Main article: Culture of Romania

Romania's rich cultural traditions have been nourished by many sources, some of which predate the Roman occupation. The traditional folk arts, including dance, wood carving, ceramics, weaving and embroidery of costumes and household decorations, and fascinating folk music, still flourish in many parts of the country. Despite strong Austrian, German, and especially French influence, many of Romania's great artists, such as the painter Nicolae Grigorescu, the poet Mihai Eminescu, the composer George Enescu, and the sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi, drew their inspiration from Romanian folk traditions.

The country's many Orthodox monasteries, as well as the Transylvanian Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church, some of which date back to the 13th century, are repositories of artistic treasures. The famous painted monasteries of Bukovina make an important contribution to European architecture.

Poetry and the theater play an important role in contemporary Romanian life. Classic Romanian plays, such as those of Ion Luca Caragiale, as well as works by modern or avant-garde Romanian and international playwrights, find sophisticated and enthusiastic audiences in the many theaters of the capital and of the smaller cities.

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The red scarf

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From 1879 to 1890 he worked in France, especially in Vitré, Bretagne, and in his workshop in Paris. In 1890 he settled in Câmpina and started depicting pastoral themes, especially portraits of peasant girls, pictures of ox carts on dusty country roads and other landscapes. He was named honorary member of the Romanian Academy in 1899.

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Thank you Charles! Grigorescu is one of my favourites.Last summer I have visited his memorial hause in Campina and it was a great experience.

Thank you Veronica for this new theme!*flowersmile*

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_3tsId6heM

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MY DEAR SIMONA!!!!! YOU MADE MIRACLES IN THIS TOPIC WITH THE WONDERFUL PAINTINGS OF GRIGORESCU, WITH BRANCUSI AND WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS WONDERFUL CLIP WITH EMINESCU'S 'LUCEAFARUL'????

I FOUND SOME VIDEO CLIPS WITH OUR LOVED MIRCEA ELIADE AND I AM SO HAPPY, I SEND THEM  TO YOU IN YOUR PAGE, AS YOU HAVE THEM AND ENJOY THEM! GOD BLESS YOU

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FOR MY DEAR FRIENDS WHO KNOWS THE FRENCH LANGUAGE, PLEASE LOOK THESE VIDEOS AND KNOW  OUR GREAT  MIRCEA ELIADE! ENJOY:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ZEhpWXXhk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C1_tKuppQg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvbYZqk45RY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtzUQ65AHcE

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7uIZ-XL9GE

ONE ANOTHER ROMANIAN GREAT WRITER, ION CREANGA.... HE WAS BORN IN THIS HOUSE.

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(b Stefanesti, 1 Feb 1868; d Bucharest, 28 June 1916). Romanian painter. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, graduating in 1889 and continuing his studies at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and in Paris at the Académie Julian, where he was a student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He rejected the rigidity of academic painting early in his career, however. The Last Autumn Race (1892; Bucharest, Mus. A.), one of the few paintings known from this period, clearly illustrates the influence of Manet and Impressionism on his early work. On his return to Romania in 1892 Luchian, unwilling to restrict his work to merely copying the French artists, struggled to create an original style. In 1900 he was left partially paralysed by a spinal disease, but he continued to work, and it is during the next years that he created his most accomplished works. His self-portraits (e.g. 1907; Bucharest, Mus. A.) are clear evidence of his determination to overcome this personal tragedy; far from inspiring pity, these paintings emphasize the depth and the strength of his inner life. It is in landscapes such as Willows at Chiajna (c. 1907; Cluj-Napoca, Mus. A.), however, that his commitment becomes even more apparent, with joyful rhythms created by means of broad brushstrokes and contrasts of bright colours next to delicate tones. Towards the end of his life Luchian became completely immobilized. During this time flowers were his favourite subject , and they became a metaphorical bridge between the artist and the outside world. The colours are still bright in these last paintings, and the loss of pastel tones makes the contrast more dramatic.

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FOR YOUR POST, IT'S WONDERFUL, I AM GLAD , DEAR KAREN, DO YOU LIKE THE PAINTINGS

FOR ME, MIRCEA ELIADE IS THE BEST, TOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I hoppe you enjoy  this photos with Luchian works. Hi has a very sad life story but hi remained an opptimist in his work! Have a great day my friends!

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Thank you, Simona, for your contribution to this thread.

The paintings  are beautiful.

