BRANCUSI: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A ROMANIAN NATIONAL HERO
MA Thesis in European Studies Graduate School for Humanities
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Dana Muresan
Table of Contents
Preface……….………3
Introduction……….………4
Chapter One: Appropriation and Commemoration Since 1989………...…11
a. Centenaries and Commemorations.……….……….……….………12
b. Most Recent Initiatives in Reclaiming Brancusi………..………..……16
Chapter Two: Brancusi & Romania, an Exercise in Periodization……….21
a. Early Career - Exhibiting in Romania and Initial Reception: 1903 – 1913...22
b. Interwar Estrangement: 1914 – 1944……….…….26
c. Post-War Period Rejection: 1945 – 1957………..….28
d. Posthumous Re-Appropriation: Post 1957………...32
Chapter Three: Brancusi’s Romanianness………..38
a. Romanian influence on the sculpture………...42
b. Romanian tradition in Brancusi’s lifestyle……..……….…….47
Chapter Four: Why Romania needs Brancusi……….……….………….…53
Conclusion……….………..…..59
Preface
The name Constantin Brancusi is one that I have known, without exaggeration, since before I can remember. The boulevard in Cluj-Napoca that I spent most of my time on as a child, in my grandparents’ apartment, Bulevardul Nicolae Titulescu, meets in the Piatța Cipariu with Strada Constantin Brancusi. Many of the summer days of my childhood were spent in a small town close to Taârgu Jiu. Most weekends included a trip to the city’s market and ice cream in the Constantin Brancusi Municipal Park, where I would inevitably pass under the Poarta Sarutului [The Gate of the Kiss] to find Masa Tacerii [The Table of Silence] at the other end of a long path lined by tall green trees. My grandfather would tell and retell the story of the sculptures with every visit. All I could remember was the name Constantin Brancusi. And, of course, the fact that he was Romanian. The name Constantin Brancusi, however, meant little to my pragmatic child’s mind in contrast to the fact that these stone seats that he made seemed too big and too far from the table for me. Though time passed, his name was kept on street names in major Romanian cities, his face was printed on the 500 lei bill of the 1992-1994 issue and on various stamps of the Posțta Romaâna. Growing up, I
became more aware of the presence of Brancusi around me. Brancusi became a symbol of Romania as common as the Romanian flags decorating the streets of Cluj-Napoca during its time with Gheorghe Funar as mayor. More recently, the Romanian state has been actively negotiating the acquisition of one of his works, Cumintțenia Pamaântului [The Wisdom of the Earth], while a group of activists are petitioning the relocation of the sculptor’s remains, currently found in the Cimitieère du Montparnasse in Paris, to Romania. Reflecting on my personal exposure to the myth of Brancusi in Romania, I have long been curious about the development of these events – the construction of Constantin Brancusi into that of a Romanian national hero. This thesis is my attempt at explaining the phenomenon and its validity, or lack thereof.
I would like to thank Dr. Alex Drace-Francis for guiding me with knowledge and enthusiasm and Dr. Gabriel Petric for generously lending me his own Brancusi dossier, an invaluable source of primary documents.
Introduction
In his 1995 seminal work, Banal Nationalism, Michael Billig identifies a form of nationalism that is often overlooked – naturally so – not just because it doesn’t fit into the popular notions of nationalism as an aggressive and destructive ideology, but also because it becomes habitual - we witness it around us every day. This form of nationalism is promoted in simple acts such as the hanging of flags, the singing of national anthems, and the canonization and commemoration of national heroes. In using such soft power methods of manipulating and promoting the image of the nation, this preferred unit of organization of the world is maintained and reinforced. However, among these various manifestations of banal nationalism, the phenomenon of commemoration of national heroes is presented and elaborated in the study at hand. In their book titled Commemorating Writers in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Leerssen and Rigney present their research on commemorative activity within the study of nationalism, analyzing the evolution of various forms of commemorations specific to English writers. In doing this, they begin by explaining that these artists, who we would call “classics” today, are those “whose fame and canonicity are beyond the vicissitudes of passing fashions”.1 Such
personalities, built up by the nation, become, as Leerssen and Rigney explain, not just identity markers, but define what it means to belong to a certain nation, and are “a source of prestige ‘among foreign nations’”.2 This phenomenon is not,
however, exclusive to writers or to England. It is observed in commemorations of cultural figures in nations across Europe and beyond. My goal is to be able to present and analyze the process of creating such a national hero in the case of the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi.
Studies on Brancusi, one of the most well known artists of Romanian origin, exist in a variety of culture and art related disciplines. His life and work has become the source of debate for academics in the fields of art history and 1 Joep Leerssen and Ann Rigney, “Introduction. Fanning out from Shakespeare” in
Commemorating Writers in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Leerssen and Rigney (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 1.
cultural history. The two seem to treat the subject of Brancusi’s art and life from different perspectives. Art history tends to focus on the technical elements of his work, its influences, and its legacy in the field of modern art. Meanwhile, cultural history, and by this I refer to Romanian academics specifically, tend to – almost unanimously - argue that the source of Brancusi’s art and inspiration is bound to Romanian culture and tradition. In studying literature produced in Romania by art historians throughout Brancusi’s life and cultural historians in the contemporary period, I have been able to discover the grounds upon which Brancusi has been transformed into a national hero, whose name is imbedded in the everyday life of Romanians.
Thus, in this study I hope to offer a coherent synthesis of existing exegeses that are found specifically in Romanian literature on the Brancusian legacy. In doing so, I will contrast the developments by time period, namely Brancusi’s early career after his move to Paris, the inter-war period, the communist period, and the period following his death in 1957, which come to explain why the period since 1989 the Brancusian cult has expressed itself in the least subtle and most appropriative of ways. In following the chronology of the most relevant events leading to the appropriation of Brancusi’s work as intrinsically representative of Romanian culture and tradition, and, moreover, the interpretation of the sculptor’s life style and actions as so, I hope to demonstrate the construction and promotion of Brancusi as a Romanian national hero and the role this serves in Romania’s cultural nationalism as a form of what Michael Billig names banal nationalism. It is important to remember, as I will highlight in the pages to come, that according to Billig’s definition of banal nationalism, it is essential to distinguish the banal from the benign. That is to say that despite the form of nationalism at hand possessing a “reassuring normality”, or a “lack of the violent passions of the extreme right”, its banality is not to be confused with harmlessness, Billig echoes Hannah Arendt.3 This proves to be true in the case of
Brancusi as well – the romanticization of the artist and his canonization leads, in some cases, to false claims in the name of the sculptor, as is the case of the debate
over the alleged wish of Brancusi to donate his Paris work to the Romanian state, which has not yet been proven.
This thesis will, however, stray to some extent from Billig’s 1995 thesis that examines banal nationalism in the established nations that “have confidence in their own continuity, and that, particularly, are part of what is conventionally described as ‘the West’”.4 I say this because I consider the East – West divide to be
a somewhat ambiguous topic that is subject to much debate. This is especially true in the case of Romania, a nation that has been held on the eastern periphery of Europe for all of its history, and whose position in this duality has shifted in the latter half of the 20th century, the period that will be subsequently examined.
