We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
This article takes the reader on a virtual tour at the exhibitions held in Cluj/Kolozsvár during the last one and a half centuries, presenting the most important exhibition spaces and Transylvanian Hungarian artists of the recent past.
More...
A breakthrough role of the Congregation of the Mission in the proces of shaping sepulchral space in Warsaw is well-known and commonly appreciated. In spite of Vincentians’ indisputable merits in that field as well as many papers devoted to Warsaw necropolis as well as to this congregation, this topic has not been tackled in a thorough historical monograph. Such a lengthy paper would have to take account of the real time in which moving cemeteries away from the cities began and explain its causes. It has been shown in this article that in research on extra-urban cemeteries an assumption had been made for a long time that at first some legal rules ordering their creation were enacted. Only later (despite no small resistance) did it come to implementing these rules. However, new studies show that in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries burial sites were organized without any strict obligations to bury the deceased outside of the settlements. It was done out of necessity which derived from overfilling of temple undergrounds and cemeteries located next to churches. Warsaw which was considered a huge city in the 17th century followed this pattern thanks to the Vincentians who introduced a new manner of locating cemeteries both early and consistently.
More...
The sculpture presented in this article is the oldest and most valuable historical treasure of this kind in the Radom Region. It probably originated in the 1360s or 1370s. Originally it was placed in the city walls of Radom, or more precisely, in the so-called Cracow Gate. At present, following its thorough conservation, it is exhibited at the Cathedral Museum in Radom.
More...
This paper aims at an experimental evaluation of the quality of the wood used in the manufacture of wooden organ pipes. For this purpose we created a stock of pipes, using various types of wood for the walls of the pipes and for the front board. Using this trial stock of pipes, we conducted a series of experimental measurements, proceeding from an analysis of the sound spectrum. It was shown that what exerts the most fundamental influence on the quality of the sound spectrum is the measure of the pipe and its intonation. This reality is confirmed by the fact that despite the use of varying materials and varied thickness of walls, under constant conditions (pressure, temperature) the resonance mode of all the pipes examined is at the same frequency. A further finding is that the material of the front board and walls may under certain conditions and circumstances have an influence on the creation of a disturbing (humming) component of the tone of the pipe, and indeed on the creation of harmonic tones. Even a small change in the original tuning of a historical pipe causes a relatively marked changes in the actual sound system of the pipe. This fact has significant consequeces in the field of restoring historical organs and on changes to the tuning of those instruments.
More...
This analysis is aimed at initiating a discussion of some parts of the history of what is declared or titled „Islamic art”, within the critical and theoretical framework of both Occidental-Western and (some) Muslim perspectives. The analysis and establishments of limits in line with the prevailing authorities will contribute to the vital modalities of qadar/ṣināʿat discourse which are resolutely Islamic and in line with their source (ar. al-marjaʿ or al-maṣdar). Particular attention is drawn to advocating differences, due to Occidental-westernized academic efforts to ignore the spirit of unity and the self-re ective Islamic constant of qadar/ṣināʿat discourses and impose the arti cial dichotomy of the sacral and profane, and due to paradigmatic views on the evaluation of the creative (aestheticized) achievement of the originator/designer of representation, (i.e. homo islamicus) as absolute western ownership. On the other hand, the aestheticized activity of homo islamicus within the conscious recognitive and cognitive productive-re ective orientation has a very speci c historical existence. If the well-known saying of Jacques Derrida – the well known Postmodernist, ‘il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ („there is nothing outside the text”) can be applied to the title „Islamic art”, we can raise the question as to whether the aestheticized activity of homo islamicus exists or not. It seems that the proper question related to the modalities of qadar/ṣināʿat discourse should be ‘qu'est-ce qu'il y a de hors-texte’ („what is there outside the text?”).We will also encounter inappropriate terms, such as the use of the term decorative as an equivalent to ornamental or arabesque for aestheticized expression of an in nite sample, as well as the classi cation into central and marginal artistic productions, (i.e. the center of the Eurocentric cultural power and its so-called periphery). Attention is drawn to the Occidental-westernized positioning of the theory of arts at the top of creative maturity, which is ultimately aimed at the unique hegemony of the „New World”, (i.e. the submission and „cultivation” of any non-European and non-westernized entity), and particularly of the creative existence within the classical tradition of Islamic culture (ar. al-thaqāfah al-islāmiyyah) and Islamic civilization (ar. al-ḥaḍārah al-islāmiyyah or al-tamaddun al-islāmiyy).Finally, it should be noted that the Occidental-westernized manner of academic thinking in this area, and of any other theories applied within the borders of index order and taxonomy (including the concept of current globalization), also represent systematic patterns of authority, control and evaluation, and thus the exclusion of others.However, such a form of imposing a linear or cyclic way of interpretation still faces very real challenges typical of writing a global „history of art” and the complete absence of understanding other and different forms of creative expression.
