ADRIAN-SILVAN IONESCU
GAZETA DE PERETE A INSTITUTULUI DE ISTORIA ARTEI. ISTORII VESELE ȘI TRISTE DIN VREMURI UITATE 1953–1964
Abstract: The Notice Board at the Romanian Institute of Art History. Happy and not so Happy Stories from Bygone Era. 1953–1964. From the beginning of the building up of the workers’ dictatorship in Romania, you could find in any state owned enterprise from manufacturing plants to schools of all levels and academic institutions a Notice Board, the (in)famous Wall Gazette – in fact a panel covered with ordinary cloth or velvet but always in a telling red colour, displaying at regular intervals:
– signed (or not) one-page texts;
– propaganda materials;
– newspapers’ clippings;
– news of national or local significance;
– news covering the unique party’s line;
– photographs and drawings with mobilizing and/or moralizing messages;
– calls for competition at work;
– solemn commitments to smash the work records;
– disapproving of people’s shortcomings (laziness, theft, negligence at work, failure to perform the tasks on time, boycott or sabotage, embezzlement, gossip, etc.) and making fun of them.
The Romanian Institute of Art History was no exception and displayed such a Wall Gazette. With hindsight this proved to be a valuable documentary source that we are only now capitalizing on. A folder found in the Institute’s archive uncovered the rich output of our art scholars – of news, sometimes criticism, sometimes unmasking (of the so called enemies of the people), sometimes
disclosures and … sometimes real fun from that bygone era of 1953 to 1964.
The Wall Gazette of the Institute hosted contributions from almost all employees and the output were paneled monthly or bi-monthly. Like a real printed paper, the Wall Gazette had an editorial committee, and as with any publication, committee suffered changes from time to time.
In the early years, the Wall Gazette was suffocated with political or heavily politicized texts. Around the great anniversaries of the Workers Party, the Romanian People’s Republic, or other similar dates like the 7th of November (The October Revolution that happened according to the Gregorian calendar on the 7th of November, when the Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg), 8th of March (International Women’s Day), First of May (International Workers Day) or 23rd of August
(the communists called it the Act of 23rd of August or Liberation Day from the Fascist Occupation, in fact the coup d’état led by King Michael I of Romania which, from 1948 till 1990, became Romania’s National Day), the contributors draw activity reports of the departments of the Institute and solemnly committed themselves to future glorious achievements. From time to time, Ion Frunzetti tuned his poetical lyre and stimulated by the satirical muse composed some really funny epigrams about his colleagues. Obviously these humor excesses were not a Wall Gazette constant trait and Frunzetti’s epigrams were unfortunately only occasionally present on the panel. For the rest, boring seriousness, critical and self-critical spirit, ideology and festivism reigned supreme.
Keywords: propaganda, political texts, eulogy of the Romanian Communist Party, epigrams, Ion Frunzetti, Mircea Popescu,
Amelia Pavel, Barbu Brezianu, Mihai Florea, Radu Florescu, Paul Petrescu, Paul Stahl.
THE HABSBURG’S NAVY ON GRAND TOUR: THE OLDEST MARITIME TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM 1855 by MATHIAS BÖHM and UWE SCHÖGL (Vienna)
Abstract: In the year 1855, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, the oldest brother of reigning Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, undertook a sea voyage of almost five months through the Mediterranean Sea.1 Fourteen years later, he achieved posthumous fame when he was shot as Emperor of Mexico on 19th of June 1867 and this tragic event became immortalised in its artistic interpretation in the work The Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1868/69) by Édouard Manet.
On the 1855 voyage, the Archduke, who was only 23 years old at the time, headed a squadron of up to 16 ships in his role as Supreme Commander of the Navy. The route covered almost the entire Mediterranean beginning in Trieste on 19th of May and continuing via Athens, Beirut, and Alexandria, to Naples, before going as far as France, and returning to Trieste by the end of
September.
It was the Archduke’s personal wish that the most innovative photographic company of the time, the Imperial and Government Printing Establishment, delegate Franz Mai, who was also 23 years of age, to provide photographic support on the cruise. The result is a unique pictorial narrative that has been preserved in the form of a collection of loose sheets with up to 49 photographs. The Imperial and Government Printing Establishment provided the Archduke with a total of six editions of this work,2
with four of them being available at the time of investigation.3 This portfolio from 1855 is not only the first photographic documentation of ships of the Imperial Navy,4 but also the first photographs taken on board a ship during a sea voyage.
Keywords: sea voyage, Archeduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Mediterranean route, Imperial and Government Printing Establishment.
