On the occasion of the celebration of Romanian Culture Day, the Romanian Cultural Institute in Beijing inaugurated on Thursday, 15 January 2026, at Choi Centre Cloud House, the photography exhibition "The Faces of Romanian Culture 15 Canonical Figures", which presents the portraits of fifteen outstanding personalities from the history of Romanian culture, digitally restored using artificial intelligence. The contributions and achievements of these emblematic figures from literature, music and modern art, theatre, cinema, and historiography constitute essential testimonies to the formation of Romanian cultural identity. They profoundly shaped modern Romania and gained broad international recognition, with a lasting resonance beyond the country’s borders.
The fifteen cultural and historical personalities brought together in this exhibition collectively form a Romanian cultural canon — a canon through which Romania has articulated its values, aesthetic ideals, and historical consciousness before the world. These are: the writer and great Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu; Constantin Brâncuși, the father of modern Western sculpture; George Enescu, the great Romanian composer and founder of the modern national school of Romanian music; the historian of religions and mythologist Mircea Eliade; Eugène Ionesco, pioneer of the theatre of the absurd; Ion Luca Caragiale, a central figure of Romanian realist literature; Maria Tănase, the Măiastra Bird of Romanian folk music; the animation filmmaker Ion Popescu-Gopo; one of the greatest Romanian theatre and film directors, Liviu Ciulei; the soprano Hariclea Darclée; the statesman Nicolae Titulescu, former President of the League of Nations; Queen Marie of Romania; the poet, playwright, and political figure Vasile Alecsandri; Nicolae Grigorescu, founder of modern Romanian painting; and the eminent historian and political thinker Nicolae Iorga.
Taken together, these remarkable personalities outline a cultural trajectory defined by innovation, change, and lasting influence, situating Romanian culture within a broader narrative of modernity. The portraits in the exhibition are presented through artificial-intelligence-assisted colorization and restoration techniques. This approach does not aim to rewrite history, but to enhance presence and vitality, so that the ideas and works of these figures may continue to resonate in contemporary cultural life. Visitors are invited to enter the universe of these portraits and, through these “revitalized” faces, to observe how the culture of a nation evolves through transformation and extends its global significance toward the future:
1. MIHAI EMINESCU
Mihai Eminescu (born Mihail Eminovici, 15 January 1850, Botoșani – 15 June 1889, Bucharest) was the most important Romanian poet, prose writer, and journalist, whose work decisively shaped the Romanian language and literature. He published his first poem at the age of sixteen and quickly established himself as an exceptional literary talent. By the beginning of his twenties, he was already recognized within the most influential cultural circles of the time, the Junimea literary society, which played an essential role in shaping modern Romanian culture.
Between 1869 and 1872, Eminescu studied philosophy and law in Vienna. During this period, he began to publish regularly in Convorbiri Literare, Romania’s most important literary journal. His masterpieces — Luceafărul (1883), Ode (in ancient meter), Glossă, and the cycle of the five Epistles — reveal a powerful mastery of poetic form, narrative construction, and language. Luceafărul, considered his masterpiece, is one of the most extensive and complex narrative poems of European Romanticism and remains a foundational text of Romanian culture.
Between 1877 and 1883, Eminescu worked in Bucharest as a journalist and later editor-in-chief of the newspaper Timpul, one of the most important publications of the period. In parallel, he produced most of his mature work. After his death, at only thirty-nine years of age, his intellectual legacy continued to grow. In 1902, his close mentor, Titu Maiorescu, donated Eminescu’s manuscripts to the Romanian Academy — 46 volumes totaling approximately 14,000 pages. These manuscripts reveal the extraordinary scope of his literary labor and constitute one of the most important archival collections in Romania. Eminescu’s poetry has been translated into more than sixty languages, and his work continues to be studied, published, and exhibited internationally, consecrating him as a fundamental personality of Romanian and European literary history.