More...
Scipione Borghese: Leading Actor on Tuscan Lands. The contribution focuses on the figure of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633) and on the role he playedas patron of the arts in the Colli Albani area, in particular in the city of Frascati (located 20 kilometers east of Rome). The cardinal, nephew of Pope Paul V Borghese and very important personality of the Roman curia, is investigated hereas a promoter of the arts and in particular as the patron of many architectural and landscape arrangements made on the hills of Frascati. The villas purchased by the Borghese family under went enlargement, reconstruction and decoration (such as Villa Taverna, Villa Torlonia, Villa Mondragone and Villa Grazioli). The cardinal and the Villas moved a lot of money and many artistic workers (architects, painters, sculptors, plasterers, masons, etc.) that made Frascati the Petrified testimony of the economic, political and cultural ideas of the Borghese himself.
More...
The Portrait of the Bookseller Németh – an Unknown Artwork from the Early Creation of Székely Bertalan. The study presents an unknown portrait from the early years of Székely Bertalan’s creation. The arguments on which the identification of the painter and the sitter’s portrait were based are presented. Also, the context in which the portrait was painted at Brașov in 1856 is presented and data are provided on the personality of the model, Wilhem Németh, bookseller.
More...
“Maestri muratori” and Transylvanian builders, within the architectural program of the “Greek Catholic Episcopate Gherla” between 1853 and 1918. In the second half of the 19th century, in Transylvania there was a demand for specialized labor, on construction sites such as the construction of railways, the construction of roads and bridges for which Italians came from areas with a recognized constructive tradition, such as those in the Trentino area, are encouraged and supported by the Austrian administration to emigrate. The Italian emigrants in Transylvania, mostly working in the field of construction, were a community poor in resources, but rich in human resources and entrepreneurship. In the alternative, these Italian builders, “master builders”, permanently established in Transylvania will contract smaller construction sites, proposals of wealthier rural parish communities, the case of former border villages able to financially support more elaborate constructions, morpho-stylistically and decoratively, regulated under the umbrella of the same imperial restrictions under which it was built in all Austrian provinces of the period. In the absence of relevant archival data on the paternity of the buildings discussed here, the priority tool of this study to identify the collaboration of Italian “master builders” is the stylistic investigation based on the certainty of their presence in the context of three church buildings related to the reference period: from Cășeiu, built by Antonio Baizero from Udine, the Roman Catholic church from Ileanda, built by Italian emigrants to serve their religious service and the church from Livada (Dengeleag), built by Lorenzo Zottich, possibly belonging to a second generation of emigrant builders Italians in Transylvania. All these constructions have common stylistic features, integrated into one of the three representative categories, identified within the “Greek Catholic Episcopate of Gherla”, namely the most elaborate architectural model agreed by the Austrian authorities: rural churches with a single tower on the facade, tower with a neoclassical baroque-inspired profiling that also involves the most complex local level of labor of the moment. In the context of the lack of relevant archival data on the constructive paternity in most of these buildings, the identification of the presence and participation of Italian builders on construction sites within the “Greek Catholic Diocese of Gherla” uses as main study tool, stylistic analysis of monuments, which results in the launch of hypotheses meant to be validated in the future through applied studies by the archive. Morpho-constructive characteristics similar to the churches in Cășeiu, Ileanda, Livada (Dengeleag) crowned by the presence of the neo-baroque tower, the corrugated cornice that integrates decorative clocks, with a high level of difficulty in terms of construction, indicate a possible presence of Italian emigrant builders: Orman, Cluj County (1865-1867), Livada - Dindeleag, Cluj County (1868), Buciumi, Sălaj County (1872), Rus, Sălaj County (1890-1894), Poieni, Cluj County (1892), Apahida (1892), Borșa (1900), Dobricul Mare, Bistrița Năsăud county (1902), Sâncraiu Almașului, Sălaj county (1902), Agrieș, Bistrița Năsăud county (1905-1906), Șieu Cristur (1906), Bistrița Năsăud county, Lunca Ilvei (1906-1910), Bistrița Năsăud county, Chizeni (1910), Bistrița Năsăud county, Urișor (inc. 1910), Cluj county, Rohia, Maramureș county (1911), Church from Sașa (1907-1911), Alba county, Diviciorii Mici, Cluj county, (1912), Surduc, Sălaj county (1913), Câțcău, Cluj county (1914). However, the final demonstration remains to be validated following documented related archival studies.
