Romanian 'national style' and the 1906 Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition

Journal of Design History

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 147-162

  Kallestrup, Shona ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Architecture; Bucharest; Cultural nationalism; Exhibitions; Identity; Neo Romanian style

Indexed keywords

EID: 34249136228     PISSN: 09524649     EISSN: 17417279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jdh/15.3.147     Document Type: Review

References (47)

1. Formigé (1845-1926) designed the Palais des Beaux-Arts et des Arts Libéraux at the Paris 1889 Exhibition; in 1900 he was also involved in the construction of the overground metro. He visited Romania briefly before the exhibition. His appointment as architect of the Romanian pavilion did not meet with universal approval: the newspaper Adevǎrul, for example, called it 'an insult to the country' ('România la Expoziţia din Paris', Adevǎrul, 8 April 1898).
2. See, for example, Nicola Gordon Bowe (ed.), Art and the National Dream: The Search for Vernacular Expression in Turn of the Century Design, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1993;
3. also David Crowley's articles 'Finding Poland in the margins: the case of the Zakopane Style', Journal of Design History, vol. 14, no. 2, 2001
4. and 'The uses of peasant design in Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries', Studies in the Decorative Arts, vol. II, no. 2, Spring 1995.
5. The ambiguities of the term 'South Eastern' and its difficult relationship to notions of 'Balkan' identity are explored in a series of papers in 'Dossier South Eastern Europe: history, context, boundaries', Balkanologie, vol. 3, no. 2, December 1999.
6. Serbia, like Romania, won its independence from Turkey in 1878. In the period leading up to the First World War, the country saw a similar proliferation of nationalist ideas and a striving for unification, spurred in part by the loss of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in the Treaty of Berlin.
7. For a discussion of the notion of a 'golden age' or 'poetic space' as an instrument of cultural nationalism, see Anthony Smith, National Identity, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1991, pp. 65-7.
8. For an overview of Romania's contact with and response to Western European culture in the nineteenth century, see Ilie Bǎdescu, Sincronism european şi cultura criticǎ româneascǎ, Editura Ştiinţificǎ şi Enciclopedicǎ, Bucharest, 1984.
9. Keith Hitchins, Rumania 1866-1947, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, p. 61.
10. Among the extensive literature on Junimism good introductions are provided by Z. Ornea, Junimea şi junimismul, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1975
11. and T. Vianu, La Société littéraire Junimea, Meridiane, Bucharest, 1968.
12. 'era mai bine ca oricare familiarizat cu tainele arhitecturii din Orient', 'Alexandru Ţzigara-Samurcaş, 'Carol I şi monumentele strǎbune', Convorbiri literare, nr. 4, anul XLIII, April 1909, p. 362.
13. This sense of outrage culminated, in April 1890, in a protest memorandum to the government. It was signed by some of the country's foremost painters, sculptors and architects and was instrumental in the passing, in 1892, of the first Romanian legislation for the conservation of historical monuments. For further evidence of the restoration debate, see George Sterian's Despre restaurarea monumentelor istorice în strǎinǎtate şi în România, Iaşi, 1889;
14. or Grigore Ionescu's 'Începutul lucrǎrilor de restaurare a monumentelor istorice în România şi activitatea în acest domeniu a arhitectului francez André Lecomte du Nouy', extracts from Monumente istorice şi de artǎ, vol. 1, 1978; vol. 2, 1978; vol. 1, 1979.
15. Léo Bachelin, 'Chronique artistique. La nationalité dans l'art', L'Indépendance roumaine, 21 February/5 March 1898.
16. Apcar Baltazar, 'Spre un stil romînesc', Viaţa romîneascǎ, November 1908, p. 225.
17. 'primele opere de sculpturǎ în stil neobizantin de la noi din ţara', Cecilia Cuţescu-Storck, O viaţǎ dǎnuitǎ artei, Meridiane, Bucharest, 1966, p. 102.
18. Z. Ornea's Sǎmǎnǎtorismul (2nd edn.), Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1971 gives a comprehensive introduction to the movement, while Iorga's thought is accessible through his series of articles for Sǎmǎnǎtorul, published as O luptǎ literarǎ, 2 vols., Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1979.
19. According to the curriculum vitae of the two architects (Special Collections of the Romanian National Library, fond St. Georges, Expoziţia Generalǎ Românǎ, Bucureşti 1906), they were jointly responsible for 'the general plan and all the plans of the Palaces and the official pavilions, together with their execution'. Burcuş, had studied at the school of the Society of Romanian Architects, moving to Paris when the school closed in 1897 to finish his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1900-28 he taught in the department (later school) of architecture in Bucharest. The slightly younger Ştefǎnescu had been one of the first generation of architects to graduate from this department, receiving his diploma in 1901. Both were described by a fellow student as being 'spiritual sons of Mincu' (Spiridon Cegǎneanu, 'Prima manifestare de arhitecturǎ româneascǎ', Arhitectura 1891-1941. Semicentenarul societacombining breveţii arhitecţilor români, Bucharest, 1941, p. 103).
20. The area to the east of Filaret hill, now known as Parcul Carol I, which was renamed Parcul Libertǎţii during Communism.
21. '"ce grenier d'abondance de l'Europe", Annonce pour des journaux suisses', fond St. Georges, Expoziţia Generalǎ Românǎ, Bucureşti 1906.
