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,
Do Something, Be Somebody
The experimental artist Grigorescu Ion has forged himself some time ago out of the painter Ion Grigorescu. Indeed, in Romanian it is rather unusual for an adult to put his family name before the forename. Customarily, this happens in official documents or in school registers,
The Weed Talk
I have never met Ştefan Bertalan. A founder of the sigma group in Timishoara, the most influential hub of constructivist experimentalism in Romanian art, Bertalan has always seemed to me somehow ill-timed, included in the canon, and confined therein. I came once into contact
Sexinesses
At first sight, nothing could be more reasonable or understandable than the illustration of the present issue of PLURAL. As the texts spin around the sexual obsession in Romanian literature, running from Creanga`s licentious Tale of All Tales to Agopian and Aldulescu`s swank,
Ways Of Seeing
Minority ethnic groups have usually developed some separate cultures within the larger framework of the majority. Their particular language and specific customs generally single out such societies. From the cultural point of view, the main characteristics of a minority society
Un Bucarestois A Paris, Un Parisien A Bucarest
Le peintre Theodor Pallady est né en 1871 à Jassy d'une ancienne famille de boyards moldaves, et il est mort à Bucarest en 1956. La soeur de son grand père, Basile Cantacuzino, était mariée à Puvis de Chavannes. Pourtant, l'éducation de Pallady commence
Nationally-Specific Art In Interwar Romania
Art history is usually at ease when imposing its own concepts and technical terminology upon an apparently unconscious body of visual accomplishments called works of art. For art historians and art critics, art seemingly exists in order for theorists to put words on it and
The Children's Corner
1. The Virgin Mary with the Child, Orthodox icon, 17th century 2. Constantin Brancovan and his family 3. Ştefan Luchian (1868-1916), The Washing (see also Gallery) Romanian painters met the Child long before local art itself was born, in the modern sense of the word (the
Paradise Now
For any visitor of the Danube Delta it is extremely difficult to ignore the beauties it lavishly displays all around. One can obviously go to the Danube Delta simply to do business there, in fisheries, in shipping or in any other industrial branch. One can go there to participate
Shady
Queer figures constitute the salt and pepper of literature since, at least, Petronius's Satyricon and Apuleius's The Golden Ass. Writers are mesmerized by irregular minds, behavioral oddities and abnormalities because people at large crave for the dark side. From
Du Billet Au Traité: Le Français Chez Les Roumains
C'est un fait reconnu depuis longtemps: les plus grands accomplissements culturels des Roumains ont presque toujours transité la culture française dans leur parcours vers le monde. Brancusi, Enescu, Ionesco, Cioran sont les figures de proue de ce que l'on pourrait
Ideas And Ideology In Interwar Romania
For the Romanian cultural psyche, the interwar period still appears, after so many decades of indefatigable exegesis, as a real, alluring and embarrassing hortus conclusus, a closed garden of paradisiacal, yet so venomous intellectual flourishing. Major cultural achievements