More...
The paper discusses the approximately 100-year presence and transformation of the approach and mentality of arts and craft movements which emerged in the mid-19th century from the aspect of industrial education workshops in Transylvania. In late 19th-century Hungary, the approach of artistic innovation, spread with the help of William Morris’s and Walter Crane’s works, is perhaps most immediately seen in the creative workshops that approached the relationship between aesthetics and technology rather differently. It appeared in the works of the British Arts & Crafts movement and also in the curriculum of late 19th-century Hungarian vocational schools and institutions of vocational education, as well as in the methodology of art reform movements that sprung up after World War I, the most familiar example of which was the Bauhaus. The guidelines for workshop-based education and training, the implementation of technical innovations and new artistic trends into the education, an emphasis on the students’ individual skills, facilitating the individual’s creativity and imagination, the primary role of architecture, the adaptation of basic building principles of modern homes, strong personal relationship and cooperation between teachers and students were the bases of the educational reform that started in the 1840s and continued for a century. The curriculum of industrial vocational schools in Hungary included the development of drawing, modelling and form-creation skills, with the help of which many of those who graduated from these institutions, made a great impact on avantgarde and modernism between the two world wars.
More...
Portrait Sequences. Case Study: Emperor Franz Joseph I. The paper provides a brief overview of how one of Europe’s longest-lived sovereigns wanted to remain in the memory of posterity. For this purpose, a series of official portraits of Emperor Franz Joseph I were analyzed, noting his preference for several typological series. The Collections of the National History Museum of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca shelters in its patrimony a series of objects related to the emperor, among which there are a number of three graphic portraits representative for each of the great typological series observed.
More...
„Sok szíves üdvözlettel régi barátos...” (“With kind regards, your old friend...”). Coriolan Petranu’s Friendly Connections to the Hungarian Historians. Coriolan Petranu is the founder of modern art history education and scientific research in Transylvania. He had received special education in this field of study that is relatively new in the region. He started his studies in 1911 at the University of Budapest, attending courses in law and art history. During the 1912-1913 academic year he joined the class of Professor Adolph Goldschmiedt (1863-1944) at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin. The professor was an illustrious personality from the same generation as art historians Emil Mâle, Wilhelm Vögte, Bernard Berenson, Roger Fry, Aby Warburg, and Heinrich Wölfflin, specialists who had provided a decisive impetus to art historical research during the twentieth century. In the end of 1913, Coriolan Petranu favored Vienna, with its prestigious art historical school attached to the university from the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There he completed and perfected his education under the supervision of Professor Josef Strzygowski (1862-1941). The latter scholar was highly appreciated for his contributions to the field of universal art history by including the cultures of Asia Minor (Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Persia), revealing the influence that this area had on proto-Christian art, as well as by researching ancient art in Northern Europe. In March 1920 the young art historian successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled Inhaltsproblem und Kunstgeschichte (”Content and art history”). He thus earned his doctor in philosophy title that opened him access to higher education teaching and art history research. His debut was positively marked by his activity as museographer at the Fine Art Museum in Budapest (Szepműveszeti Muzeum) in 1917-1918. Coriolan Petranu has researched Romanian vernacular architecture (creating a topography of wooden churches in Transylvania) and his publications were appreciated, published in the era’s specialized periodicals and volumes or presented during international congresses (such as those held in Stockholm in 1933, Warsaw in 1933, Sofia in 1934, Basel in 1936 and Paris in 1937). The Transylvanian art historian under analysis has exchanged numerous letters with specialists in the field. The valuable lot of correspondence, comprising several thousands of letters that he has received from the United States of America, Great Britain, Spain, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the USSR, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Egypt represents a true history of the stage and development of art history as a field of study during the Interwar Period. The archive of the Art History Seminary of the University in Cluj preserves one section dedicated to Hungarian letters that he has send to Hungarian specialists, art historians, ethnographers, ethnologists or colleagues passionate about fine art (Prof. Gerevich Tibor, Prof. Takács Zoltán, Dr. Viski Károly, Count Dr. Teleki Domokos). His correspondence with Fritz Valjavec, editor of the “Südostdeutsche Forschungen” periodical printed in München, is also significant and revealing. The letters in question reveal C. Petranu’s significant contribution through his reviews of books published by Hungarian art historians and ethnographers. Beyond the theoretical debates during which Prof. Petranu has criticized the theories formulated by Prof. Gerevich’s school that envisaged the globalization of Hungarian art between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period and that also included in this general category the works of German masters and artists with other ethnic backgrounds, he has also displayed a friendly attitude and appreciation for the activity/works of his Hungarian colleagues (Viski Károly and Takács Zoltán). The previously unpublished Romanian-Hungarian and Hungarian-Romanian set of letters discussed here attest to this.
