Sculpture
Romanian sculpture has its origins in the tombstones and other grave markers dating back to the Middle Ages. As a fine art, sculpture began to develop in the mid-nineteenth century when the German sculptor Karl Storck arrived in Bucharest to teach at the School of Fine Arts. Among the earliest sculptors he trained were Ion Georgescu and his own son, Carol Storck, both known for their statuary and busts. Stefan Ionescu Valbudea, also in that group, was best known for his romantic statues and cla.s.sical male figures in movement.
In the period between the two world wars, several sculptors produced large monumental works visible in public places. Dimitrie Paciurea was the first in this group. He was followed by his students Corneal Madrea, Ion Jalea, and Oscar Han. In addition to his monumental sculptures, Jalea is also known for his busts and bas-reliefs. Han is particularly known for his busts and statutes of famous Romanians.
Best known of all Romanian sculptors is Constantin Brancusi, who is considered one of the great sculptors of the world. Brancusi studied in Bucharest and in Paris. His earliest work, mostly busts, shows a strong influence of Auguste Rodin. Gradually he broke with tradition and developed a highly stylized and abstract style utilizing the simplest forms. His best known works are found in important collections throughout the world.
The work of contemporary sculptors included a wide range of styles and mediums. Modernistic works in stone, wood, and various metals, some of them completely abstract, can be seen in parks and other public places throughout the country. A number of contemporary sculptors have taken inspiration from folk art for their often ma.s.sive works in wood.
Architecture
Architecture, more than any other form of artistic expression, reflects the many cultural influences that have been exerted on the people of Romania over the ages. The abundance of architectural styles found in the country has been a source of great pride for Romanians who have devoted much time and money to preserve them.
The simplest architectural forms are those of the peasant houses made of wood and clay. The style and building technique of many of these houses have been traced back to those used in Neolithic settlements.
Vestiges of Roman architecture can be found in Dobruja, Walachia, and Transylvania. The most important of these are the remains of the bridge built by Emperor Trajan across the Danube at Turnu Severin. A large amphitheater has been unearthed at the site of the Dacian-Roman capital of Sarmizegetusa at the southwestern tip of the Transylvanian plain.
Other Roman remains include several monuments as well as sections of roads and aqueducts.
The period of greatest architectural creativity is usually referred to as the feudal period, dating from the tenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The oldest structures of that period are the fully preserved Byzantine church at Densus, Transylvania, and the ruins of the Prince"s Court at Curtea de Arges. Beginning in the fourteenth century, distinctive architectural styles developed in Walachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania.
The architecture of Walachia and Moldavia shows strong Byzantine influences and includes all the special forms and decorative styles of the several periods of Byzantine art. Specifically Romanian variations are the exterior frescoes and the ma.s.sive protecting walls of some of the churches and monasteries.
Transylvanian architecture of the feudal period reflects Western European influences, including Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. The fortified churches and castles built by German and Hungarian settlers are reminiscent of similar structures in central Europe but distinguished by their ma.s.siveness and fortifications. The older architecture of several cities in central Transylvania is completely Germanic or Hungarian in character, contrasting sharply with that of Walachian and Moldavian cities. The typical Romanian architecture found throughout the Transylvanian countryside is particularly prominent in many rural wooden churches, which invariably feature fine pointed spires.
During the seventeenth century the Brancovan style of architecture was developed in Walachia, the name being derived from that of the ruling Prince Constantin Brincoveanu. It is characterized by the use of open porches supported by large pillars. The pillars and door and window frames are usually elaborately carved with floral designs. The exterior of the building is usually ringed by a wide, carved wooden band.
Outstanding examples of the Brancovan style are the Hurez Monastery and the Mogosoaia Palace in Bucharest. More recent adaptations of the style are seen in several public buildings and private villas built in Bucharest before World War I.
Starting in the nineteenth century, Byzantine influences began to disappear from architecture. Most building after that period followed contemporary European styles, although elements of Romanian folk art were often incorporated in the decorative details. Modern architecture began to develop in the period between the world wars and reached a high level of accomplishment in the 1950s and 1960s with the construction of the seaside resorts of Mangalia, Eforie Nord, and Mamaia. Most contemporary architecture, however, is oversized and utilitarian. The needs for rapid and cheap construction forced architects to disregard aesthetics and produce monotonous, dreary structures.