“MEN WITH THE BARK ON”:
FREDERIC REMINGTON’S DENOUEMENT by RON TYLER (Fort Worth, Texas)
Abstract: Frederic Remington is one of the most popular artists associated with the heyday of the American West. His detailed paintings thrill his fans, but sometimes his impressionistic style muddles the details, and sometimes they are clearly mistaken. This is the story of how Remington made the transition from being a reporter to an artist, from being a historical illustrator to being a painter.
Keywords: the Old West, impressionism, illustrator, Indians, cowboys, trappers, U.S. soldiers, Theodore Roosevelt, Francis Parkman, Owen Wister.
EDUARD ANDREI
ÎNTOARCEREA DE LA TÂRG. CAPODOPERE ALE PICTURII ROMÂNEȘTI REVENITE ÎN ȚARĂ DE LA NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR 1939–1940
Abstract: In several previous conferences and publications (articles or book chapters), I spoke and wrote about the Romanian works of art that remained in the USA after the closing of the 1939–1940 New York World’s Fair; among these, I focused on the masterpiece Return from the Country Fair by Francisc Șirato, which I discovered at the Romanian Orthodox Church “St. Dumitru” in Manhattan, New York, in 2017. In this paper I will symbolically use the title of this masterpiece to present and analyze the paintings that returned to the country from the New York World’s Fair, that I was able to identify, corroborating archival research and museum documentation. They are paintings signed by the most important Romanian artists from the late 19th century – early 20th century and from the interwar period: Th. Aman, N. Grigorescu, I. Andreescu, Th. Pallady, Gh. Petrașcu, N. Tonitza, I. Theodorescu-Sion, Lucian Grigorescu, Marius Bunescu, N. Dărăscu, N. Vermont, Samuel Mützner. Most of the paintings are currently displayed, or mainly stored, at the National Art Museum of Romania; a few were transferred from there to other museums in Romania; two works by Aman are at the artist’s musem. Added to these there are two sculptures authored by women-artists Irina Codreanu and Céline Emilian, currently also located at the National Art Museum of Romania. The study follows the circulation of the artworks on the Bucharest – New York route and back, via Washington, D.C., and analyzes them iconographically, from the perspective of Romania’s “self-image for export”.
Keywords: New York World’s Fair, Romanian Embassy in Washington, D.C., National Art Museum of Romania, Theodor Aman Museum, U.S. Customs
CORINA TEACĂ
PERSPECTIVA CRITICĂ ȘI ISTORIOGRAFICĂ ASUPRA OPEREI LUI G.D. MIREA
Abstract: This article presents the changes in critical perspective related to G.D. Mirea’s work, starting with the first notes in the French press in the early 1880s.
Keywords: G.D. Mirea, romanian painting in the 19th century, Romanian historiography of art, Romanian artists in France, foreign artists in France.
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LUIGI BAMBULEA
O ANAMNEZĂ SISTEMATICĂ: METODA LUI REMUS NICULESCU (CERCETARE BIBLIOGRAFICĂ ȘI DE CRITICA CRITICII)
Abstract: A Systematic Anamnesis: Remus Niculescu’s Method. (Bibliographic Research and Meta-critical Analysis). Remus Niculescu occupies a foundational position in the establishment of modern art historical scholarship within Romanian academic and cultural milieus. His intellectual legacy is distinguished by its methodological innovations, having articulated a canonical model for the multiperspectival analysis of the work of art – thus contributing to the epistemological synchronization of Romanian art history with Western analytic and hermeneutic paradigms. A target of political persecution under the communist regime and incarcerated as a perceived adversary of the state, Niculescu emerges not only as a scholar of exceptional stature but also as a figure of ethical and
deontological significance – embodying, in the view of the present author, the ideal of the morally responsible intellectual. This intervention undertakes an examination of Niculescu’s scholarly ethos through a critical engagement with his bibliographic study on Ion Georgescu’s sculptural representation of Gheorghe Asachi. A secondary objective consists in delineating a biographical profile that, while succinct, seeks to illuminate salient aspects of the cultural and institutional history of postwar Eastern Europe. Situated at the crossroads of several interrelated domains or scientific researche fields – namely, the critique of art-historical discourse, specialized bibliography, intellectual history, and the methodology of scholarly research –, this study aspires both to clarify the
methodological stakes of Niculescu’s work and to offer a gesture of homage to a paradigmatic figure whose legacy continues to resonate within contemporary academic discourse.