2. CONSTANTIN BRÂNCUȘI
Constantin Brâncuși (19 February 1876, Hobița – 16 March 1957, Paris) was the sculptor who radically transformed modern art and redefined the language of sculpture worldwide. Initially trained in Craiova and Bucharest, he settled in Paris in 1904, where he studied briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1907, after a short period working in the studio of Auguste Rodin, Brâncuși left this environment, stating the famous phrase, “nothing grows in the shade of great trees,” thus marking the beginning of his independent artistic path.
Between 1907 and the 1940s, Brâncuși developed a completely new sculptural vocabulary based on the simplification of forms, repetition, and precision in surface treatment. Works such as The Kiss (1907–1908), Sleeping Muse (1909–1910), Bird in Space (first version, 1923), Fish, and Măiastra rejected realistic representation in favor of essentialized form. His sculptures were created through direct carving in stone and wood or through bronze casting, and the bases were treated as integral parts of the work. These innovations decisively influenced the development of abstraction, minimalism, and conceptual sculpture in Europe and the United States.
Brâncuși achieved international recognition during his lifetime, exhibiting in Paris, New York, and Chicago. A landmark moment occurred in the United States between 1926 and 1928, when Bird in Space was the subject of a legal trial that established, in American law, the artistic status of abstract sculpture. The monumental ensemble at Târgu Jiu (Table of Silence, Gate of the Kiss, Endless Column, completed in 1938) represents one of the earliest examples of modern public art integrating sculpture, space, and the urban environment. Today, Brâncuși’s works are held in the collections of major museums worldwide, and the artist is recognized as one of the figures who definitively changed the course of twentieth-century art.
George Enescu (19 August 1881, Liveni – 4 May 1955, Paris) was a composer, violinist, conductor, and pedagogue whose career places him among the most accomplished musicians of the twentieth century. A child prodigy, he gave his first public violin concert at the age of five and was admitted at seven to the Vienna Conservatory, becoming the youngest student in the institution’s history. He later continued his studies at the Paris Conservatory, training under the most important composers and instrumentalists of the time.
As a composer, Enescu created a body of work that combines advanced European compositional techniques with elements drawn from Romanian musical tradition. The Romanian Rhapsodies (1901) brought him early international recognition and remain among the most frequently performed orchestral works from Eastern Europe. His output includes three symphonies, chamber music, violin and piano sonatas, orchestral suites, and songs. The opera Oedipe, premiered in Paris in 1936, is considered one of the major achievements of twentieth-century opera, remarkable for its structural scope, orchestral refinement, and psychological depth.
Alongside his compositional activity, Enescu enjoyed an exceptional international career as a performer and conductor, giving concerts throughout Europe and the United States. He was also an extremely influential teacher; among his students was the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who regarded him as the essential mentor of his life. Settled in his later years in Paris, Enescu remained active until the end. Today he is recognized not only as the most important Romanian composer, but as a universal musical personality whose work and pedagogical legacy made a decisive contribution to modern classical music.
4. ION LUCA CARAGIALE
Ion Luca Caragiale (1 February 1852, Ploiești – 9 June 1912, Berlin) was the most important Romanian playwright and one of the most original satirical voices of European theatre at the beginning of the twentieth century. Through theatre, short prose, and journalism, he laid the foundations of modern Romanian theatre and introduced an unprecedented level of realism, linguistic precision, and social analysis.
His major plays — A Lost Letter (1884), A Stormy Night (1879), Carnival Scenes (1885), and the tragedy Năpasta (1890) — reveal the mechanisms of political opportunism, bureaucratic absurdity, and social hypocrisy. His exceptional command of dialogue, scenic rhythm, and character construction creates a theatrical language in which speech itself becomes an instrument of satire, exposing the degradation of public discourse into empty formulas and permanent contradictions.
Caragiale’s originality lies in his exact observation of social behavior and in his analytical use of language. His works are constantly staged on national theatre stages and studied for their enduring relevance in relation to modern political and social systems. Often considered a precursor of twentieth-century theatre of the absurd, Caragiale occupies a singular position in European dramaturgy, as an author whose work transcended the local context to formulate universal patterns of power, rhetoric, and human error.