MUSIC
Romanians have the reputation of being a musical people. Song and dance play an important role in their daily lives, particularly among the peasants. A rich heritage of folk music, both vocal and instrumental, has been pa.s.sed down from generation to generation and has formed the background for serious Romanian music that began to develop in the mid-nineteenth century.
Folk music can be broadly cla.s.sified as dance music, ballads and laments, and pastoral music. Dance music is most frequently performed and is a major component of any festivity. Dance tunes are generally lively to accompany the fast and intricate steps of the dancers.
Sometimes they are sung by the dancers, but more often they are played by one or more of the traditional instruments.
The basic instrument in folk music is the violin. It is often accompanied by the _cobza_, a large stringed instrument resembling the lute, or by a _tambal_, a zither-like instrument played with small hammers. A variety of flutes are also used both as solo instruments and in orchestras. The accordion is popular as a solo accompaniment for singing or dancing.
Folk musicians are known as _lautari_ (lute players) and are often Gypsies. Small orchestras are found at weddings and other celebrations in every village and in the cities. Larger, specially formed folk ensembles perform on radio and television and give concerts.
Ballads and laments vary in style and subject matter from region to region. Over the years, ballads have lost most of their importance as a contemporary musical form, although they retain value as poetry.
Laments, however, continue to play an important role in the musical life of the people. They reflect in song the hardships and problems of daily life and the trials and tribulations of love. Some laments have a distinctly Oriental quality.
Pastoral music was developed by the shepherds of the Carpathians as a diversion for their long, lonely days in the mountains and as a means of communication. The melodies are very simple, usually played on any of several types of alphorns or on flutes. With the changing way of life in the mountains, pastoral music has been disappearing as a musical form.
In the early nineteenth century folklorist Anton Pann began to collect Romanian folk music, to publish it, and to popularize it among educated Romanians, who were more familiar with the cla.s.sical music of Germany, Italy, and France than with their own musical heritage. This resulted in the emergence of a group of Romanian composers who utilized folk melodies in the composition of operas, symphonies, and chamber music.
The period between the two world wars saw several composers adding to the repertoire of Romanian music. One who achieved international fame was Georghe Enescu. Dinu Lipatti became well known as a pianist, although he was also a composer.
The music of the interwar composers showed the influence of German romanticism and postromanticism and of modern French music. All of it, however, had a strongly Romanian character attained through the use of intonations and rhythms borrowed from folk music.
Several of the interwar composers were still active in 1970, together with new younger composers. Their music is regularly performed in Romania and in some of the other communist countries, but it is not well known elsewhere. Some of the young composers have experimented with avant-garde styles that have not been well received by the guardians of cultural policy. Composers are urged to use folklore as their source of inspiration and to write compositions reflecting the cultural policies of the PCR.
THEATER
Theater has always played a vital role in the life of the educated Romanian, and regular attendance at plays, operas, and ballets is considered an essential part of his cultural and intellectual life. The performing arts, therefore, have had a faithful and critical audience in all urban centers, which has stimulated playwrights and directors. In cities such as Cluj and Brasov, which have sizable minority populations, Hungarian and German theaters thrive beside the Romanian.
Since the end of the rigid restrictions of the 1950s, the performing arts have been flourishing with talented performers, directors, and writers. The government has been promoting the presentation of Romanian plays, and Romanian playwrights have striven to compete for audience favor with the best of contemporary and cla.s.sical foreign plays, which are regularly presented.
Among contemporary playwrights who have achieved critical acclaim at home and abroad are Paul Everac, D. R. Popescu, Horia Lovinescu, Iosif Naghiu, and Paul Anghel. Eugene Ionesco, although Romanian by birth, is generally considered a French playwright since he writes in French.
Romanians, however, proudly claim him as one of their own, even though his plays do not follow the desired standards of form and content.
Most contemporary plays have been categorized by critics as tribunal drama in that they pa.s.s judgment on ideas or actions and follow a format where one or more characters take the role of the accused and others act as prosecutors. Some plays are in the form of confessions of wrongdoings or wrongthinking. Both forms lend themselves well to imparting a message. Pure entertainment plays are usually boulevard comedies.