Namaste and Best Wishes,

Miriam

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Romanian painter, etcher and art critic. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Jassy at a time when the Academy was in its heyday, studying at the same time as Stefan Dimitrescu did (later Tonitza, Dimitrescu, Sirato and O. Han were to form the "Group of the Four"). Professors were Gheorghe Popovici and Emanoil Bardasare. If in 1908 he would be in Munich for attending courses at the Bavarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the next three years would be spent in Paris for studio visits and realisation of sketches after famous painters. Although the young artist's creation would initially conform to the manner of painting of the time, his endowment as a colourist and the "fraîcheur" of his feelings would take him irreversibly to the realm of originality. The painter's aesthetics would stem from the Impressionism specificity, the findings of the representatives of Post-impressionism, and by all means from the embellishing practice in doing a composition and the Belle Epoque splendour of the 1900 art (see the 1900 Style). Equilibrium, hedonism- the unrepressed joy for the enchanting appearances of reality-, and a calm sensuality all concurred in rendering his pictures full of light, in exalting and matching colours, and in ideally matching the form (given by a gracefully imagined drawing) with colour. His commitment to his time events is best perceivable in his graphic work, malitious and sometimes dramatical (he sketched for many of the time magazines: "Rampa", "Flacara", "Clopotul", "Hiena", etc.), and in his articles, which mainly discussed cultural and social events. Although he could not be spared the restlessness of every day life, and could not escape the contemporary life determination, the serenity of his painting was a datum. It proposed a classical aesthetical ideal, worshipped the beautiful, and viewed the art as a treasurer of spiritual values in eternity. His art is certainly there in the Dobrogea landscapes, in the portraits of clowns and children, in the portraits of young women, in still life, with its touch of mildness and vast canvas, where lights smoothly play on objects, with shining colours.

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Theodor Aman (20 March 1831, Câmpulung-Muscel–19 August 1891, Bucharest) was a Romanian painter. His style is often considered to be a predecessor of Impressionism.

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http://images.google.ro/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pictura4.1gb.at/site%25201.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.pictura4.1gb.at/&h=550&w=391&sz=43&hl=ro&start=7&um=1&tbnid=P3E3R-IGCI3jvM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictori%2Bcontemporani%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dro%26sa%3DN

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pres the name of the artist and see his work

http://www.catalogarta.ro/

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Stefan Luchian
Romania's First Modern Painter
1868-1916

Back to Impressionism

An artist who has always intrigued me is the Romanian painter Stefan Luchian. For a long time I have searched for appropriate information about him; a couple of weeks ago I found accidentally an art book in a second-hand bookstore in Copenhagen with an extensive biography and a large amount of colour photographs of some of his best paintings -- sometimes serendipity knocks so fortuitously that it seems scary. 

Stefan Luchian was born 1st February 1868 as the first child to Elena and Dumitru Luchian, the Commander of the 3rd Battalion of Frontier Guards at the Garrison of Stefanesti, near Botosani, Romania. Had he remained an extraordinary character, or merely a representative type of his time, Stefan Luchian could have become a good novel hero. Yet, there is something that carries far more weight: painter Luchian left a work which confers an absolute significance on each of his gestures. An artist tries to put the best of himself into his work and although it is true that we should keep above all to this part of purposely prepared and willingly offered to the public, it is no less true that his very life could be a valuable lesson -- the life of a genuine artist, i.e. the life that goes hand in hand with his work and is unreservedly devoted to it, stretches far beyond any third-rate acting and vain literature. 

Religious painting, a very old craft in the Romanian Principalities, was handed down almost hereditarily through personal example and oral tradition within a limited number of families. 

This automatic, hereditary knowledge of drawing showed itself in young Luchian's personality from an early age; with him, drawing was a natural skill, his youth's vocation. 

Years later, when a rather unexpected meeting finally helped him devote himself to painting, his first works would be just the modest and quite unsuccessful church paintings. 

In September 1885 Luchian was admitted to the Fine Arts School in Bucharest, as well as he was admitted to the Conservatory for studying Flute. 

• Stefan Luchian: Self-Portrait (unsigned), c. 1898. Pencil on paper. National Art Museum, Bucharest. 

Training (1889-1893)

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Training (1889-1893)
In October 1889 Luchian leaves for Munich in Germany and is admitted to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste together with some of his Romanian fellow students. 1892-1893 he continued his studies in Paris, only interrupted by a short break in Romania to attend his mother's funeral, and sale of the childhood home. Among his teachers in Paris was the acknowledged Romanian artist, Nicolae Ion Grigorescu, in whom Luchian found a fervent attention. For a long period, at the first exhibitions Luchian opened in Paris, Griogorescu's presence (sometimes the sole visitor), his advice and his joy at seeing Luchian's works, were the only reward of the young painter's efforts. From this period stems the below painting "The Last Autumn Race". 

• Stefan Luchian: The Last Autumn Race (1892). Oil on canvas. National Art Museum, Bucharest. 