5. MIRCEA ELIADE
Mircea Eliade (13 March 1907, Bucharest – 22 April 1986, Chicago) was a Romanian scholar, historian of religions, novelist, and essayist whose work decisively influenced the modern academic study of religion. He is particularly known for establishing a comparative and interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of religious phenomena, going beyond strictly theological or sociological approaches.
After his early studies in Bucharest, Eliade spent several years in India (1928–1931), where he studied Sanskrit and Indian philosophy at the University of Calcutta. This experience became central to his later thinking. After the Second World War, he settled first in France and then in the United States. In 1956 he was appointed professor at the University of Chicago, where he built one of the most influential centers for the history of religions in the world. Among his fundamental works are Patterns in Comparative Religion (1949), The Sacred and the Profane (1957), Myth and Reality(1963), and A History of Religious Ideas (1976–1983).
Eliade’s lasting legacy lies in his ability to synthesize vast bodies of historical, anthropological, and textual data into analytical models applicable at an intercultural level. He introduced essential conceptual tools — the analysis of myth, ritual, symbol, and sacred space — which redefined the study of religions in universities worldwide. In addition to his academic activity, he published an extensive literary and memoiristic body of work. Eliade remains one of the most read and cited historians of religions of the twentieth century, with a major impact on global humanistic studies.
6. EUGÈNE IONESCO
Eugène Ionesco (born Eugen Ionescu, 26 November 1909, Slatina – 28 March 1994, Paris) was a playwright and essayist, a founding figure of the theatre of the absurd and one of the most influential dramatic authors of the twentieth century. Born in Romania and permanently settled in France, Ionesco wrote primarily in French, gaining international recognition through the radical redefinition of dramatic form, language, and scenic meaning.
His breakthrough moment was the play The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice chauve), first performed in Paris in 1950. Initially met with bewilderment, the play later became one of the longest-running productions in theatre history. Essential works followed, such as The Lesson (1951), The Chairs (1952), Amédée (1954), and Rhinoceros (1959). These plays dismantle logical dialogue, conventional plot, and psychological realism, demonstrating how everyday language collapses into repetition, nonsense, and ideological automatism. Rhinoceros, in particular, is recognized as a profound dramatic analysis of mass conformism and the disappearance of individual responsibility.
Ionesco’s originality lies in the systematic destruction of theatrical conventions in order to reveal the fragility of communication itself. His plays are staged worldwide and occupy a central place in modern repertoires and university curricula. In 1970, he was elected a member of the French Academy. Today, Ionesco is recognized as an author who definitively transformed the possibilities of modern theatre and placed creativity of Romanian origin at the center of universal dramaturgy.
7. MARIA TĂNASE
Maria Tănase (25 September 1913, Bucharest – 22 June 1963, Bucharest) was the singer who, through her voice and interpretative power, transformed Romanian folk music into a modern artistic form of expression recognized internationally. She debuted in the 1930s on the theatrical and musical stages of Bucharest, quickly establishing herself through her unmistakable vocal timbre, expressive amplitude, and profound understanding of regional styles.
Her repertoire included songs from Muntenia, Oltenia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, encompassing doine, ballads, love songs, and folk music. Unlike earlier traditional performers, Maria Tănase did not limit herself to the faithful reproduction of folk melodies, but reshaped them through precise phrasing, dramatic construction, and emotional intensity, making them accessible to Romanian and international audiences without altering their fundamental musical structure. Her recordings from the 1930s and 1940s became canonical versions of songs such as Ciuleandra, Bun îi vinul ghiurghiuliu, and Cine iubește și lasă.
Maria Tănase undertook international tours, including in France and at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where she presented Romanian folk music to a global audience. She collaborated with composers, ethnomusicologists, and leading cultural institutions. Today she is considered the most important Romanian folk music performer of the twentieth century, an artist who preserved intangible heritage and elevated it to the status of universal art, anticipating the concept of “world music.”