Keywords: research methodology, interdisciplinarity, iconology, historical sculpture, portrait, artistic commission, Ion Georgescu
NOTE ȘI DOCUMENTE
ADRIAN-SILVAN IONESCU
O ANIMOZITATE „COLEGIALĂ” NICIODATĂ STINSĂ – NOTE PENTRU O ISTORIE A INSTITUTULUI DE ISTORIA ARTEI
Abstract: A “Collegial” Animosity that Never Died Down – Notes for a History of the Institute of Art History. In 1971, the old conflict between Remus Niculescu and Radu Bogdan re-emerged, attracting the very combative Vasile Drăguț into the arena, who launched a real campaign, in the pages of the periodical România Literară, against Bogdan, the author of the Andreescu monograph. In the last article signed by Drăguț, he dealt Bogdan the coup de grace, stating that he used in his work materials
collected by others. This assertion opened a Pandora’s box and engaged many protagonists in the necessary clarification of the situation. Questioned verbally regarding the situation exposed in the press, Remus Niculescu wrote to Mircea Popescu, the director of the Institute at that time, detailing the facts and complaining about Radu Bogdan’s use of the documentation he had collected about
the Romanian artistic movement from 1860–1940, approximately 600 pages, bound in four files. In his turn, Radu Bogdan submitted a memorandum, asking the director of the institute to refute Drăguț’s claim. In three and a half typewritten pages, he explained how things had turned out and denied the misuse of materials originating from Niculescu’s research.
These documents are now being brought to light for the first time to contribute to the writing of a history of the Institute of Art History.
Keywords: Radu Bogdan, Remus Niculescu, Vasile Drăguț, use of materials collected by others.
SORIN CRISTESCU
G. OPRESCU – UN ISTORIC AL ARTEI ȊN MISIUNE DIPLOMATICĂ NEOFICIALĂ LA PARIS ŞI LONDRA (22 aprilie – 11 mai 1940)
Abstract: In the conditions of a dramatic political situation in the spring of 1940, the renowned art historian George Oprescu was sent by the new Minister of National Propaganda, the historian Constantin C. Giurescu, on a mission to survey cultural figures in Paris and London to see the mood of the Western elite in the face of the increasingly serious threats to the Romanian borders,
especially from Hungary. The result of G. Oprescu’s the mission – an art historian of European stature – was far from encouraging, a consequence of the fact that for twenty years Romanian propaganda in the United Kingdom was practically non-existent.
Keywords: probing mission, cultural elites, threats to territorial integrity.
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CRONICA ŞI VIAŢA ŞTIINŢIFICĂ
Ediţia a XX-aa Sesiunii anuale de comunicări știinţifice Date noi în cercetarea artei medievaleși premoderne în România, București, 26–27 septembrie2024 (Depart. de artă medievală);
Colocviul Cercetări actuale. Teorie, practică șidiscurs în arta românească, a doua ediţie a sesiunii anuale de comunicări știinţifice a Sectorului de Arte vizuale și Arhitectură–perioada modernă și contemporană, București, 17 iunie 2025, Institutulde IstoriaArtei (Cristina Cojocaru);
ANTIKEN ett sӓtt att se,Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 26 sept.2024–5 ian.2025 (Adrian-SilvanIonescu);
ExpoziţiaRudolf Wacker: Magie und Abgründe der Wirklichkeit/ Magic and Abysses of Reality, Leopold Museum, Viena, 30octombrie2024 –16 februarie2025 (Adrian-Silvan Ionescu)
Expoziţia Ioan Andreescu. Adevărul și imaginaţia,Art Safari, PinacotecaBucurești (PalatulDacia), 7martie –27 iulie 2025 (Virginia Barbu);
Expoziţia Rembrandt –Hoogstraten. Farbe und Illusion, KunsthistorischesMuseum, Viena, 8 oct.2024–12 ian.2025 (Adrian-Silvan Ionescu);
Expoziţia Gauguin Unexpected, Kunstforum, Wien, 30 oct.2024 –19 ian.2025 (Adrian-Silvan Ionescu);
Simpozionul știinţific cu participare internaţională Armata Română pefronturile celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial (1941–1945). 80 de ani dela încheierea ostilităţilor, Pitești, 24–25 iulie 2025 (Adrian-Silvan Ionescu).
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RECENZII
ION NICODIM, Axul pământului acordat cu stelele. Jurnal 1974–2007, Editura Vremea, București, 2007, 198 p. cu ilustrații.
ION NICODIM, Axul pamântului acordat cu stelele. Jurnal 1974–2007 (Corina Teacă)
EDUARD ANDREI, VIRGINIA BARBU, OLIVIA NIŢIŞ, RALUCA PARTENIE, CORINA TEACĂ, Dicţionarul graficienilor din România. Secolul al XIX-lea,coordonare şi prefaţă: ADRIAN-SILVAN IONESCU (Ioana Apostol).
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DE LIBRIS
Buletin bibliografic (V.B., A.S.I., I.A.)
