-head. Serena Williams, holder of 22 Grand Slam titles, have won the US Open six times while Simona obtained her best performance in Flushing Meadows in the semis of 2015. Halep remains Romanias single representative in this tournament after the Romanian-Dutch pair Jean-Julien Rojer has been eliminated in the eighth finals by Swedish Robert Lindstedt and Aisam Al-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan.



    TAX CUT The Senate in Bucharest has passed a draft law on amending the Fiscal Code so that pensions above 235 euros will be exempted from the 16% tax, while health insurances are to be paid from the state budget. The document is to be submitted to the decision-making Chamber of Deputies shortly. The discussions on the document have been marked by heated debates between the Liberals and the Social Democrats. The latter say the law has been expected by many pensioners and blamed the Liberals for having cut incomes when they were in power. The Liberals response was that the law would favour those with big pensions while the budget impact would be a significant one. The initiative has been frowned upon by the government in Bucharest.



    HOLIDAY 24th January, a day marking the unification of the Romanian principalities, has been declared a state holiday in Romania, under a decision by the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest. The unification of the Romanian principalities on January 24th took place in 1859, after ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza had been elected in two of Romanias historical provinces, Wallachia and Moldavia.



    SCULPTURE Romanians have been left only this month to raise donations for Constantin Brancusis statue ‘Wisdom of the Earth. The funds raised so far amount to 700 thousand euros. Under these circumstances an amendment has been recently voted on in the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest obliging the government to find money to buy the sculpture irrespective of the sum raised by October 1st. The final vote is to be given by the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest. Currently part of a private collection, the ‘Wisdom of the Earth is estimated at 11 million euros, out of which the government pledged 5 million. The rest of the money was supposed to come from donations. ‘Wisdom of the earth together with ‘The Kiss and “The Prayer belongs to the artists best period of creation.