Luchian chose therefore a self-training, masterly done, the most decisive and surest training an artist could acquire. Despite the lack of precise information, the stages of his training can be reconstructed after the main acts and moments of his artistic life: the recurrent recollection of the lessons learnt in Paris, the answers to the questions asked there and the constant concern to find appropriate answers after he had come back to Romania as well. From the day he set foot in Paris till the end of his life, Luchian belonged to a higher form of life, to a privileged class. 

The Revolutionist (1893-1901) 

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The Revolutionist (1893-1901) 
When Luchian left for France, he was merely a teenager hungering for discoveries and eager to learn.  When he came back to Romania, a little less than three years later, he was a self-possessed man. He had not intended to stay in Romania for a certain period of time, he wanted to settle there and work. He was getting ready to play his part in this artistic movement to the substance and spirit of which he had adapted himself by a kind of contact osmosis. Thus, the essential aim of his stay in France was fulfilled, and even if the consequences were not obvious yet, he was only entering the stage of his notable achievements to be recognized later in various parts of the works he painted in Bucharest. 

There is no doubt that Luchian's coming back to Bucharest completely changed the course of his artistic approach. Of course, the techniques he had acquired, the habit of thinking and living in a certain manner, could not be so easily questioned. They always underlay Luchian's talent. 

Yet, the radical change of the frame of life, of atmosphere and preoccupations inevitably required a reasonably long period of adjustment of the painter's fundamental unalterable qualities to his new living conditions. 

In Paris, Luchian could simply march in with a movement that had already opened up its way, merely join the fellow-artists resting on a past that was still alive and unrivalled in its richness. In Bucharest he had to start from scratch, discover his origins and map out his own way.  

One of his paintings from this period "Attacking Soldiers" has appeared on a stamp, shown on the right.

• Romania 1977. Stefan Luchian: "Attacking Soldiers". Oil on Canvas, c. 1901. 

Another of his famous paintings from this period is "Safta, the Flower Girl" (1901). At the top of the stamp is written "tablouri impuscate" [Damaged Paintings]. 

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The Creator (1901-1909) 
As if to make up for the life that seemed to shrink away from him, his intelligence and his talent were waxing into an incredible brilliance. In the following ten years, at the cost of straining efforts, the painter wrung a remarkable and decisive work out of his fading life. No more hesitations, no more attempts. Nothing could divert him from his purpose; he put all his remaining energy into his art. The relentless diminution of his self, the over-all presence of death within his body, over which paralysis took a still firmer grip, made him painfully aware of his means, certain of his genius. 

One of his aims was to describe Romanian country life of his own time. 

One of his most powerful paintings of this sort became "The Washer Woman", which displays extraordinarily intense variations on the plays of light through the grass, the woman's clothing, and in the washing left to dry -- all combined with a meticulous description of traditional life style in rural Romania at the beginning of the 20th century. 

• Romania 1987. Stefan Luchian: "The Washer Woman" (c. 1906-1907). Oil on canvas. National Art Museum, Bucharest. Click here to see the original painting. The link will open in a new window.  

One of Luchian's most important portraits of this period is undoubtedly "Father Nicolas, the Kobsa [Zitar] Player". He represented the world Luchian had been familiar with and wished to keep memory of in the middle of his present life. Luchian painted Father Nicolas several times, and all the portraits of him, depicted with or without his kobsa are significant. Those grave majestic faces are among Luchian's best drawings, and the famous portrait in the Simu Museum (today in the custody of the National Art Museum in Bucharest), in which the old man holds his head in his hands is one of Luchian's incontestable masterpieces. 

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• Romania 1967 and 1990. Stefan Luchian: "Father Nicolas, The Kobza Player" (1905-1906). Oil on canvas. National Art Museum, Bucharest. Note, that the version on the right is part of the above mentioned set of damaged stamps

Towards 1905 Luchian had started painting dramatic bunches of wild Chrysanthemums in a ich impasto gleaming with tints of purple and old velvet. Later he diversified and enriched his themes, also using oils for his breath-taking bunches of poppies and anemones and his lace-like chrysanthemums. On the other hand, pastels were more apt to render the delicate tones of roses, snapdragons and carnations. Below are shown samples of Luchian's flower paintings, in oil and pastels respectively. 

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The Survivor (1909-1916)
Luchian's self-portrait done at the end of 1908 (below right) plainly shows the devastating effects of illness over his features. The comparison with the previous self-portrait painted in 1906 (below left),  "Un Zugrav" [A Painter], is shocking in point of the change those two years of suffering brought about. The frame of his face is the same, but it is almost fleshless now. Death has hollowed his cheeks. Only his eyes are bright and clear, painfully aware, deeply sunken into their sockets as if seeking a last refuge from death. Luchian was only forty, but his death had already begun. Paralysis progressed inexorably, and slowly seized hold of all his body. 