Thus I will try to demonstrate how banal nationalism, in the form of the creation and promotion of national heroes, is possible, and especially relevant, not just in nations conventionally described as Western, but also in those whose position is less evident, or those who have undergone recent transition. In doing this, I will argue that the appropriation and promotion of national heroes, in this case Brancusi, serves to strengthen and validate the feeling of nationhood in Romania.
It is important to note that it is people who have never met or heard of one another that create the collective national memory that gave rise to the claims to Brancusi that will be discussed in this project. These same people, that have made up and that continue make up the Romanian nation, regard themselves as sharing a common history and culture – one that they assume Brancusi shared as well. This type of occurrence, applicable to any nation, is what Benedict Anderson calls an “imagined community”.5
However, what I hope to question with this thesis is to what extent the appropriation of Brancusi is a legitimate way to promote the nation. Brancusi, a sculptor by profession, achieved international renown through his modernist ouvre, which he refined in his years living in Paris, from the age of 28, in 1904 to his death in 1957. I hope to analyze the legitimacy of recent claims in Romania 4 Ibid, 8.
5 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1991).
over the work and life of Brancusi as a Romanian figure in contrasting the longing for the sculptor especially since his death in contrast to his reception while he was still alive. The evolution of events relating to the extent of Brancusi’s involvement in Romanian public life and the role of his art in Romanian culture will demonstrate the mutually reliant notions of what we now refer to as memory and identity, whose meanings have changed over time, as explained in Gillis’ “Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. This will parallel the nation’s memory of Brancusi, manipulated as it may be in recent years, to a traditional Romanian identity. In this regard, I find it necessary to also cite the importance of Pavel Tugui’s Dosarul Brancusi, a critical analysis of Romania’s relations with Brancusi, which has greatly contributed to my own understanding as well as to the completion of this project.
I have organized my study to begin by first analyzing the current presence of Brancusi in Romanian public life. I will present the ways in which his name has been carried on beyond his death in 1957 to become a symbol of Romanian culture within the country. In order to demonstrate how Brancusi has been appropriated to the extent of his life and legacy being comparable to a “myth”, as Alexandra Croitoru explains in Brancusi: O viatța vesnica [Brancusi: An eternal life], I will look to previous periods to demonstrate the evolution of events. This will demonstrate the relation of the reception of his work internally to its positive reception externally, and the great disinterest with which the Romanian nation treated Brancusi for many years, and for which it is over compensating for in recent decades. This began with the re-evaluation and re-consideration of his work at the Brancusi colloquium in 1967, which can be contrasted to the interwar period and the subsequent communist regime, where Brancusi’s work was not always accepted, and often criticized.6 This will be correlated to the
forging of ties to the West. Next, having brought to light the manner in which Romanian culture has appropriated Brancusi - who had lived most of his life and established his career abroad - as a Romanian national figure, I will analyze this 6 Oana Paăduretțu, Exegeza romaneascaă a lui Braâncusți in perioada interbelicaă (1920-1944) (Bucuresțti: Universitatea de Arte Bucuresțti, Facultatea de Istoria si Teoria Artei, 2002), 11.
claim in looking at how Brancusi’s life and work is argued to be Romanian first and foremost, before lending itself to its universal facets. In turn, I will demonstrate how this is argued to lend itself to mythicization in the banal nationalism sense. This will allow a final examination of why Brancusi’s worldwide success came at the perfect time for Romania to appropriate him as its product. Starting during the interbellic period, the problem of Romanianness in Romania became an issue to be defined and promoted in strengthening the newly unified country – proving to be a major preoccupation of Romanian intellectuals during this period.7 Oana Paăduretțu, whose thesis at the
Universitatea de Arte Bucuresțti interprets the Romanian exegeses on Brancusi during the interwar period. In doing so, she finds parallels between intellectuals’ work on identifying a Romanian national character and their contribution commenting on Brancusi’s work and increasing awareness of his presence in the Romanian press. This holds true also for various publications that I have consulted. Several books written about the sculptor in Romania include quotes from foreign figures portraying Brancusi as an important international artistic figure, but nevertheless, alongside his Romanian nationality. An example that I found twice in my research was the phrase, “Alongside Shakespeare and Beethoven there is yet one more god: the Romanian Constantin Brancusi” cited to James Ferrel, found in the foreword of the the Dumitru Daba book IÎn caăutarea lui Brancusi [In Search of Brancusi],8 and in Romaânul Braâncusți, a photo album
published by Editura Thausib in collaboration with departamentul Informatiilor Publice al Guvernului Romaniei.9 In implying that Brancusi is firstly, an artist of
world renown, and secondly, one that has such deep roots in Romanian tradition that they are acknowledged abroad, Romanians are able to use his image beyond his death to foster a feeling of nationhood and national pride.
Finally, to bring the study to a point of relevance in today’s Romania I look to explain the recent phenomena surrounding Brancusi, including the petition for the repatriation of his body and of his oeuvre, in looking to the past. Around the 7 Ibid.
8 Dumitru Daba, IÎn caăutarea lui Braâncusți (Editura Facla 1989).
9 Romaânul Braâncusți, Editura Thausib in collaboration with the Department of Public Information of the Romanian Government, Sibiu, 1996.
world, since ancient times, dead bodies have been commemorated and politicized. This is true, also, for cultural figures. Verdery explains in her book, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies, that this in particular is not a new practice, and uses the example of Dante’s body being relocated between Florence and Ravenna according to who had political power.10 Burial and reburial is also a
common and documented act of repatriation. So, why is it considered by many academics so inappropriate in the case of Brancusi? In her introduction to the book, Verdery mentions that there have been talks in Romania about getting back the bodies of Eugen Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, George Enescu, and Constantin Brancusi. This was, indeed not a new phenomenon, considering that they were previously able to reclaim Nicolae Titulescu from Paris, and episcopal Inochentie Micu from Rome.11 The importance of reburial is not just the act itself, but also
the debate around it attracting attention to the deceased, increasing their value and social visibility, which is a part of the post-socialist process.12 In her work,
she looks for the role of dead bodies in post-socialist societies as a tool for people to adapt to their new lives after 1989.13 This theory, therefore, also holds true in
the case of Brancusi, as will be discussed in the forthcoming chapters.
Before I begin the presentation of my findings, however, perhaps one of the most important points that I will have to make is that by no means is my research meant to discover any certain truth about Constantin Brancusi’s legacy, or to promote existing theories. Instead, I hope that it will analyze the presence of Brancusi in Romania today in light of his presence in the past, making connections and explaining the phenomenon of Romania’s banal appropriation of Brancusi as its own as it has developed throughout the last century. Croitoru’s recent study concerning the appropriation of Brancusi’s life and work in scope of ideological manipulation in post 1989 Romania discusses the various specific uses of the Brancusian myth as a tool to promote ideologies in popular culture. Like Croitoru, and as explained above, I also contextualize my research in Billig’s 10 Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 21.
11 Ibid, 37.
12 Ibid, 45.
theory of banal nationalism. However, dissimilarly to her research, which analyzes specific ways in which Brancusi’s work and his name is appropriated in the sphere of art, including visual culture, the development of “brancusiologie” as a field of art history, and his image as a hero in Romanian literature, I will only discuss the reception of Brancusi in Romania in order to forge a chronology of events that demonstrate how the compelling “viatțaă vesțnica” [eternal life] of the sculptor that Croitoru details came to be. In undertaking this task, I have consulted various sources, primary as well as secondary literature, in English, but also in Romanian and French. In selecting the information that is included in this thesis, I have included material that I have translated myself into English.
