Countries Through Art: The Modern Age in Transylvania

1. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The “long 19th century” starts with the French Revolution and ends with the First World War. This period is marked by the deep seated change of the whole edifice of life. The economy based on feudum, a society of the privileged and arts of the connoisseur are doomed to disappearance. Many countries in Europe underwent an Industrial Revolution that spread elsewhere by the end of the century, with factories and railway lines built all over the continent that changed from the landscape to the culture everything. A bourgeois society is coming into grasp with its social structure based on money, marked by an increasing uniformity and drabness of existence.

2. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The bourgeois culture created its own place of manifestation: the city. This is the period of urbanization, when today’s outlook of the cities was created. Although the romantic influence is present throughout the whole period, there is a visible decline by mid-century. The condition of the artist itself change, the era of the great philanthropists declined and the art products became subjects to the market principles. The self confident bourgeois society was not willing to learn lessons of taste from the usually less wealthy artists. Subsequently, this split brought into being a new kind of lifestyle: the one of the Bohemians, rebels whose only cause could be defiance of the Establishment.

3. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The major defining event of the century was the raise of nations. Romanian history and history of arts is dominated by the new fascination, that of imaginary bounds with a large community. This is the era of the invented traditions that marks space and culture with the symbols of nation, many of them clustered around the1848 Revolution. These considerations on the era of modernization sets up the frame of the art project carried out by the pupils of the Art High School from Sfantu Gheorghe, Romania, in their attempt to capture by the means of plastic art representations the essence of change.

4. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The composition is centered on the pyramid, a widely used Masonic symbol, the bloody wound on the surface and the hit of pick-axe are meant to illustrate the immediate birth of Freedom. The street lamp placed in the middle brings up the idea of Enlightenment. The character in chains points out another characteristic of the era: that of exclusion, especially practiced with the hardly definable socially unfit, the insane. This is the time when mental hospitals came into being. The flag and rosette hints the 1848 revolution. The characters wear costumes of the epoch. BOTH NOÉMI IX.B.

5. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The image exhibits the clash of two different worlds. On the left are two persons wearing popular costumes, belonging by their appearance to the world in disappearance: peasant, traditional and rural. On their right, bourgeois greeting each other on the characteristic manner of the society on the making. The suspicion and renitence of the peasants is expressed by the finger pointing towards the latter. The street lamp is a characteristic sign of urban culture. The scene takes place in front of one emblematic building of Sfantu Gheorghe. SIPOS ISTVÁN IX.B.

6. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The characteristic building of the new social strata appeared in the rural world - the wealthy peasant. The long porch of the house and the high roof are marks of this style of building homes. The idealized way of representation hints another specific of the era: the romantic view of the village as the depositary of the genuine values of the nation. JAKABFFY EDIT X.B

7. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The monument is one of the most important symbols of the 1848 revolution, a genuine lieu de memoire of Sfantu Gheorghe. The two lions embody the strong yearn for Liberty, the monument is the centre of the city and of the commemorative acts of the Hungarian national holiday, 15th of March, the starting day of the Revolution. ERŐSS KINGA RENÁTA XI.B.

8. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The composition exhibits in form and content the romantic perception of the Revolution. This is a reproduction of two famous verse of the poet Petőfi Sándor, leader of the revolutionary youth: “sharper is the sword than the handcuffs.” The poet is bearing a flag and stands proudly in front of the ruins of past humiliation. MÁTHÉ LÁSZLÓ IX.B.

9. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The chariot and the gun, hat and uniform, the pictograms of high and low culture, images that presents an other side of the period: the striking contrast of the great wars and struggles and that of the Belle Époque. The gun bears a special significance, being the symbol of voluntary participation of the whole of nation to the 1848 revolution: every parish donated the bell of the churches to be smelted into guns. SZABÓ – HEIMERL TÜNDE XI.B.

10. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The change in the society’s structure brought a never experienced uniformity in social customs, habits and clothing. The pre-modern societies displayed discernible signs of social hierarchy in parts of the dress they wore, the length of the embroidery, the color of costumes and so on. The disappearance of the unmistakable markers of social belonging raised a new concern for the bourgeois to cope with: the means of expressing individuality without offending the Establishment. ZAKARIÁS ADÉL XI.B.

11. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania In 1872 was established the university of Cluj-Napoca, a symbol of higher education in Romania. It was built by the Austrian – Hungarian Monarchy as a Hungarian higher education institution. The German model of university achieved soon great renown. At the end of World War I, against the background of the Great Unification, the Cluj University was taken over by the state authorities, becoming an institution of completed Romanian. The new dynamics of the university is dominated by the preoccupation to re-establish the prevalence of professionalism in the university and to integrate it in the world of the free world values. SZŐCS JÁNOS XI.B.

12. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania Peleş Castle is a romantic castle in Sinaia, Romania, built between 1873 and 1883, and considered by some to be the most beautiful in Europe. The castle was designed in the neo-Renaissance style, first by German architect Wilhelm Doderer.It was originally used as the summer residence of the royal family. It also serves as the burial site of King Carol I when he died in 1914. It is also important to know that Peleş Castle shelters one of the most important and most valuable painting collections in Europe, almost 2.000 pieces. FÜLÖP SZABOLCS X.B

13. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania Possibly the finest building in Bucharest, the Romanian Atheneum, with its sublime baroque cupola, is competing with the Athenee Palace Hilton hotel, the Royal Palace and the old national library for attention. The work of French architect Albert Galleron, the building was inaugarated on Febrary 26, 1888, and was built almost entirely with money donated by ordinary citizens of the capital, when a campaign called 'Give a penny for the Atheneum' rescued the project from folly after the original patrons ran out of funds. Today the seat of the Romanian Philarmonic George Enescu, the auditorium can seat 1,000 spectators comfortably, and is renowned worldwide for its outstanding acoustics. CRĂCIUN SZABOLCS XI.B.

14. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania Representation of the summative style of the modern era. The construction incorporates the history of architecture. The arcades have high windows shops indicating the commercial utility of the building. Window shopping is another novelty of the era. MIKLÓS CSABA- XI.B.

15. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania The street facet of Kolozsvar (Cluj-Napoca) is eloquent example of the symbolic space structure of the 19th century. The centers of cities are dominated still by the important aristocrat’s palaces next to bourgeois mansions. The work captures the important centre of high society’s social life: the casino. AMBRUS ENIKŐ- XI.B.

16. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania Built in 1839, is one of the oldest house of today’s Sfantu Gheorghe centre. On the blazon above the gate is a swan, probably from of a coat of arm of a baron, and since the name of the builder is not known it is called “swan’s house.” KELEMEN SZILÁRD XI.B.

17. “Countries Through Art works Art and History of Art representing Time and Place” The modern Age in Transylvania Image of the buildings of the factory from 1910. The age of industrialization changed the agricultural character of the region. The economic growth, the necessity of living better and better became a necessity of life since this period. Fancy city centers are now doubled by the misery of the suburbs and it is the birth of the workers movement. VOJKUJ ATTILA- XI.B.