Historic themes seem to be popular and safe topics, particularly if they promote Romanian nationalism. For the most part, plays are of local rather than universal interest, for they deal with matters limited in time and s.p.a.ce. They usually arouse interest outside Romania for what they reveal of the Romanian character and society rather than for artistic merit.
The tightening of cultural reins in July 1971 seems to have had a greater effect on the theater than on any other form of artistic expression. The management of several major theaters was changed in late 1971 following admission by the replaced managers of having favored artistic merit over ideological value in the selection of plays for their repertory. The new managers pledged themselves to presenting plays that contain a clear-cut message conforming to high political, ideological, and educational standards. They also pledged themselves to encourage young playwrights to write such plays. In the meantime, the plays selected for the 1971-72 season were almost all true and tried cla.s.sics, devoid of any political implications. Romanian directors, nevertheless, have shown themselves in the past to be able to impart to the audience a great deal of political meaning through their interpretation of such seemingly innocuous plays.
FILMS
The film industry has a long and venerable history dating back to 1912, when the first full-length feature was produced. The silent comedies of the 1920s compare favorably with those produced by the best film makers of the time. In the 1930s and 1940s, until the communist takeover, Romanian musicals and tales of suspense and of the supernatural were popular at home and abroad. Most of these films were produced with technical and financial a.s.sistance from France and other countries (see ch. 11).
Cultural restrictions in the 1950s and early 1960s prevented the Romanian film industry from taking part in the technical and artistic developments that were changing the film industry in France and other Western countries. As a result, films produced in Romania as late as 1970 were technically and artistically old-fashioned compared to those produced in noncommunist countries and even in Czechoslovakia. Most critics outside the country compare them to the good films produced by Hollywood in the 1940s. Nevertheless, several Romanian films in the 1960s have won prizes at lesser known international film festivals.
Two of the important directors in the late 1960s were Mircea Dragan and Ion Popescu-Gopo. Dragan specializes in historic adventure films of epic proportions, whereas Popescu-Gopo concentrates on fantasies, including science fiction. Popescu-Gopo is also well known for his animated films.
LITERATURE
Literature in the form of folk tales and poetry is of ancient origin. A vast collection of legends, tales, ballads, proverbs, and riddles has been preserved and is known to both rural and urban Romanians. Legends and tales deal with the daring exploits of a national hero, sometimes real and sometimes imaginary. In the oldest tales, the adversaries are monsters and inhabitants of the underworld; in later ones, they are the foreign conquerors and occupiers.
Ballads were originally intended to be sung but are now more often recited as poems. They deal with the same subjects as legends and tales, and many are of epic proportions. In the mountains of Transylvania and Moldavia separate groups of ballads developed dealing with the pastoral life of the people.
The earliest known texts written in Romania are chronicles in Old Church Slavonic. In the sixteenth century a number of religious texts were translated into Romanian, and the introductions to them are the first known original writings in the Romanian language.
Of significance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the chronicles written by a number of writers in Moldavia and in Walachia.
Dimitrie Cantemir, ruler of Moldavia, wrote the _Description of Moldavia_ and _History of the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire_ during the same period. A Transylvanian school of writing stressed the Latin origin of the Romanian people and their language and utilized a latinized Romanian in its writing. It was influential in awakening the national consciousness of Transylvanian Romanians.
Four members of the Vacarescu family wrote lyrical poetry in the eighteenth century. The best of them, Iancu Vacarescu, is regarded as the father of Romanian poetry. The lyric tradition was carried on in the early nineteenth century, and much of the poetry dealt with historic subjects and expressed the growing patriotism and nationalist sentiment of the time.
In the early nineteenth century the Latinist movement of Transylvania spread into Moldavia and Walachia and began to Romanianize the hitherto h.e.l.lenic culture of the Romanian upper cla.s.s. The founding of the College of Saint Sava in Bucharest, using Romanian as the language of instruction, laid the foundation for the development of a reading public for Romanian literature. At the same time, the founding of a Romanian-language newspaper with a literary supplement gave writers a publication outlet. The newspaper was founded by Eliade Radulescu, who also founded the Philharmonic Society and the Romanian Academy, thus giving major impetus to the development of Romanian literature and culture.
In Moldavia, Gheorghe Asachi originated the historical short story, wrote verse, and also founded a newspaper. The literary supplement of Asachi"s newspaper provided an outlet for Moldavian writers.