8. ION POPESCU-GOPO
Ion Popescu-Gopo (1 May 1923, Bucharest – 29 November 1989, Bucharest) was a filmmaker, film director, graphic artist, and storyteller who fundamentally changed the language of animated film. He is internationally recognized as one of the pioneers of modern minimalist animation and the first Romanian filmmaker to receive a major global cinematic award.
International recognition came in 1957, when the animated short film A Brief History received the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival. The film introduced Gopo’s emblematic character, the “Little Man,” an extremely simplified human figure who narrates the history of humanity with humor, irony, and philosophical clarity. It rejects Disney-style realism and develops a visual language based on extreme economy of line, symbolic gesture, and conceptual narration.
Throughout his career, Gopo created numerous animated films and live-action films, illustrated books, and produced original graphic works. His films were screened and awarded at major international festivals, and his aesthetic became a reference point for European animation schools. His legacy lies in demonstrating that animation can be a major artistic medium, capable of abstract reflection and cultural critique. He is considered the founder of Romanian animation and one of the essential innovators of postwar European animation.
9. LIVIU CIULEI
Liviu Ciulei (7 July 1923, Bucharest – 25 October 2011, Munich) was a theatre and film director, actor, set designer, and architect whose activity placed Romanian theatre and cinema at the center of modern international performance. Initially trained as an architect in Bucharest, Ciulei developed a multidisciplinary directorial vision, combining scenic space, dramaturgy, and acting interpretation.
International recognition in cinema came with the film The Forest of the Hanged (1964), adapted from the novel by Liviu Rebreanu, which won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965. The film was praised for its visual rigor, psychological depth, and moral complexity, establishing Ciulei as a major European auteur.
In theatre, Ciulei led the Bulandra Theatre in Bucharest, transforming it into one of the most respected stages in Eastern Europe through innovative productions of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pirandello, and Romanian dramaturgy. After leaving Romania, he worked extensively in the United States and Europe, teaching and directing at prestigious institutions, including the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. His legacy lies in the synthesis of architecture, acting, and directing into a unified theatrical vision that redefined the standards of the modern stage.
10. HARICLEA DARCLÉE
Hariclea Darclée (10 June 1860, Brăila – 12 January 1939, Bucharest) was one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and one of the most acclaimed opera singers of her time. Born in Romania and trained in Paris, she built an exceptional international career during a period when very few artists achieved such global recognition.
Her central place in music history is linked to the creation of the operatic repertoire. In 1900, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, Hariclea Darclée created the leading role in the world premiere of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. The role was composed especially for her voice, and her interpretation defined the character from the very birth of the opera. She also created roles in operas by Pietro Mascagni, Alfredo Catalani, and other major composers, contributing directly to the affirmation of verismo opera.
Throughout her career, Darclée sang on the most prestigious operatic stages of the world, including La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and theatres in Russia, Italy, France, and South America. She was celebrated for the power, flexibility, and dramatic intelligence of her voice. Her legacy is exceptional: not only a great interpreter, but an artist who contributed to the birth of fundamental works of the universal operatic repertoire.
11. NICOLAE TITULESCU
Nicolae Titulescu (4 March 1882, Craiova – 17 March 1941, Cannes) was one of the most influential Romanian diplomats of the interwar period and a central figure of international diplomacy between the two world wars. Trained as a jurist and economist, and a professor of international law, he represented Romania at the highest European and global diplomatic levels.
He served multiple times as Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (1927–1928; 1932–1936) and was a consistent advocate of collective security and international law. Within the League of Nations, he was elected twice President of the General Assembly (1930 and 1931), an exceptional distinction reflecting his international authority. He became one of the most respected voices defending the postwar legal order, advocating the inviolability of borders, the protection of minorities, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
His legacy lies in his effort to integrate Central and Eastern Europe into a rule-based international system during a period of heightened geopolitical instability. Although later forced into exile, his speeches, diplomatic initiatives, and legal thought remain essential reference points in the history of international relations.