Chapter 1: Appropriation and Commemoration Since 1989
This year, 2016, marks 140 years since the birth of Brancusi, while February 19th, the day of his birth, was declared National Constantin Brancusi Day in Romania. Moreover, this year has been baptized The Year of Brancusi. Despite the significance that is evidently given to this year to the exclusion of previous anniversaries, the next few years are promising in terms of continuing the relatively novel tradition of commemorating the sculptor. As Florin Toma explains in his article “Brancusi – 140” in the Brancusi 140 edition of Viatța Romanaă, a magazine published since 1906 by the Romanian Writers’ Union [Uniunea Scriitorilor din Romania], 2017 will see 70 years since the death of the sculptor. Meanwhile, 2018 will be not just 80th anniversary of the inauguration of the Taârgu Jiu monumental ensemble, which honours the Romanian soldiers who fought in the First World War, culminating in the union of the country’s existing three provinces, but also 100 years from the union itself.14
Commemorations of the 140th anniversary this year, however, were not
exclusive to Romania, as Toma states in his article. Indeed, with the help of the Romanian Cultural Institute, and according to Toma, the Ministry of the Exterior and the Ministry of Culture, events were held in other major capitals. An example that sounded particularly relevant to me, but that I was unable to attend, was the “Art Talk | Appropriating Brancusi” conference hosted by the Romanian Cultural Centre in London. The most significant example of Brancusi commemorative activity this year, however, is the three day long festivity, “Brancusi Colloquium – 140 years since birth” [Colocvile Braâncusți – 140 de ani de la nasțtere], organized and held in Taârgu Jiu, which I will elaborate on in the first section of this chapter.
In the same way that Leerssen and Rigney present the various commemorations to Shakespeare, which throughout time have come most prominently in the form of centenaries, it is possible to analyze the similar commemorative practices in the case of Brancusi in modern Romania. Brancusi’s legacy has been carried forward in a very significant way in the art world. His art 14 Florin Toma, “Braâncusți – 140,” Viatța Romaâneascaă, March 2016.
and style has acted as inspiration for succeeding artists as much in Western Europe and North America as in Romania. However, my study will not include the various aspects of Brancusi’s legacy in the art world. Rather, it will use his presence in the lives of everyday Romanians through organized commemorative events and presence in the media as a unit of analysis. In doing so, it will first demonstrate how Brancusi is kept alive as a part of Romanian banal nationalism today. Moreover, this will be used to explain its contribution to fostering a feeling of Romanian pride by way of Brancusi’s successes and, ultimately, the reinforcement of a Romanian imagined community around the life of the sculptor.
a. Centenaries and Commemorations
Despite their unprecedented prevalence in recent years, catalyzed by the media, commemorations in honour of Brancusi are not an entirely new phenomenon. As demonstrated in the magazine Astra in 1967 through various articles displaying homage to the life and work of Brancusi, the 10 years since the sculptor’s death were commemorated in Romania that year.15 The various
Romanian cultural and literary publications used in the analysis at hand covered the event, including Tribuna, a Cluj publication with articles by Petru Comarnescu, V. G. Paleolog, and Barbu Brezianu, three of the most important Brancusi researchers in Romania.16 The Romanian Athenaeum [Atheneul Romaân]
and at the new Museum of Art in Bucharest [Muzeul de Arta Bucuresti] hosted the meeting of around thiry art critics, museum directors and artists in a commemorative conference, appropriately titled Colocviu International Braâncusți [The International Brancusi Colloquium], as described in “Romania Comemoreazaă pe Braâncusți” [Romania Commemorates Brancusi], an article by Jacques Lassaigne, president of the French section of the International Association of Art Critics, in Cronica published on December 9th, 1967, and
originally published in France in Le Figaro. He describes the meeting, in which foreign and local researchers of Brancusi participated as, one that “maintained an 15 Astra no. 3 (10), 1967.
intimate and simple tone, just as, without a doubt, the [man] being celebrated would have wished.”17 Moreover, 1967 also saw the commemoration of 60 years
since the first publication of reproductions of his work. This introduction of Brancusi to the Romanian public is credited to Octavian C. Taăslaăuanu in the Sibiu magazine Luceafarul, which had published numerous articles on the sculptor since its inauguration. The first ever article published about Brancusi, titled “Sculptorul Braâncusți” was published in Luceafarul on March 1st, 1907 (in issue
number 4-5).18
After his death in 1957, periodicals also began covering anniversaries such as the 90 years since his birth, published under the titles “90 de ani de la nasțterea lui Braâncusți” [“90 years since the birth of Brancusi”] in Cronica, Nr. 2, on 19 February 1966 and “Braâncusți” in Contemporanul on 18 February followed by another article a week later, on February 25, 1966. In 1976, seeing the 100 years since his birth, publications that paid homage to the artist include “Omagiul lui Braâncusți”, a volume edited by the magazine Tribuna. Continuing into the post-communist period, in 1996, the “Constantin Braâncusți, sculptor romaân si universal” [Constantin Brancusi, Romanian and universal sculptor] symposium was held in Taârgu Jiu between February 16 and the 18 in honour of 120 years since his birth.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to analyze public interest in the aforementioned commemorative events. As noted by Pavel Tțugui in Dosarul Brancusi, it is not possible to evaluate public interest in Brancusi’s work in Romania, as the numbers of visitors to events in which the Brancusi exhibited in the country were not recorded.19 Tțugui is very critical of the lack of scientific
work done in arts and culture in Romania, and praises Barbu Brezianu’s work as very important in this respect. However, it is possible to note the various ways that Brancusi was institutionalized in Romania, which will be discussed in the following section.
17 Jacques Lassaigne, “Romania Comemoreazaă pe Braâncusți,” Cronica no. 4, 9 December, 1967.
18 Ion Itu, “Constantin Braâncusți in Luceafaărul Sibian.” Astra no. 3 (10), 1967.
Beyond the evident presence of Brancusi in publications since his passing, and the accompanying commemorations, there has also been an intense concern in Romania with cultivating common “memory sites” [lieux de meémoire], to use Leerssen and Rigney’s term, originally coined by Pierre Nora. This reflects, according to Leerssen and Rigney, a sense of rupture as much as an investment in continuity. It can also be seen as a response to the enlargement of the scale upon which societies operated, with people being increasingly called upon to affiliate themselves with the help of media to an ‘imagined community’, to use Benedict Anderson’s famous phrase of 1983, made up of countless members whom they could never meet face to face.20 Such ‘sites’ of commemoration, which have
evolved since Nora’s ideas of a more static space were articulated, are now more “open-ended cultural practices,”21 to use Leersen and Rigney’s term. In the
process of Brancusi’s appropriation, which began prior to the revolution of 1989, the sculptor’s name has become embedded in everyday culture in the banal practice of using it to name public institutions. Today these range from Constantin Brancusi University in Taârgu Jiu, to the Constantin Brancusi neighbourhood [cartierul Constantin Braâncusți] in Bucharest, with street names in many of the major cities including Cluj, Oradea, Craiova, and Constantța.
