This is my first time posting in this small but beautiful community. I think with sadness that I wrote a lot about exhibitions and museums and put it all elsewhere and not here, where it is the best place. I have to thank @mipiano for helping me remember Art Talk, where I was a long-time member but when I joined I didn't think I would write much about art. Then I forgot.
I am trying to fix this mistake.
Now I will tell you, more through images, about a monument, a group of statues located in the center of Bucharest, in Romania. I mean in the city where I live.
This ensemble is called the Straw Doll Carriage or "Caragealiana" and is dedicated to Romanian theatrical art.
The building behind the sculpture houses the Bucharest National Theatre. The largest and most important theatre in Romania. Whether it is the best theatre I don't know, here comes the subjectivism of everyone. It is probably the best theatre.
The theatre is named after Ioan Luca Caragiale (1852-1912), the most important Romanian playwright. In his plays, he portrayed in particular the city society of his time, the end of the nineteenth century. This is Caragiale's statue, looking at the Straw Doll Carriage.
He wrote mainly about social and political morals. Comedies. The audience laughs most of the time but the society shown in them is not only laughable, it is also tear-jerking.
The best-known play is "A Lost Letter", in which political morals are shown in particular. Election time. The amazing thing is that everything that was happening in politics in Caragiale's time, at the beginning of the twentieth century, is similar to what we see in politics today. Politicians who are liars and unscrupulous. Unknowing, confused, and easily manipulated voters.
This is what the sculptor, Ion Bolborea, wanted to show in the statue group dedicated to Caragiale.
The history of this monument has gone something like this. The sculptor received a commission to make a statue of the playwright I.L.Caragiale to be placed in the park in front of the National Theatre that bears his name.
Sculptor Ion Balborea is an admired but also a challenging artist, what is certain is that he is a nonconformist and surprising artist. He proposed to make not only the statue of the playwright. He proposed to put it in that place because it is in front of the theatre, a tribute to the actors. He thought of the traveling actors and the theatre as it was more than a hundred years ago. That's where the idea of a Straw Doll Carriage came from! Actors go from place to place with their plays.
He had to choose between filling the cart with statues of well-known actors loved by the audience and filling the cart with characters from plays. He chose the latter and chose characters from Caragiale's plays, of course.
The characters in Caragiale's plays are caricatures and just like in a caricature, they have their physical features altered to express their character. So are the sculptures of Ioan Bolborea. Although they have no relevance in English, I still write their names, names of scoundrels, fools, promiscuous women, mistresses, drunkards, opportunists, blackmailers...
But let's take a closer look!
Below are the names of the characters in Romanian spelling. The characters are not in strict order as they appear in the photos.
Farfuridi, Brânzovenescu, Cetățeanul Turmentat,
Goe, Zoe, Mam’mare, Chiriac,
Mița, Veta, Zița, Rică Venturiano,
Mamița, Trahanache, Cațavencu și Pristanda.
This enormous gramophone hutch. I don't think it even wants to be a gramophone after the music these characters play. I think it symbolizes the press of that era. The newspaper in the play is called the Carpathian Howl. I think the author intends to show how this political game was amplified through the press.
The plot of the play called "A Lost Letter" is given by blackmail through the press, after a love note between the prefect of the county and the wife(Zoe) of his friend(Trahanache), the president of the main party of the city, is lost(by Zoe), found(by Cetateanul Turmentat - the drunkard) and comes into the possession of the head of the opposition(Catavencu), the owner of the newspaper the Carpathian Howl.
The statuary group was inaugurated in 2010 and cost about one million euros. The artist worked for four years to complete it.
The "Straw Doll Carriage" statuary group, also called Caragealiana, is installed in front of the "Ion Luca Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest and consists of a set of 16 sculptures made by the artist Ioan Bolborea, representing well-known characters from the works of Ion Luca Caragiale. The ensemble reaches a height of seven meters and weighs, in total, over 25 tons. All the figures are made of patinated bronze and stand over four meters high, weighing about a ton each. source
I think it is the most interesting piece of artwork exhibited outdoors in Bucharest. Located in a very good place, right in the center of the city, where is the zero kilometers of Romania, in front of the National Theatre and the University Square, it is one of the attractions of the city, sought by most foreign tourists.
I am an art lover, like all of you, and I enjoy being able to see good-quality art without having to go into a museum. At least once a week I pass by this place and every time I am equally excited to see this sculpture.