With time, the wrist, then the fingers and the phalanges refused to obey his will. He could no longer run the brush so easily among the spots of light. In his last paintings he had to delay till the last possible moment the testimony of his brush on the strictly guided work done by his assistant. 

One of the last portraits Luchian did is "Lica (Girl with an Orange)" (1912). Like the above painting of Father Nicolas, Luchian painted Lica several times. Below right is Lica in profile, painted c. 1911. In this lovely portrait, the delicate features of Lica's face and body melt together with the background, and nearly turns her into an extra-terrestrial being, displaying the vague premonitions the artist might have had about his own fate. 

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Luchian's major output ceased somewhere around 1913. Two years later an ignoble incident occurred, probably hastening Luchian's death. A prominent statesman, unacquainted with art, had bought among other things several paintings signed by Luchian. Doubts being expressed as to their authenticity, a complaint was filed in court and a servile clerk summoned Luchian for an inquiry. When he was informed that the painter was bedridden, he went himself to the artist's house and imposed an outrageously insistent interrogatory on the invalid, deliberately ignoring the fact that the painter was almost dying. This shameful incident achieved what the most terrible, but patiently endured sufferings had not done -- Luchian's joy, serenity, confidence and love of life that had helped him survive against all odds vanished before this last gesture of indifference, of mean insulting hostility. 

The moral destruction far more agonizing than any physical pain, whose obstinate aggression Luchian had withstood for years, was accomplished, and Luchian passed away some days later, on 27th June, 1916, fully lucid but tired of fighting. 

Source and links:

• Jacques Lassaigne: "Stefan Luchian". Bucharest 1994. ISBN 973-33-0163-9.

• Gallery of Stefan Luchian's Paintings 

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ION VOICU   VIOLONIST 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ruq3e5l-DY

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5yc3yRjEe4

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Sergiu Celibidache

Background informationBornJune 28, 1912(1912-06-28)
XImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Flag_of_Romania.svg/22px-Flag_of_Romania.svg.png'); WIDTH: 1px; HEIGHT: 1px">Roman, RomaniaDiedAugust 14, 1996 (aged 84)
La Neuville-sur-Essonne, Pithiviers, FranceGenre(s)ClassicalOccupation(s)Conductor, pedagogueYears active1945-1996Associated actsBerliner Philharmoniker
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
Munich Philharmonic
Stuttgart Radio Symphony
Swedish Radio Symphony

Sergiu Celibidache (IPA: [/'ser.ʤju ʧe.li.bi'da.ke/]; ser-joo cheh-lee-bee-DAH-kay) (June 28, 1912 – August 14, 1996) was a Romanian-born conductor who lived and worked mainly in Germany.

Contents[hide]

• 1 Biography
• 2 Career
• 3 References
• 4 External links

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Celibidache was born in Roman, Romania, and began his studies in music with the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest, Romania and then in Paris. One of the most important influences in his life was his introduction to Martin Steinke, who, being knowledgeable about Buddhism, heavily affected Celibidache's outlook for the rest of his life.

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Sergiu Celibidache giving a conducting lesson at the Curtis Institute in 1984 to Curtis Student David Bernard

Celibidache was well known for his demands for extensive rehearsal time with orchestras.^[3] An oft-mentioned feature of many of his concerts, captured in the live recordings of them, is a slower tempo than what is considered the norm, while, in fast passages, his tempos often exceeded expectations.^[4] In Celibidache's own view, however, criticism of a recording's tempo is irrelevant, as it is not (and cannot) be a critique of the performance but rather of a transcription of it, without the ambience of the moment – for him, a key factor in any musical performance. As Celibidache explained, the acoustic space in which one hears a concert directly affects the likelihood of the emergence of his sought-after transcendent experience. The acoustic space within which one hears a recording of one of his performances, on the other hand, has no impact on the performance, as it is impossible for the acoustic features of that space to provide feedback to the musicians that might impel them to, for example, play slower or faster.

That his recorded performances differ so widely from the majority of other recordings has led them to be seen by some as collectors' items rather than mainstream releases, 'one-offs' rather than reference recordings.^[5] The reality is that the recordings and their relationship to other recordings are the arena within which his artistic importance is now judged, while the contributions he made in the concert hall fade along with the memories of those who were there.

Notable releases have been his Munich performances of Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gabriel Fauré and a series of live performances with the London Symphony and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

One controversial incident during his tenure with the Munich Philharmonic was a protracted legal battle to oust principal trombonist Abbie Conant that lasted 12 years, with Conant ultimately prevailing. Ms. Conant alleged sexism in an internet article published by her husband, William Osbourne. The controversy is discussed in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.

Celibidache died in La Neuville-sur-Essonne, arrondissement Pithiviers near Paris in 1996 at 84.

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