What strikes as very interesting is the relationship between appropriation of Brancusi’s work and appropriation of the sculptor himself. In Romania, while art criticism has evaluated Brancusi’s art, more efforts have been made to re-integrate the sculptor than to re-re-integrate his work. Brancusi’s sculptures as commemorations are overshadowed by the attention paid to the artist himself. This is evident in looking to the ensemble at Taârgu Jiu, comprising of the Table of Silence, Gate of the Kiss, and The Endless Column. These sculptures, made to commemorate the Romanian soldiers of World War One have a history of being inadequately maintained. In Dosarul Braâncusți, Tțugui describes a work trip to Taârgu Jiu in 1949, where he found the state of the park in which the ensemble is found deplorable and the state of the monument itself also unacceptable. The 20 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1991).
21 Leerssen and Rigney, “Introduction. Fanning out from Shakespeare” in Commemorating Writers in Nineteenth-Century Europe, 6.
mayor claimed that the observable deterioration caused by chips in the chairs was due to the occupation by German soldiers in the park in 1942-1944.22
However, such opinions prevail, despite the passing of law 224 by the Parliament in December 29, 1992, which declares the Monumental Ensemble of Calea Eroilor [Heroes Way] of national interest, and public utility, protecting it against changes and inappropriate interventions.23 In a piece written by Dragosț
Bucurenci in response to the “Braâncusți e al meu” [Brancusi is mine] campaign dedicated to raising money to buy The Wisdom of the Earth, to be discussed in the following section, the writer advocates for the initiative of taking responsibility of Brancusi, using the monuments in Taârgu Jiu as an example of the mistreatment that Brancusi’s work endures in Romania. In the polemic titled “Braâncusți nu e al nostru” [Brancusi is not ours], Bucurenci remarks, “I saw in those Gorjan afternoons hoards of people passionate about the avant garde, replete with catharsis and reeking of minimalism, having climbed with their feet on The Table of Silence under the bovine gaze of those who were taking their photo. Of the alley of the chairs, about two were missing, and a few others were damaged. The Gate of the Kiss also carried traces of the impetuous passion of the lovers of brancusian art: their name having been carved aere perennius in the slabs of stone.”24 This piece, in its irony, points towards the initiative which, on
this 140th year since the sculptor’s birth, calls Romanian citizens to take
responsibility of Brancusi as their own, rather than to assume the community will take care of preserving his memory on its own.
This example lends itself to the idea presented by Gillis that commemorative activity is both social and political, and the product of both individual and group memories: the memories and identities that influence each other, that we think with, and that are not facts.25 In explaining the most recent
claims to Brancusi in the following section and following in Chapter 2 to demonstrate the continutity of events, both social and political, I have produced a 22 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 12.
23 Barbu Brezianu, Brancusi in Romania, trans. Ilie Marcu (Bucuresțti: Editura ALLFA, 2005), 73.
24 Dragosț Bucurenci, “Braâncusți nu e al nostru,” 18 May, 2016. http://bucurenci.ro/2016/05/18/brancusi-nu-e-al-nostru/.
25 John R. Gillis, Commemorations. The Politics of National Identity (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994), 5.
descriptive timeline of the manipulated memories and identities in Romania, specifically the manipulation of Brancusi’s own identity through various interpretations and reinterpretations of his life and work.
b. Most Recent Initiatives in Reclaiming Brancusi
The aforementioned initiative that is currently taking place in Romania, coordinated by the Ministry of Culture, is the acquisition of the 1907 sculpture, The Wisdom of the Earth. The launch of the program took place on May 19, 2016, as described on the website of the Romanian Government, gov.ro. The plan entails soliciting donations from citizens in order to afford the purchase of the sculpture, worth 11 million euro by September 30, 2016. The communication of the launch states that the initiative,
“It is one of the most important national projects meant to strengthen the solidarity between state and society, it’s goal being the recovery of an important component of the local culture. The acquisition of the work will be done through a joint effort of the state and of the citizens: a sum of five million euro will be allocated to the project by the government and six million euro will be collected with the voluntary help of private contributors.”26
The project is promoted in the media, including radio and television, and sees support from various Romanian political and cultural personalities. Moreover, this support is reinforced in its juxtaposition with that of foreign figures, such as France’s ambassador François Saint-Paul, as well as expatriate and leading Brancusi specialist Doina Lemny, who is a researcher at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
26 “Astaăzi se lanseazaă campania natționalaă de subscriptție publicaă pentru achizitționarea operei lui Braâncusți ‘Cumintțenia paămaântului’.” Guvernul Romaâniei. 19 May, 2016.
http://gov.ro/ro/media/comunicate/astazi-se-lanseaza-campania-nationala-de-subscriptie-publica-pentru-achizitionarea-operei-lui-brancu-i-cumintenia-pamantului&page=1.
This effort, which is supposed to be an act of uniting Romanians for a common cultural project, however, also demonstrates the appropriation of Brancusi before that of his work. The exhibition of The Wisdom of the Earth for the first time in Romania in the Tinerimea Artisticaă exhibition in 1910 was one of the most polarizing moments in the sculptor’s relationship with the country, as I will further explain and contextualize in the following chapter. The present project, therefore, lends itself to an attempt to vindicate the reactions to Brancusi’s work decades ago, which paved the way to the sculptor’s estrangement from Romania in the decade prior to his death. The acquisition of the sculpture aims to remove it from its current position in a private collection to make it available indefinitely to the Romanian public.
The petition for The Wisdom of the Earth, however, is only a successor of the more far-reaching, but well known claim that Brancusi had a wish to donate the contents of his atelier at 11 Impasse Ronsin, where he lived and worked prior to his death in 1957, to the Romanian state. This idea, which came to prominence between the years 1949 and 1951, was disseminated by intellectuals of the time, but bears no documentary evidence. Brancusi’s two legal inheritors and apprentices in the years prior to his death, Alexandre Istrati and Natalia Dumitresco never expressed that the sculptor would have donated his work or his atelier to the Romanian government. On the contrary, in their piece in the homage book put together by the periodical Tribuna in 1967, they explain their efforts to keep the atelier intact in Impasse Ronsin in efforts to maintain the sculptor’s vision of his work in relation to its environment, instead of moving it to the museum where spaces were smaller. They write that “At the Beaubourg plateau, the reconstruction of his atelier will be done according to the plans kept by us, those from the time that he was alive, the orientation of the light and space between works will be the same. We believe this is the most beautiful homage brought to his oeuvre and which happily marks the centenary of his birth.”27