More...
Transylvanian German women artists from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The paper is aiming at analyzing the life and art of a group of six German women artists from Transylvania, the first ones who studied abroad, real forerunners for the next generation of female plastic artists. Emancipated ladies, determined to become artists and earn their own money, the gifted women studied in Budapest, Vienna, Munich or Paris. Only Molly Marlin did not come back home, while the others had a prodigious artistic and pedagogical activity, being present at the annual exhibitions, together with well-known male colleagues.
More...
The 1984 Conference of the International Association of Art Critics. The Presidency of Dan Hăulică and the Issue of the Parthenon Sculptures. In 1984, the Conference of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), chaired by the Romanian Dan Hăulică (1932-2014), was organized for the first time in Greece; the event offered an opportunity for historians and art critics of various nationalities to meet. The theme of the conference, „Contemporary art and the Greek world. The XXth century in the face of the civilizations that have followed one another in the Greek space”, on the one hand honored the host country and on the other, placing the accent on the relationship between XXth century art and the Western artistic tradition, was part of the international discussion on the end of the avant-gardes. The complex relationships between the ancient and the contemporary were discussed in terms of influences, continuity and discontinuity. Particular attention was paid to the concept of myth and the mythical dimension of contemporary art. On the other hand, the generic definition of „Greek world", intentionally chosen by the Greek section of the AICA, re-proposed the national narrative of an essentially unitary historical-artistic development. The Conference also had a dimension of international political significance connected to the fact that the previous year the AICA, an organization affiliated with UNESCO, had approved a motion for the return to Greece of the Parthenon marbles kept at the British Museum. In Athens, the confirmation of solidarity with the Greek cause was also a matter of electoral campaign for the renewal of the Presidency of the AICA.
More...
Harmony of Positive and Negative Spaciousness in Ingo Glass sculpture. The aim of this article is to discuss issues regarding the ways spaciousness and harmony of positive and negative surfaces in Inglo Glass sculpture are valorized. The artist was born in 1941 in Timișoara, he studied at the Traditional School of Arts from Lugoj and then he attended the university in Cluj. Between 1967-71 he worked as curator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts from Galați and he established connections with visual artists from all over the country. Later on, between 1972-73 he worked as teaching assistant at the Architecture University from Bucharest and then he became cultural consultant at the German Culture House Friedrich Schiller. During this period, Ingo Glass created a Constructivist Art with metal structures developed vertically following the spatial pattern specific to the great Gothic cathedrals– the most famous work Septenarius was built in 1976 on the Danube boardwalk from Galați. Being forced by the political circumstances from the Socialist Republic of Romania, he emigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979, he moved to München where he worked for the Municipal Art Gallery and where he was integrated in the group of Concrete-Constuctivist Art artists. After 1989 he came back to Romania with different exhibitions and he created public monuments in Galați, Timișoara, Moinești and Lugoj. Then, in 1992 he presented his PhD thesis about the influence of Constantin Brâncuși Art over the 20th century sculpture. Between 1989-1998 the artist crystallized an original visual concept based on the usage of the basic geometric shapes in conjunction with the primary colours. Ingo Glass upgraded Bauhaus theory and he associated the square with blue, the triangle with yellow and the circle with red. By using shapes and primary colours the artists creates Concrete Art, a new symbolic universe, purely geometrical, the harmony of his entire work being given by the proportion and link between full and empty spaces. Expanded spaciousness specific to the Constructivst Art phase experiments the architecture-sculpture link and the monumentality of the metallic structures encourages the entrance to the central core of works. The open, non-material dimension forms the main volume of the sculpture, the empty space dominates the full shape and it outlines the effects of an unrated and irrational spaciousness. Balanced spaciousness specific to the Concrete Art phase experiments geometrical combinations, based on the basic shapes in positive and negative intersections, by the spaciousness and non-spaciousness link, the pace between full and empty spaces. The usage of the three basic geometrical shapes also influenced the combining vocabulary of these elements, and it even ensured the ordering and deduction of the empty space. The utopia of basic forms expresses tendencies towards positive irreductible forms of energy or negative forms through non-materiality, where the concepts of mass, weight, space and time are added. In each of his works, the artist used a proportion between the elements of the composition through a rational interpretation stimulated by the achievement of a geometrical order as the essential basis of tasks. The relation between positive and negative spaciousness appears constantly in the sculpture of the last century and the rhytm and sequence of its spatial effects are determined by a sense of proportion that involves an aesthetic of proportion. Thus, we can definitely say that the work of the artist Ingo Glass originally captures all these aspects of Contemporary Art.
