At the Edge of Europe
Dr Bob Jarvis, Department of Art History, University of Sussex, UK
Abstract
The influence of ‘travel’ on an almost landlocked country which has been part of several empires and only established ‘national’ boundaries in the 19th Century : Romania.
Keywords
Romania. Evolution and Identity. Discovery
Introduction
This note originates from an exploration of ‘Art and Travel’- a term paper in Art History at Sussex University. The module was set in the context of an island with clear boundaries and an expansive, Imperial world view. My essay turned this conceptual background on its head and discussed the influence of ‘travel’ on an almost landlocked country which has been part of several empires and only established ‘national’ boundaries in the 19th Century : Romania.
Discussion
Byron’s remark on Albania “though within sight of Italy, is less known than the interior of America” [1] applies as much today, about Romania and Romanian art and served to prompt this essay. Although Romania has a Latin-based language, and since emergence of nationalism in the mid-19th century has been a ‘European’ country it is relatively little known or studied.
Though ‘Romania’ has only existed politically since the mid-19th
century a ‘Romanian Consciousness’ can be traced back (and argued for as a continuous cultural tradition) for two millennia, and its cultural and artistic development is permeated with the travelling and transportation of artistic ideas and artefacts.
The political geography of Romania is complex and by no means a stable continuum and this too has shaped the travel geography of art. Finally there is an overlay of the two substantial and influential cultural and racial minorities in Romania – Jewish-a substantial influence on DADA, Rroma ( this is the currently preferred spelling rather than ‘roma’ ) – which have their own boundaries and patterns of travel and influence
Ulysse de Marsillac’s casual remark “I asked my fellow-traveller, What distance is between Paris and Bucharest? Three centuries, sir! was his answer,”[2] unkindly emphasises the cultural differences – and similarities- between Romania and Western Europe. Romania has been described as a ‘Latin island in a Slavic sea’, its capital city, Bucharest lying somewhere between orient and occident[3] – which is visible today where you can pick up a regular service bus to Istanbul and the architecture is an eclectic mix of styles and sources. As western influences grew it came to be called the “Paris of the East” as architects and artists from Paris were given commissions and Romanian architects and artists studied there.
Yet despite the western influences and material culture Romania preserved an Orthodox Christianity (of its own) through 400 hundred years as a part of the Ottoman Empire and 40 years of Communism.
Conclusion
The decision I made to focus my work on the art history of a little researched country at the other edge of Europe seemed at first but it was a case of topophilia – I was in love with the place even before the bus from the airport reached the center of Bucharest one rainy November night on my first visit.[4]
The full set of term papers and dissertation which give these studies in full can be found at
https://bobopedia.wordpress.com/
[1] Quoted in Belcher, Rosemary, Lord Byron’s Grander Tour in Chard, Rosemary and Langdon, Helen Transports:Travel, Pleassure and Imaginative Geography, 1600-1830 Yale UP, Studies in British Art 3, New Haven and London, 1996, p50 and Gephardt Katarina The Idea of Europe in British Travel Narratives, 1789-1914 Routledge, 2016
[2] Ulysse de Marsillac was one of several French commentators on (and enthusiasts for) the newly forming Romania in the mid-19th Century and this off-hand dismissal is misleading. For detailed discussion of De Marsillac see Iulian and Laura Oncescu The image of Romanian Society in France (1859- 1878) in Stanciur, Ion, Miloiu, Silviu and Onescu Iullain (eds) Europe as viewed fron the Margins – an East- Central European Perspective from World War 1 to the Cold War Editura Cetatea de Scaun, Targoviste 2007 ( extracts available on Google Books)
[3] This theme has been explored by many writers notably Adrian Majuru Bucharest: Between European
modernity and The Ottoman East Fundatia Culturala Echinox 2003, Vol5, pp92-103 and Harhoiu, Dana
Bucureşti, un oraş între orient şi occident/ Bucharest, a city between orient and occident
Simetria Bucharest 2005
[4] Jarvis,B (2010) For the first time once International Studies,RTPI Research Conference, UK
Bobopedia on line 