27 Natalia Dumitrescu and Alexandru Istrati, “Noua ani alaături de el,” in Omagiu lui Braâncusți (Tribuna 1976), 14.
Barbu Brezianu, one of the most prolific and trusted researchers of Brancusi in Romania, speculates that the third, undocumented, meeting of the Academy in 1951 addressing the re-evaluation of Brancusi related more specifically to details of the supposed donation would be “containing, maybe, essential information regarding the Brancusi case.”28 Brezianu cites witnesses to
this claim, including the sister of Alexandre Istrati, Iulia Ghitțescu-Istrati, who he quotes as saying, “he wanted to leave his oeuvre to the Romanian state, but following some gross insults, Brancusi changed his will and left everything to the French state.”29 In the same interview, Brezianu explains that upon realizing the
mistake made by the Academy, efforts were made to regain Brancusi’s trust in Romanian cultural figures and institutions through the visits of Eugen Jebeleanu and his wife, as well as Mircea Baălaănescu, the Romanian ambassador in Paris, who promised him a warm reception and commissions in Romania, which the sculptor refused. However, ultimately, no documents in relation to the supposed wish to donate exist to date. Doina Lemny, an art historian and researcher of Romanian origin who has been working on Brancusi in the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, where his atelier currently resides, stresses this in her interview with Agerpres on the 19th of February, 2016, in light of the sculptor’s
140 year commemorative celebrations.30 In her interview, she echoes the
sentiments of Jean Cassou, former director of the National Museum of Modern Art, who is quoted in the “Braâncusți îân muzeele lumii” [Brancusi in the museums of the world] colloquium by George Cuibusț in Tribuna, 7 October 1965, “Many of his works together with his atelier today are sheltered in an honorable space in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.”31 Such arguments support the idea that it
would be inappropriate to relocate the work of the sculptor, who spent the entirety of his adulthood influencing modern art and building his famous atelier in Europe’s capital of culture.
28 Rodica Palade, “Sfîârsțit de Secol. Interviu cu Barbu Brezianu,” 22 no. 43, (25-31), October 1995.
29 Ibid.
30 “Interviu Doina Lemny: Braâncusți ne fascineazaă pe totți - a reusțit saă se impunaă îân fatța marilor artisțti ai epocii,” AGERPRES. 19 February 2016.
http://www.agerpres.ro/cultura/2016/02/19/interviu-doina-lemny-brancusi-ne-fascineaza-pe-toti-a-reusit-sa-se-impuna-in-fata-marilor-artisti-ai-epocii-17-01-26.
Other debates regarding appropriation of Brancusi’s work regards the monumental ensemble in Taârgu Jiu, which have been ongoing for over the last two decades. In his 1995 interview mentioned above, in the magazine 22, Brezianu mentions the discussion surrounding whether or not the church of Saints Petru and Pavel, which finds itself directly on the axis of the ensemble at Taârgu Jiu, on the Calea Eroilor [Heroes Way], was intended as part of Brancusi’s arrangement, or whether it can be taken down or relocated.32 These claims are
led by Radu Varia, art critic and president of the International Brancusi Foundation in New York and Bucharest since 1991, who presented in his 1986 book plans of the ensemble, where the church is not present and who claims that the church should be either relocated or taken down. Lack of regulations surrounding the monuments has allowed for Varia to perforate the first nodule on the column to check if water had affected the material, and pushed for the re-metallization of the structure abroad, despite it being done by Brancusi in Romania decades earlier. Restoration issues and other issues including the cutting of trees surrounding the column, which are said to have been part of Brancusi’s plan, conforming to his tendency to link his work to the environment, or the deterioration of the chairs in the garden also present problems that are not being adequately dealt with in Romania. Inconsistencies in measures taken to preserve these pieces leads to doubts about the security of other pieces, such as the Wisdom of the Earth, which is currently being petitioned for, in Romania, under its relatively weak cultural regulation.
In the last decade, otherwise common people – not specialists in art history or its criticism – have put several initiatives in place to reclaim Brancusi in Romania. The most heavily criticized project to reclaim Brancusi comes in the form of a call to bringing his body back. This private initiative, undertaken by writer Laurian Staănchescu, was acknowledged even by the Romanian Academy. Another focuses on using the house of his birth and childhood in Hobitța, Gorj, as a patrimonial monument. This, however, traces false roots, since the house no longer exists, despite the replica that is currently advertised as the “House-Museum Brancusi”. Lemny also addresses the effort of establishing a memorial 32 Palade, “Sfîârsțit de Secol. Interviu cu Barbu Brezianu,” 22 no. 43, (25-31), October 1995.
home in the region of Gorj at large, as the sculptor has no more ties to the region that he had been running away from even as a child, and where not even an atelier in which he would have practiced is known today.33 According to Petru
Comarnescu’s article in Gazeta Literara, upon his visit to Hobitța in 1964 there was nothing in the spot where the house where Brancusi was born used to be, save two old mulberry trees. He explains this with his encounter with the step son of Brancusi’s sister Frusina, who maintains that the structure of the old house was used by his mother to build a new house on her own inherited plot of land in 1908 upon disagreements with their brother Grigore.34 The abundance of
such claims devalues the efforts to include Brancusi in Romanian cultural life in a meaningful way, which are therefore rendered banal. In the preface to Croitoru’s Braâncusți: O viatța vesțnica, Cristian Nae traces such initiatives to the period prior to 1974. He explains that the theory of Dacian protochronism that developed when Romania endured political isolation under Ceausescu, catalyzed by cultural discourse, led to the intense absorption of Brancusi a decade and a half later.
33 “Interviu Doina Lemny: Braâncusți ne fascineazaă pe totți - a reusțit saă se impunaă îân fatța marilor artisțti ai epocii,” AGERPRES, 19 February 2016.
34 Petru Comarnescu, “Maărturii despre Braâncusți, Pesțtisțenii de ieri si de azi,” Gazeta Literaraă, year XI, no. 32 (543), 6 August, 1964.
Chapter 2: Brancusi & Romania, an Exercise in Periodization
Today’s claims to Brancusi’s work, and, moreover, to his name and body, are regarded as radical not just by foreign experts on the artist, but also Romanian expatriates. Doina Lemny, has explicitly disapproved such methods of reclaiming Brancusi. In her interview with Agerpres, she encourages practical means of making Brancusi accessible to the public in Romania, such as improving infrastructure to facilitate visitors’ travel to Taârgu Jiu, or conducting research in libraries such as the Institute of Art History in Bucharest, where documents and literature on Brancusi is available to the public. She explicitly disapproves, however, misinformed initiatives such as Staănchescu’s, stating that, “these [infrastructure and research] are the ways [to promote Brancusi as a Romanian artist], in my opinion, not invented ideas, like this invention of an ‘enlightened poet’, to repatriate Brancusi’s body.35 She goes on to call this initiative a way to
disrespect the artist’s wishes and a shame that reached Paris, where it is fortunately disregarded.
In order to understand why these claims are criticized, I have looked at Brancusi’s ties to Romania in the past and how they have evolved. More specifically, in an act of periodization, I will demonstrate that the claims held today are the most tenacious in a series of fluctuating attitudes of Romania towards Brancusi since the interwar period, when his success became evident abroad. In demonstrating the all but tumultuous continuity of treatment of Brancusi in the last century – during his life as well as after his passing - it will be possible to demonstrate his increasing importance in Romanian public life in a way that counter correlates the importance given to his art.
The information that I will present below does not aim to exhaust the many interactions that Brancusi had, in his career as a sculptor and beyond, with the Romanian public and Romanian art criticism, which has already been done in works such as that of Barbu Brezianu in his 1978 book Brancusi in Romania, 35 “Interviu Doina Lemny: Braâncusți ne fascineazaă pe totți - a reusțit saă se impunaă îân fatța marilor artisțti ai epocii,” AGERPRES, 19 February 2016.
which strictly outlines Brancusi’s exhibitions in Romania. Rather, I hope to be able to condense this information in a way that will succinctly demonstrate the inconsistencies in art criticism and cultural policy that made it very hard for the sculptor to produce a fruitful career at home. I believe that looking at the level of exposure of the artist and his work in Romania in the form of exhibitions, commissioned works and publications dedicated to him is the closest I will get to the form of appropriation evident throughout his life, after his death, and today.
