Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Visual Arts & Folk Culture
Visual Arts
Painting
Medieval painting in Romania was marked by a strong Byzantine influence. Devised to
educate illiterate peasants, paintings took the form of frescoes depicting scenes from the
Bible on the outside walls of churches; they also appeared on iconostases inside churches
and in miniature form as decorative frames for religious manuscripts.
The Bucovina monasteries, dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, are home to Ro-
mania's loveliest and liveliest frescoes. The works are prized not only for their composi-
tion, but perhaps even more for their inventive application of colour and harmony.
Renaissance influences were muted in many
areas by the cultural influence of the Ottoman
Empire, but can be seen here and there in west-
ern areas, and even in parts of Wallachia, which
served initially as a vassal state of the Hungari-
an kingdom. The beautifully preserved frescoes
on the wall of the 14th-century St Nicholas
Church in Curtea de Argeş represent a rare synthesis of Byzantine themes, such as portraits
of saints given a fleshier, three-dimensional cast, more characteristic of the Renaissance.
As art entered its modern phase in the 19th century, Romania trailed behind Western
Europe. France, as the arbiter of painting styles, exerted a disproportionate influence.
While many early Romanian attempts were knock offs of French styles, by the mid- and
late-19th century, true Romanian masters were emerging.
The best of these masters, arguably, was Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907). Grigorescu
absorbed French influences like realism and Impressionism, but brought them home with
scenes celebrating Romanian landscapes, peasantry and soldiers. His portraits included un-
expected subjects, like the Roma and Jewish women. He was a prolific painter, and art mu-
seums around the country carry his work.
Another modern painter to look for is Nicolae Tonitza (1886-1940), who was greatly in-
fluenced by Impressionism and early modern movements, but whose subject matter is less
In 2009 one of Brâncuşi's works
, A Portrait of
Mme LR,
sold for US$37 million at a Christie's
auction in Paris.