More...
This article has as its theme the tectonic principles in the works of Richard Strauss, taking account of his first six operatic compositions. These principles diverge notably in the individual works. Salome and Electra are so-called symphonic operas – apart from use of the orchestral apparatus, they are characterised especially by the applied tectonic and formal principles, adopted partially from so-called absolute music. Principally this means the sonata-form elements which we encounter in these operas – thematic dualism, tonal planning, tonal equalisation. In The Knight of the Rose and Ariadne on Naxos, as regards tectonics there is a tendency towards the classical model of so-called number opera, though on a different qualitative level – to a greater extent there is a prominence of song and a traditionally conceived periodicity.
More...
Musical thinking and its three spheres – the sonoristic, dynamic and thematic spheres – were among the most fundamental phenomena which Jozef Kresánek explored in his musicological research. Musical thinking is a fundamental phenomenon not only in composition but also in performance, listening, reception and reflection. Hence, musical thinking is thus a common factor in all musical activities, as well as in musicology itself and its disciplines. The paper is devoted particularly to thematic musical thinking, whose basis is musical forms. The author considers Kresánek’s definition of musical forms, their division into three main groups, and the fundamental characteristics of musical forms, as well as the depictive capacities of music. Following on from these theoretical premises in the second part of the paper there is an analysis of structure and significance in Mahler’s song Das irdische Leben.
More...
Feminist art implies female artists’ production that identifies its activity with the feminist movements ideology or with the idea of specific female creativity in art and culture. Women’s art signifies female artworks no matter if they represent or don’t represent feminist values, beliefs, viewpoints or meanings. Postmodern decentered artistic practices arc those based on criticism of logocentrism. In high Modernist art from Impressionism to Post-Painterly Abstraction, there was no difference between male and female artistic practices. The ideal of autonomous art covered sexual and gender differences. In the Avant-Garde art from the end of XIX century and late thirties there was no separate and specific notion of feminist neo-avant-garde movements (Fluxus, Neodadaism, Happening) female artists in their experimental works pointed to the sexual differences and to the feminist contents of their work. Post Avant-Garde included innovative artistic practices such as Body Art, Processual Art, Environmental Art, Conceptual and Semio-Art. Body art and Performance became exclusive domains of female art. During seventies within the Post-Conceptual art the new ways of researching and expressing are developed. The artists in their work analyzed (emotional, sexual, intuitive, unconsciousness). Female artists wanted to break with already existing male values system and to create female value system. Post-Feminist art of eighties and nineties deals with the modes of representation, i.e., with mechanisms and channels of making the “representations”, with its distribution, control and function in establishing the dominant criteria and values of the society.
More...
Rising in an extremely troubled context in the first decades of the 20th century, the so-called radical avant-garde (especially Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism and Constructivism) obsessively pleaded for a ”new beginning”, a real ”restart” of art. Its discourse, both theoretical, of the avant-garde manifestos, and visual, aimed at giving alternatives for what were meant to become the new benchmarks of art history. We know today that the face of art definitely changed as a result of the avant-garde assaults. Even if the effects of this radicality faded in the past century, they are still evident. This study is intended to understand this radicality within the context of its occurrence, to find some of its constants and to follow its effects upon contemporary art, in order to attempt to understand to what extent we can speak about a success or a failure of the avant-garde.
More...