A thesis by Oana Paăduretțu at the Bucharest University of Arts, “Exegeza romaâneascaă a lui Braâncuşi îân perioada interbelicaă (1920-1944)” [Brancusi’s Romanian exegeses in the interwar period], which details the Romanian discourse around Brancusi’s work in the interwar period, was very useful in helping me identify critical moments in Brancusi’s association with Romania during this period and prior to it, which I clarified and reinforced in looking at Brezianu’s detailed chronology in Brancusi in Romania. However, for events relating to the post-war period I look to Tțugui’s Dosarul Brancusi, which comments on many details of Brancusi’s reception in Romania, and in the final section of this chapter, the years subsequent to Brancusi’s death in 1957, I rely also on my own findings from periodicals in this period.
a. Early Career - Exhibiting in Romania and Initial Reception: 1903 - 1913
Throughout his formative years studying in Bucharest, Brancusi’s work was praised and received awards, but was rarely signaled in the Romanian press. The first time he was mentioned in local media was, according to Brezianu, after his debut in the pavilion of the School of Trades in 1898 Regional Exposition in Bibescu Park, now known as Nicolae Romanescu Park, in Craiova. Here he exhibited a cast portrait of scholar Gheorghe Chitu, and was mentioned in the periodicals Albina and Vointța Craiovei.36 Public acclaim of his work began about
five years later, in 1903 when his Ecorsțeul was displayed in the Romanian Athenaeum, in Bucharest, and since acquired by the Ministry of Public 36 Barbu Brezianu, “Receptarea lui Braâncusți îân Cultura Romaâneasca -1914,” in Constantin Braâncusți. Destinul Postum. Sesiune de Comunicaări in 2001 (Editura Ministerului de Interne, 2002), 31.
Instruction and Culture [Instructiunii Publice si Cultelor] for teaching purposes, as requested by students.37 Prior to leaving the country to pursue his studies in
Paris, Brancusi was commissioned to produce a commemorative bust of General Dr. Carol Davila, which was abandoned due to disagreements over his vision of it, which fell in disaccord with the classic version envisioned by the commissioning authorities. Regardless, the sculpture was cast in bronze and displayed at the Central Military Hospital of Bucharest only in 1912.38 The bust was also the first
of his works to be covered in a Romanian newspaper, on October 28, 1903 in the “Viatța Militaraă” [Military Life] supplement of Adevaărul.39 After finding it altered
in 1938 and being upset by the fact, as Comarnescu maintains,40 in 1964,
Brezianu reflects on the abandonment of this work, which had been exhibited for over fifty years, unsigned by the artist. This is a sign of his diligence and single-mindedness in relation to his work, which he refused to be advised on as early as 1903 on this piece commissioned with the help of Dr. Dimitrie Gerota and only claimed shortly preceding his death. Moreover, this is an indication of the discord between the artist and Romanian culture, which he abandoned shortly thereafter in favor of pursuing a career as a more emancipated sculptor than would have been possible in Romania.41
In this period there were not any art critics or art historians per se in Romania, according to Brezianu’s “Receptarea lui Braâncusți in Cultura Romaneascaă -1914”, published in Constantin Braâncusți. Destinul Postum. Sesiune de Comunicaări in 2002. The underdeveloped fields of art and culture in Romania, relative to those of Western Europe, pushed the young sculptor to pursue his studies abroad. The same lack of synchronization between Romanian and Western ideas of art also come to the detriment of the sculptor’s relationship with his native country, as will be explained in the following section of this chapter.
37 Paăduretțu, Exegeza romaneascaă a lui Braâncusți in perioada interbelicaă (1920-1944), 12.
38 Barbu Brezianu, “The Beginnings of Brancusi,” Art Journal, 25:1 (1965): 19.
39 Brezianu, “Receptarea lui Braâncusți îân Cultura Romaâneasca -1914,” in Constantin Braâncusți. Destinul Postum, 32.
40 Petru Comarnescu, Valoarea romaâneascaă sți universalaă a sculpturii lui Constantin Braâncusți, ed. Victor Craăciun, Gabriel Gherasim (Bucuresțti: Editura Semne, 2015), 36.
While the move to Paris was undertaken by Brancusi on foot, and lasted approximately two years due to lack of funds and work found on the way, his mission to study abroad was funded, however insufficiently, by Romanian organizations such as Madona Dudu Church in Craiova starting as early as 1903 and the Ministry of of Public Instruction and Culture upon his entry to the EÉcole de Beaux Arts in Paris in 1905. Private financial help also came from Dr. Gerota, one of his supporters prior to his newfound success abroad, who sent him 25 francs a month to support his studies.
His first exposure in the press also came from his supportive compatriots, Otilia Cosmuta and Nicolae Vaschide (who wrote under the pseudonym Ion Magura), who signaled him to the French press after his participation in the Autumn Salon in Paris. In 1907 Cosmuta also sent the sculptor’s biographical details and photographs of Brancusi’s pieces, which were exhibited in French salons, to Octavian Taăslaăuanu, the director of the magazine Luceafaărul, who published them in the fourth and fifth issues of the magazine.42 The same year, he
participated in the 6th expo of the Tinerimea Artisticaă, an artists’ society who
worked towards the promotion of fine arts in Romania. However, 1907 marked a first turning point in attitude towards Brancusi’s work in Romania. Critical reception in Romania at this time depended largely on Brancusi’s adaptation of conventional, classical styles of sculpture taught in academies at that point and practiced by the sculptor throughout the duration of his studies in the country. It is with his turn to modern sculpture, with the creation of The Prayer, The Kiss, and The Wisdom of the Earth, the pieces and style that he is best known for and that he was a pioneer in establishing, that he began being criticized for starting in this period, just three years after his arrival in Paris. However, among the Romanian avant-garde, his work was still appreciated, and he participated in another Tinerimea Artisticaă exposition in 1909 when he returned to Romania as a member of their society, where he was awarded with a prize and sold his work “Portretul pictorului N. Daăraăscu” [Portrait of painter N. Daăraăscu] to the Ministry
of Public Instruction and Culture.43 His break with Romania, however, was
demonstrated the following year.
In 1910, when The Wisdom of the Earth was exhibited at the 9th
Tinerimea Artisticaă exposition - the most “ample” exposition of its sort until that time in Romania, as described by Paduretu, the sculpture faced much criticism for its style, which was considered scandalous for not conforming to the style of the academic portraits appreciated at the time.44 This incident is one of the
indicative examples of the discord between trends in Western Europe and North America and the maintenance of sober conventionalism in art in Romania – the classic sculpture still taught in academies. Nevertheless, The Wisdom of the Earth and The Kiss, which was exhibited in another Tinerimea Artisticaă exposition later that year, were both bought, by G. Romascu and the collector V. N. Popp respectively, counted among the few remaining supporters of Brancusi’s work in the country. Due to the lack of favourable reception, Brancusi does not return to Romania the following year. However, he is still included in the biographic dictionary of T. Cornel, a Paris correspondent and art critic, which was published in Bucharest and dedicated two pages to Brancusi, who he had admired since he first exhibited at the Socieéteé Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1907.
