Poor Ioanide
excerpts IV In his office on the ground floor, Saferian, on a chair and surrounded by four men, all standing, was contemplating an oil portrait, set near them against the back of an ordinary straw chair. It is an Ingres, most certainly, said one of the four, a man with trimmed
The Magic Of The Moment, Or On Dancing And Fine Arts
Choreographer There are numerous crossroads between the dance unfolding within the space of an art collection and the very own pieces of this assembling, crossroads that make a sort of mutual colonization of artistic discourses. Flowing along a choreographic score, they
The Professor George Oprescu Collection
Once, the art lover, strolling along the streets of Bucharest, would stop in front of certain houses – either known to him or not – that confined within their walls innumerable works of art. Around these art works there endured a name, that of the people who had gathered
Samuel Von Brukenthal (1721-1803). A Collector, An Epoch, A Destiny
click here for Brukenthal Museum An emblem of Sibiu, the Brukenthal Museum is one of the most important abodes of culture that has garnered national and European repute. Since its official opening on February 25, 1803, it laid an indelible mark on the cultural life of the
I Was Playing Belote
I was playing belote – ancient surrealism heralding as its ultimatevalues the nine and the Jack, nobody knows why, some poets claim this is an idea meant to consecrate the troubadour and the portal he passes under at night – I waspeacefully playing one evening in a house
Orbitor - The Left Wing
excerpt Maria had come to town during the war, leaving her native Tântava, and managed to find a job as apprentice for Verona Tailor's Shop, along with her sister Vasilica. The tailor's shop was located behind ARO building, stuck right on the white painted house,
Idle Hours
In the olden times, in the Year of Our Lord 1937, as soon as the vernal wind had started wafting, I would cross the Danube with a handful of companions, to hail the passage of woodcocks in some of the parts of the Dobrudja. We reposed in propitious places, groves and copses,
At The Royal Cinema
The Lumière Brothers' toy, perfected year after year, challenges Thalia and Melpomene and the people of Bucharest take cinemas by storm. Businessmen are quick in smelling money, and thus many individuals whose energy used to be spent at the haberdasher's or on
The Cart
In Bucharest there are two types of public bathhouses: Turkish and Wallachian. I was to understand the fame of the latter, as that was exactly the place we were accompanied to. This bathhouse is situated in Lipscani St. , one of the ugliest parts of the town. The building
Pleasure
One might think that all men desire pleasure because they all aim at life (…). Pleasure completes (…) life, which they desire (…). But whether we choose life for the sake of pleasure or pleasure for the sake of life is a question we may dismiss for the present. For
Woolen Gardens
European travelers such as Antonio Maria del Chiaro were struck long time ago by the uncommon abundance of woolen carpets in each Romanian home, be it aristocratic, bourgeois or peasant. Carpets were laid mainly onto the walls of the rooms, but they also covered the beds,
The Romanian Death Iconography Or A Different Kind Of Assisted Death
In the field of iconography the rhetoric of the end manifested itself initially as a history of silences, the absence of the motif being possibly equally significant as its presence since, as Michel Vovelle demonstrated, images interest us as expression of a selective, oblique