12. QUEEN MARIE OF ROMANIA
Queen Marie of Romania (born Princess Marie of Edinburgh, 29 October 1875, Eastwell Park, England – 18 July 1938, Sinaia) was one of the most important royal personalities of early twentieth-century Europe. Granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II, she became Queen of Romania in 1914, assuming an exceptional public and political role during the First World War and the postwar reorganization of Europe.
During the war, Queen Marie became directly involved in medical and humanitarian activities, caring for the wounded in hospitals and being present at the front. This involvement earned her profound respect at home and abroad, transforming her into a symbol of courage and national unity. Her major political contribution took place in 1919, when she personally represented Romania at the Paris Peace Conference. Through direct meetings with leaders such as Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson, she effectively advocated for the recognition of the borders of Greater Romania.
Beyond politics, Queen Marie was a prolific writer and an important cultural patron. Her memoirs, written in English, contributed decisively to Romania’s international image. She also left a lasting mark on architecture and design through the Pelișor Castle and the artistic ensemble at Balcic. Her legacy is unique in European royalty, combining dynastic prestige, political influence, and cultural diplomacy.
13. VASILE ALECSANDRI
Vasile Alecsandri (21 July 1821, Bacău – 22 August 1890, Mircești) was a poet, playwright, folklorist, and diplomat who played a foundational role in the formation of modern Romanian literature and in representing Romania internationally. He was one of the central figures of nineteenth-century Romanian culture.
He made an essential contribution to the collection, editing, and publication of Romanian folk poetry, introducing it into the European cultural circuit. As a playwright, he wrote comedies and historical dramas that laid the foundations of modern Romanian theatre. His lyrical and patriotic poetry decisively contributed to the crystallization of the Romanian literary language.
In diplomacy, Alecsandri represented Romania in Western Europe, advocating for the international recognition of the Romanian Principalities. His poem Hora Unirii became an enduring symbol of national unity. His contribution is twofold: he shaped Romanian culture from within and presented it to Europe with legitimacy and coherence.
14. NICOLAE GRIGORESCU
Nicolae Grigorescu (15 May 1838, Pitaru – 21 July 1907, Câmpina) was the painter who introduced modern artistic language into Romanian visual art. Trained in Bucharest and Paris and associated with the Barbizon School, he assimilated new directions in realism and landscape painting.
He participated as a war artist in the Romanian War of Independence (1877–1878), producing documentary works of great expressive force. His later painting — landscapes, rural scenes, and portraits — moved away from academicism, adopting free brushwork, natural light, and direct observation of reality.
He is considered the founder of modern Romanian painting because he replaced studio idealization with lived experience. His work decisively influenced subsequent generations and remains a major reference point in the history of nineteenth-century European art.
Nicolae Iorga (17 January 1871, Botoșani – 27 November 1940, Strejnic) was one of the most prolific historians and scholars of Europe. He published over one thousand volumes and approximately twenty-five thousand articles, covering fields such as history, literature, philology, politics, and cultural studies.
Educated in Romania, France, and Germany, he became a professor at the University of Bucharest at a very young age and rapidly gained international recognition. His research went beyond the national framework, encompassing the Balkans, the Ottoman Empire, and the European Middle Ages. He founded academic institutions, journals, and cultural organizations that structured modern Romanian scholarship.
He was also a politician and Prime Minister (1931–1932), but his fundamental legacy remains a scholarly one. Nicolae Iorga professionalized Romanian historiography and definitively integrated it into the European academic circuit. He represents a rare case of an intellectual whose work reshaped an entire national academic culture while also contributing to universal historical knowledge.
Exhibition Information
The exhibition "The Faces of Romanian Culture 15 Canonical Figures" hosted at Choi Centre Cloud House will remain open to the public until 12 February and can be visited daily, from Monday to Friday, between 10:00 and 16:00. For further information, you may contact us directly at: ema.stoian@icr.ro.
At the same time, ICR Beijing provides a free download link for the 15 portraits, with the request that the source be explicitly credited upon use: ICR Beijing.
Thank you!
Download link: [https://archive.org/details/7_20260127_20260127_1230]