Something to note about the controversies surrounding Brancusi’s work in Romania is that conflict regarding modern art in the former half of the 20th
century was frequent – it was not a phenomenon divorced from the western capitals of culture. What is different about the reception of modern art in Romania, however, is that controversies led to estrangement of artists, as is evident in Brancusi’s case. Meanwhile, in New York, for example, anti-modernist movements such as those following the 1913 Armory Show where Brancusi exhibited, provoked discussion that served to promote and spark interest in the artist’s work,45 not rejection as was the case in Romania.
43 Ibid, 12.
44 Ibid, 13.
45 Petru Comarnescu, “IÎn muzeele lumii,” Lumea, 27 February, 1966, in Braâncusți: Mit si metamorfozaă îân sculptura contemporanaă (Bucuresțti: Editura Meridiane, 1972), 185.
His return in 1912 to participate in the Independent Artists’ Salon [Salonul al Artisțtilor Independentți] is followed by further problems regarding his participation in the 11th expo of the Tinerimea Artisticaă and in the Official Salon
[Salonul Oficial], as some members of the Tinerimea Artisticaă were opposed to his work being exhibited elsewhere simultaneously. This resulted in his participating only in the Salonul Oficial, where he wins the first prize of 2,000 lei for his Studiu [Study]. However, the following year, pending his exhibition of Pasaărea Maăiastra [Maiastra] in the 13th expo of the Tinerimea Artisticaă,
represented, as Paduretu explains, the “radical rupture” with the Romanian art criticism of the time.46 An example of the event, covered in the Romanian press,
includes an article in Flacaăra published on April 27, 1913, by Iosif Iser, who writes, “People, Brancusi has gone crazy! I do not understand what you are waiting for and especially how you accept him to the exposition!”47 O. Spaethe,
another member of the Tinerimea Artisticaă, also opposed Brancusi’s work, wanting to push him away from the society, which Brancusi acknowledges in 1938 to Ionel Jianu. Few notable critics, such as Tudor Arghezi, defend Brancusi, citing a lack of understanding to the negative opinions expressed, and condemning the authorities in the field of culture and art for their indifference. Pavel Tțugui later echoes this in his book Dosarul Braâncusți, where he maintains that it is the responsibility of the art critics, the art historians, and the intellectuals to bring the understanding of culture to the common Romanian, something they had failed to do starting in this period.
b. Interwar Estrangement: 1914 - 1944
Arghezi continued to write about and in defense of Brancusi throughout his life. In 1914 he published three articles in the periodical Seara. The article published on June 23rd of that year reads, “Brancusi does not find space for his
statues on Romanian soil, just like he didn’t find rest for his work as a fierce and honest worker.”48 This statement evokes an idea that, his work is still not
46 Paăduretțu, Exegeza romaneascaă a lui Braâncusți in perioada interbelicaă (1920-1944), 14.
47 Ibid, 15.
48 Tudor Arghezi, “Pensula sți dalta” (Bucuresțti: Meridiane, 1973), 125, quoted in Paăduretțu, Exegeza romaneascaă a lui Braâncusți in perioada interbelicaă (1920-1944), 15.
understood - even in the midst of increasingly radical claims to the sculptor’s work in this period, and despite the preceding indifference and negative reception with which it was treated in this period. The negative reception, culminating in the rejection of Brancusi’s vision for a commissioned monument honoring Spiru Haret in the University Square [Piatța Universitaătții] in Bucharest, led him not to return to Romania until the end of the First World War. The absence, however, proved to be not an impediment to his work, but a fruitful time for his creation, in which he exhibited not just in Europe, but also began exhibiting in New York.
He returned after the war, in 1920, to exhibit in the third exposition of Arta Romaânaă, a new, more prestigious society whose establishment in 1918 was partly due to divergence from Tinerimea Artisticaă, and of which he became a member in 1921, exhibiting his work regularly in Bucharest. Though some critics come to defend the artist after his second break from Romania, and the continued mockery of his work, their comments were deemed inconclusive and typical of the dilettantish Romanian art criticism, remarked as early as 1908 by A. Baltazar, as Paăduretțu explains more profoundly in her analysis.49 Membership in
such associations, and especially the support of magazines such as Contimporanul, the most prominent of the Romanian avant-garde publications, having started in 1922 and lasting for the following decade, publishing both Romanian writers as well as reproducing the works of foreign ones, acted as some of the few strings holding on to Brancusi’s professional connections to Romania. Catalyzed by this maintenance of good relations with part of the Romanian avant-garde, Brancusi continued participating in exhibitions in Romania throughout the 1920s and in the Romanian pavilions in art exhibitions in the interwar period, including those in Venice, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. In January of 1923 he is awarded the Order of the Star of Romania [Steaua Romaniei].50
49 Ibid, 17.
November 30, 1924, sees the first international art exhibition organized by Contimporanul, in which Brancusi exhibits among Romanian and foreign artists, including Arp, Klee, Marcel Janco, and Victor Brauner. They also publish a special Brancusi issue, number 53-54.51 Despite the support of the Romanian
avant-garde community for Brancusi’s work, culminating in the dedication of the issue of Contimporanul, consecrated solely to Brancusi, the general public seemed to have little or no exposure to the artist, only enhanced by the lack of acceptance of Brancusi’s public commissions. However, 1935 saw Aretia Taătaărascu, the wife of the Prime Minister, who presided the Women’s League of Gorj, asking Brancusi to return to the country to create a monument in honor of the soldiers of the First World War. He thinks about installing an Endless Column, the details of which he discusses and materializes with Stefan Georgescu-Gorjan.52 They spend the summer and fall of 1937 working on this project, which
is inaugurated on October 27, 1938.53 This commission presented the sculptor an
opportunity to give something to his native country, but was also an occasion for Romanians to receive and interact with their compatriot. With the onset of The Second World War, Brancusi does not return to Romania, but he exhibits Head of a Girl (Danaîïde) in Bucharest in 1942.
c. Post-War Period Rejection: 1945 - 1957
Until August 23, 1944 artists were limited in their interactions with Romanian social life, and only after this point were they able to regain activity through the new cultural policy, the artist “received a newfound dignity.”54
However, the regime change also proved to be completely intolerant to expatriates and modernists, Brancusi being a representative of both. This saw the estrangement of Brancusi from Romania until 1950. The first step toward accepting Brancusi and the value of his work only came about in 1950 with the inauguration of the National Gallery in the Museum of Art of the Republic, where 51 Ibid, 34.