22. The pronounced nationalist sentiment surrounding the organization of the event even led to accusations of maltreatment from some of the few Western companies hired to provide services and entertainment. Employees of the English Company of Morgan and Singer, responsible for the lake installations, were allegedly attacked by 'a fanatical crowd' jealous of the preference shown to foreigners. The affair (reported in The Times and in the Viennese Neue Freie Presse) was only resolved with the intervention of the Foreign Office in London and the payment of damages by the Romanian government.
23. The Romanians' belief that they are directly descended from a fusion of Trajan's Roman colonizers and Geto-Dacians is contested by Hungarian historians. The latter argue that the Latin-speaking population either left with Aurelian or ẃas destroyed by invasions and that Romanians, in fact, derive from a wider group of romanized inhabitants of the Balkans who migrated north in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. According to this theory, when the Magyars arrived in the Danubian basin at the end of the ninth century, the only inhabitants of Transylvania were Slavonic tribes.
24. See Ştefan Paşcu, A History of Transylvania, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1982
25. and Sandor Biro, The Nationalities Problem in Transylvania, 1867-1940, Colombia University Press, New York, 1992.
26. Popular tradition sited the original 'Ovid's island' in Lake Siutghiol at Mamaia, near the Roman Black Sea settlement of Tomis from where the exiled Ovid supposedly composed his mournful poems.
27. Princess Anne-Marie Callimachi, Yesterday Was Mine, Falcon Press, London, 1952, p. 123.
28. In 1919, the Palace became a Military Museum before being torn down, in 1963, to make way for the 'Monument to the heroes of the fight for the freedom of the people and of the homeland, for socialism' (architects H. Maico and N. Cucu).
29. 'cel mai mare poet al României', William Ritter, 'Pictura şi sculptura la expoziţia jubilarǎ din Bucureşti', Literaturǎ şi artǎ românǎ, 1906, vol. VII, p. 467. A friend of Grigorescu, the Swiss-born Ritter was also an important collector of his paintings.
30. Wife of Ferdinand, the heir to the Romanian throne. For a discussion of the British-born Crown Princess's artistic activities, see Shona Lowe, 'From Maori tea-hut to Turkish palace: the dream houses of Queen Marie of Romania', Decorative Arts Society Journal, vol. 23, December 1999.
31. Since there was no official art salon organized in Romania in the years 1902-9, its role was largely taken over by the annual exhibitions of Artistic Youth. For a visual overview of the group, see Marian Constantin & Dan Palade, Buni Artişti, Buni Camarazi. Centenar 'Tinerimea artisticǎ', catalogue of an exhibition organized by Muzeul National Cotroceni, Bucharest, 18 May-30 June 2001.
32. Steven Mansbach, 'The "foreignness" of classical modern art in Romania', Art Bulletin, September 1988, p. 535.
33. The maiden was carved by Dumitru Demetrescu Mirea, while his Artistic Youth colleague Frederick Storck created the other giant.
34. 'L'Exposition dite "nationale" avait déjà cessé de l'être le jour où des pavillons furent concédés à d'autres États, sensiblement plus avancés dans l'industrie que la Roumanie', 'L'Exposition', L'Indépendance Roumaine, Saturday 15/28 April 1906.
35. For example, the Vienna-based furniture firm of Bernhard Ludwig, then engaged in the decoration of Liman's modern-style mansard rooms in Pelȩs, had its own section in the Austrian pavilion.
36. 'ţarismul nepermiţând o participare în masǎ', Cegǎneanu, op. cit., p. 104.
37. 'întǎrirea ideei naţionale şi închegarea mai puternicǎ a unitǎţii intelectuale şi de simţimînt a neamului românesc', A. D. Xenopol, 'Expoziţia şi ideea unitǎţii naţionale', Literaturǎ şi artǐ românǎ, 1906, vol. VIII, p. 521.
38. 'intracombining brevem în viaţa poporului, ţǎranului nostru. Aci bordeiul sǎracului, colea gospodacombining breveria rusticacombining breve a tǎranului bogat, o casǎ macedoneanǎ, alta bucovineanǎ printre cari mulţimea originalitacombining breveţilor poporului nostru, sacombining brevenacombining brevetoase, simple, capabile sǎ garanteze mulţumirea omului', 'Vederea Generalǎ a Expoziţiei Naţionale Române', Cronica, 14 April 1906.
39. 'Naţiunea românǎ, reprezintatǎ printr'un ţǎran şi o ţǎrancǎ la munca câmpului, surprinşi, salutǎ cu entuziasm, produsul muncei naţionale, înfǎţişatǎ prin Expoziţie, a cǎrei siluetacombining breve se vede pe planul din fund al afişului', 'Concursuri', Arhitectura, anul 1, no. 1, January-February 1906, p. 54.
40. According to the not entirely reliable Grigore Ionescu (who dated the exhibition to 1907: Bucureşti. Ghid istoric şi artistic, Bucharest, 1938, pp. 263-4), the citadel was designed by Scarlat Petculescu (better known for his modernist housing and factory buildings of the 1920s and 1930s). Although a national hero in Romania, Vlad Ţepeş, was already gaining a certain notoriety abroad as the inspiration for Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
41. 'Cum se face polemica la noi', Adevǎrul, 26 April 1906.
42. See, for example, Grigore Ionescu, Histoire de l'architecture en Roumanie, Éditions de l'Académie de la République Socialiste de Roumanie, Bucarest, 1972;
43. Gheorghe Curinschi Vorona, Istoria arhitecturii în România, Editura Tehnicǎ, Bucharest, 1981;
44. and Paul Constantin, Arta 1900 în România, Meridiane, Bucharest, 1972, none of which discusses the exhibition.
45. Wendy Salmond, Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, 1996, p. 10.
46. Eugène Grasset, 'L'École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs de Bucarest Domnita Maria', Art et Décoration, tome XXIII, January-June 1908.
47. For further discussion of how this Orthodox identity codified the neo-Romanian style in the inter-war period, see Augustin Ioan, Power, Play and National Identity, The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, Bucharest, 1999, Ch. 1.