The "foreignness" of classical modern art in Romania

Much of what has become accepted as canonical modern art was born on the eastern margins of industrial Europe - Dadaism in royal Romania, Constructivism in the czarist Russian empire and its successor states, and uniquely creative forms of Cubo-Expressionism in Habsburg Bohemia, to cite but a few examples. Moreover, it was in the immense geographic swath from the Baltic to the Balkans that aesthetics of a progressive character and insistent social applicability were first articulated - philosophies that would fundamentally define the modernist mission universally.(1) Within this strikingly diverse region, the Balkans represent an important - and long neglected - chapter in the development of a universalizing modern visual culture.

Markedly disparate in language, traditions, and beliefs, the Balkan nations are nevertheless often grouped by many contemporary writers into a single entity. As a consequence, their differentiated contributions to world culture are frequently confused, when not simply overlooked. At the moment, when "Balkan" is (once again) popularly employed as a facile synonym for cultural destruction and political provincialism, a greater sensitivity to the unique characteristics of this multinational, multiethnic region is called for, as well as a greater appreciation of its manifold role in the evolution of modern art for all of Europe and beyond. In this regard, the following discussion of the emergence of modern art in Romania(2) suggests the richness of Balkan visual material, just as it invites a wider consideration of the origins of the modernist enterprise.

Romania's modern art differs from that of other Balkan countries where modernism was a principal vehicle for the development and expression of national identity.(3) Relative to Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Serbia, Romania was unburdened with defining for the nation its unique history and enduring values. The inhabitants of the core Romanian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia (known historically as the Regat, or Danubian Principalities) had for centuries celebrated what they understood as their unique nature: a Latin nation adhering to an Eastern Orthodox religious rite, a Western nation by language and ethnic heritage located in an ancient Oriental world of Slavs, Turks, and Magyars. Romanians of all strata subscribed to the belief in their national singularity as "Europeans" living in an Eastern environment whose habits, customs, and mores they purported to reject but for the most part accepted. Such disparity between cultural aspiration and geopolitical reality endowed Romania with one of Europe's most troubled modern histories as well as with some of the most potent modern imagery - in poetry and painting, as well as in architecture and music.(4)

Roughly contemporaneous with the union of the two Danubian Principalities in 1861,(5) art academies were established in the capitals of Iasi (also known as Jassy, in Moldavia) and Bucharest (Wallachia) in 1860 and 1864, respectively. At first the professors, dependent on (if not always drawn from) the legion of Czech, German, Italian, Croatian, Polish, Swiss, and Hungarian painters active in the Regat,(6) sought to instill a consciousness of the standard European categories of painting - primarily landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes - as a counterbalance to Romania's traditional "primitivist" absorption with portraiture and pictorial ornamentation [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. At the same time, this first generation of academicians wanted to stimulate a national self-consciousness through the representation of notable events or narratives from Romanian history. The Transylvanian-born Constantin Lecca's Assassination of Michael the Brave (the unifier of Wallachia with Moldavia) [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED] and Theodore Aman's Vlad the Impaler and the Turkish Envoys indicate the character of the history painting that was prized at the time.(7)

Beyond the subject matter, painters such as Aman also championed the importance of French stylistic models for Romanian historical scenes, even if the prototypes were poorly understood and awkwardly adapted. The focus on France for an artistic paradigm was part of a Western orientation that would define the modern art created in Romania for the next half century. After preliminary courses in Moldavia and Wallachia - notwithstanding the existence of prominent art schools there - most aspiring young painters and sculptors were encouraged to finish their education in Munich and Paris.(8) Such a practice reinforced Romanian inclinations to follow Western artistic styles, as is apparent in the example of Nicolae Grigorescu, who became the most accomplished Romanian artist of the later nineteenth century. Of peasant background, Grigorescu began his career by painting icons for the Romanian Orthodox Church and later served as a frontline correspondent attached to the high command, recording the action on the Bulgarian front during the Romanian War of Independence, 1877-78 [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. After being schooled in the distinctly Romanian context of heroic national events and traditional religious iconography and its corresponding visual style, Grigorescu went to Paris, where he absorbed Barbizon landscape aesthetics and the art of Jean-Francois Millet, Gustave Courbet, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Returning to Romania in 1887, he introduced pleinairism and inspired scores of imitators, many of whom emulated his lightness of touch, suppleness of forms, use of long brushstrokes, and mastery of color. Grigorescu's influence, and that of his younger contemporary Ion Andreescu, codified French formal techniques [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED] and dominated late nineteenth-century art in Romania, affecting, in varying ways, all later movements of modernism there.