52 Ibid, 42.
53 Ibid, 49.
54 Mircea Popescu and Eugen Schileru, introduction to Artele Plastice in Romîânia dupaă 23 August 1944 (Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîâne, 1959), 10.
two of his works were exhibited - The Portrait of Painter Darascu and Studiul (Somnul),55 and the establishment of the Artists’ Union [Uniunea a Artisțitilor
Plastici], whose leaders decided to register him with full rights as a member. In order to define Brancusi’s reception in Romania in this post war period, I consulted the research of Barbu Brezianu, who most diligently documented this period, and supplemented the findings with Pavel Tțugui’s analysis. Barbu Brezianu is one of the most well known Romanian researchers specializing in Brancusi from this period onwards. He began his research upon being hired by George Oprescu at the Institute of Art History of the Popular Romanian Republic [Institutul de Istoria Artelor al Academiei RPR] in 1953, a part of which, the Center for Brancusian Studies Barbu Brezianu [Centrul de Cercetare Brancusțianaă Barbu Brezianu], now bears his name. He credits his interest in documenting the life and the works of Brancusi in relation to his native country in realizing that the period he spent in Romania was largely unknown, as he states in an interview in the periodical 22 in 1995.56
This period, among the toughest for artists in Romania, also gave rise to some of the myths that circulate today. Most notably, this period saw the articulation of claims relating to Brancusi’s wish to donate his atelier and his works to the Romanian state, dated to 1951. In Brezianu’s interview, he explains that speculations that the two meetings of the Academy of the RPR on the 28th of
February and the 7th of March 1951, as well as a third undocumented one, to
re-evaluate Brancusi’s work were not coincidental, but directed at a higher level by the Minister of the Exterior, Ana Pauker, in relation to, perhaps, the said donation. The meetings concluded, after harsh words being said by members such as G. Calinescu and the poet A. Toma, in Professor Al. Graur confirming that the academy is “against the acceptance in the Museum of Art of the Popular Republic of Romania of the oeuvre of Brancusi”.57 This is correlated, according to Brezianu,
to the sculptor’s renouncing his Romanian citizenship just weeks later as a confirmation of the events. However, as mentioned before, no supporting 55 Brezianu, Brancusi in Romania, 53.
56 Palade, “Sfîârsțit de Secol. Interviu cu Barbu Brezianu.” 22 no. 43, (25-31), October 1995.
documents of any form exist, and Brancusi’s inheritors, Istrati and Dumitresco have not disclosed anything of the sort. Tțugui is very skeptical of when such correspondence may have even been possible, stating the years 1949, 1950, and as late as spring 1951 when he renounced his Romanian citizenship as the possible time span for such correspondence to have occurred, which in investigations of the archives of the Ministry of the Exterior, the Council of Ministers, and the Ministry of Arts provide no proof of correspondence or any material relating to the claim.58 There is also no mention of Brancusi’s supposed
will to donate anything in minutes from these discussions.59 Such investigation
on this case, however, does not refute the theory, which still circulates in Romanian public life today. However, what is most relevant about this claim and its interpretations in the continuation of events surrounding Brancusi’s relationship with the country that is so eager to re-engage with him now, is the fact that even in the academic circles of the Academy, Ion Jalea was among the only to support the sculptor in this period, as is evidenced in his published work.60 Brezianu acknowledges this, and quotes Jalea’s Memoriile, where he
states, “a flood of fury rushed over me. The most severe of all was poet A. Toma, also a new academic, who asked that I be stopped from defending reactionarism and enemies of the regime.”61 Thus this supposed incident, the reason for the
meetings, often outweighs the importance of the idea that Brancusi had little to no support in Romania during this time. Instead, the theories stemming from the perceived reasons for the meanings thrive until today as part of the Brancusian myth.
Tțugui, in Chapter Five of Dosarul Brancusi, analyzes reports on a this series of meetings and the intense debate that ensued in 1951 after Ion Jalea read his communication on Brancusi as homage to the sculptor’s 75th anniversary.62 He
describes that G. Oprescu, one of the most well known art historians in Romania’s history, had mixed reviews, praising the first part of his career and criticizing the 58 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți.
59 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 45.
60 Ion Jalea, “Brîâncusi,” Contimporanul no. 40 (522), 5 October, 1956.
61 Palade, “Sfîârsțit de Secol. Interviu cu Barbu Brezianu.” 22 no. 43, (25-31), October 1995.
latter. He is even said to agree with G. Calinescu, saying, according to notes from Secretary Mihail Sadoveanu, “even when he uses elements from popular art, [he is] speculating through bizarre means the morbid tastes of the bourgeois society.”63
This opinion in Romanian art criticism at the time, however, did not just exist between the walls of the academy. Ten years after Brancusi’s ensemble at Taârgu Jiu was erected and inaugurated, he endured criticism and insults from the communist regime, the mayor of the city even proposing that it should be taken down and melted.64 This attempt to take it down actually took place in the spring
of 1951. This event is recalled in Amintiri despre Braâncusți, where Sțtefan Georgescu-Gorjan, the engineer who helped build the column, writes, “Around the mid 1950s, from a local initiative […] the Column was subject to a severe demonstration from which it came out practically untouched – with the exception of a small deviation of the top.”65 This attempt was sanctioned by the
state authorities in Craiova and the president of the Art Committee in Bucharest.66
Despite these events, which are an invaluable are rare demonstration of the public’s reception in this period, in August 1956 the first group of works by Brancusi, most from the V. N. Popp collection, are exhibited in the Hall of Mirrors of the Craiova Art Museum.67 In December of the same year, on the occasion of
the year of his 80th birthday, the first personal exhibition of his works in Europe
opens at the Museum of Art, however the sculptor does not answer the invitation, sent to him by M. H. Maxy and Camil Ressu.68
63 P. Popescu-Gogan interview with Barbu Brezianu in 22, quoted in Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 47.
64 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 36.
65 Sțtefan Georgescu-Gorjan, Amintiri despre Braâncusți (Craiova: Scrisul Romaânesc, 1988), 122-123.
66 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 79.
67 Brezianu, Brancusi in Romania, 55.
d. Posthumous Re-Appropriation: Post 1957
Lucian Blaga, a poet and another one of the most prominent Romanian cultural figures, in 1955-1956, expresses his belief that his literary output and the sculptural output of Brancusi are very similar in their roots and their serving as a continuous liaison to “our primitive [Romanian] spiritual background”.69 The
claimed existence of such a primitive Romanian folk tradition in the work of Brancusi serves as one of the primary claims to his fame as a sculptor in Romania, in combination to the universality of his work. However, the persisting insistence on the inclusion of Romanian tradition in Brancusi’s work as the most important component of it, which was heavily promoted in this period, did not contribute to a more comprehensive and deep analysis of his work in pioneering modern art – which he was ostracized for in Romania the previous decades.
The push for Brancusi’s re-appropriation in Romania after his death began as early as June 1958, when a Brancusi Documentary Exhibition opens in the Regional Museum in Taârgu Jiu.70 He is also remembered after his death, at
least in the publications that had written about him until that point, an example being the homage of five years since his death in Contimporanul issue n. 15 (809), published on April 13, 1962.71 However, widespread commemorative
activity began a decade after his death with the 1967 Symposium organized in Craiova.72 The fall of the same year saw the First International Brancusi
Colloquium in Bucharest, sponsored by the State Committee for Culture and the Arts, and the International Association of Art Critics. Thirty-nine communications on Brancusi’s art and life are presented, including those of experts and friends such as Sidney Geist, V. G. Paleolog, Carola Giedion-Welcker, G. Oprescu, Ion Jalea, Irina Codereanu, Comarnescu, Brezianu.73
69 Tțugui, Dosarul Braâncusți, 11.
70 Brezianu, Brancusi in Romania, 57.
71 Contimporanul no. 15 (809), 13 April, 1962.
72 Brezianu, Brancusi in Romania, 61.
