VECHI REPREZENTĂRI GRAFICE ALE ORAŞELOR DIN ROMÂNIA

Transcription

1 ACADEMIA ROMÂNĂ Comisia de Istorie a Oraşelor din România Seria Contribuții privind istoria oraşelor, vol XII Anda Lucia Spânu VECHI REPREZENTĂRI GRAFICE ALE ORAŞELOR DIN ROMÂNIA Editura ASTRA Museum SIBIU, 2012

2 CUPRINS Cuprins... 5 Introducere... 6 Vechi reprezentări grafice al oraşelor Analiza reprezentărilor grafice ale oraşelor României de azi Concluzii Bibliografie Lista ilustrațiilor Ilustrații Repertoriul reprezentărilor grafice ale oraşelor din România Lucrări care conțin reprezentări grafice ale oraşelor din România Abrevieri bibliografice Abrevieri fonduri Repertoriu Old Graphic Representations of the Romanian Cities Abstract

3 OLD GRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ROMANIAN CITIES Abstract It is said that an image is worth a thousand words. It seems to be true since images are more and more used in historical research once that historians understood that an image from the past contains valuable historical information. For this, however, historians must know how to read an image, protecting themselves from erroneous interpretations. Cities have always been subject to illustrations, but the way they were represented depended on the author s intention, his reasons for making those illustrations. An image is good for various interpretations; one who looks at it may see whatever she or he wants or is able to, probably something different from its producer. But it has to be taken into consideration that there is a big difference between an ordinary beholder s spontaneous reaction to an image, to whom, in fact, it is devoted, and the reaction of an educated viewer to the same image, who knows what to see. Those trained to look at images, professionals from various specialties, usually forget that the beholder does not see the image just as they do, that the latter sees with his eyes and heart, while the first uses, in addition to eyes, his mind. Even more, the contemporary beholder of an image has not necessarily the same reaction as the viewer from the time it was produced. Over centuries, the same image was reproduced for several times, as the cities evolved or involved, but were changing their appearance. The draughtsman who made the reproductions often had no first hand 547

4 knowledge of the area he was reproducing. As a result, his work is more vulnerable to errors of transcription and if possible it should always be supplemented by other kinds of evidence. The same views were used either in their original form with modified text or copied, with retouches and, sometimes, with changed dimensions. My understanding of graphic representations of cities is the following: the documentary graphic (or the visual historic source) that depicts partial or overall images of cities, including drawings, mono or polychrome engravings (no matter of support), water colours, different genres of painting. The main problem in this research is that an image cannot be compared with the reality: the city represented in it changed in time. Exceptions from this situation are rare and sequential, because cities are continuously changing. An historian is interested in studying representations of cities because they offer a widespread range of information, completing or substituting other sources. Therefore, the present day historian can see the surrounding of the city at a given moment, the flow of the rivers, today surely modified, former forests, meadows, pastures, agricultural lands, orchards or graperies. They can find also, in such images, information about the local economy (mine pits, mills, commercial harbours), architecture (towers and other fortifications, market places, houses and palaces, churches and bridges), everyday life and social conditions, confessional and politic urban life. Over the last five centuries, images were used to illustrate history books and all kinds of other papers. In time, these images became independent historical sources, in which the 21PstP century historians are interested because they use them as documentation. From the appearance of the woodcut and afterwards the copper plate engraving, at the end of the 15PthP century, until the spread of the photographic reproduction, the graphic art, mainly the print art, was a medium of cultural exchanges, without precedent in history. It was, from its beginning, the cardinal popular art, reaching all strata of population. Prints were produced and purchased for various reasons, but first of all, by collectors. By the middle of the 17PthP century, print collecting had become a widespread activity all across Europe. Landscapes and cityscapes belonged to the preferred subject matter of these prints. 548

5 * * * The experience I got during the decade I was studying images of cities lead me to the conclusion that the use of conventional views by authors who visited Romanian cities is an indicator of their mentality. The cities they represented can be identified only through inscriptions in cartouches or by the town s coat of arms. Sometimes specific elements such as churches or other major buildings were introduced to make the place recognisable. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, most graphic representations of cities from nowadays Romania were made by Western European travellers or by artists commissioned by these travellers. Before such a Westerner was to draw a place unknown to him be it from firsthand observation or from his imagination he first had to understand the topography by setting it within the well known boundaries of his own mental stereotypes. The easiest way to do so was to adapt a certain typical town scheme by adding some distinctive features that made it acceptable or even recognisable for potential beholders of the image. Furthermore, these images were destined to those left at home, who had not seen and would probably never see these places. They could however recognise in them what they expected to find in a town or city. Therefore, for centuries, the Wallachian and Moldavian cities, which were never fortified, were represented like those from Transylvania, much resembling Western cities. One can say that images of Romanian cities where adaptations of Western European cities. But there are some exceptions among 18PthP century cityscapes, namely views with identifiable architectural elements attached to the topographical plans of the Austrian army engineers. The works signed by the English landscapist Luigi Mayer, dating from the end of the 18PthP century, are certainly exceptions, because instead of general views as others produced, he made partial representations of cities. Starting from this point, the general rule is changed. General and partial views of cities will reflect a reality, anticipating the appearance of photography. In the 19PthP century a complex period, characterised by a lot of political events and cultural currents (the neoclassical and romantic being the most important) cityscapes became different from the 16PthP to the 18PthP century. Most of them are only partial images of cities, representing 549

6 monuments of political, social or cultural importance, but also anonymous corners of the city. Historical images represent churches, residences of noblemen, fortresses and fortifications, inns and market places, politically, socially or culturally representative buildings or anonymous houses or ruins, specific to the respective city. Most of them disappeared in time, or were completely transformed. Another new element that occurs in the 19PthP century is the popular character of art, becoming affordable for many, a time when numerous lesser gifted painters became well known. English, French or German artist travellers, visited now our places, making during their trips a lot of drawings, which later were published, in history or travel books. The city views produced by these artists do not be problematical for historians, because they almost always describe a reality. This kind of city representations helps us to imagine the experience of urban life at different stages in history. From the end of the 15PthP century, cities from present day Romania are recorded in drawings, etchings, paintings and prints. All of them are very useful sources for social and cultural history. But we have to be aware of the fact that illustrations are subjective, that they are recording a certain point of view, that certain elements could have been omitted or highlighted, depending on the expected impact. * * * From a total of 1110 city representations catalogued in this repertoire, comprising images of 86 cities, 435 representations are from 33 Wallachian cities (39,18%), 134 representations from 10 Moldavian ones (12,07%) and 541 representations are from 43 Transylvanian cities (48,73%). In terms of the chronological structure, from the same total, only 37 come from the 16PthP century (3%), 132 from the 17PthP century (12%), 158 from the 18PthP century (14%); their number increases considerably in the 19PthP century, reaching 783 (71%) (although the images from the last three decades were not analysed). In terms of accuracy of the city views I stress that 286 of them aroused from imagination 240 of them are general views (22%) and only 46 are partial views (4%) while 385 were made according to reality (only 135 general views and 250 partial views). 800 representations are realistic city views, of which only 198 are general views (18%) and 601 are partial 550

7 views (4%). An intermediary category can be added to them, namely imagined views with identifiable architectural elements (2%), comprising a 24 18PthP century general views of Transylvanian cities. As expected, the majority of the views represent the two capitals of the Romanian Principalities and of the city of Sibiu, which was for a long period of time the main administrative and politic centre of Transylvania. Bucharest numbered 175 images (15,76% from the total and 40,23% from the Wallachian cities), Iassy is present with 58 images (7,66% from the total and 63,43% from the Moldavian cities) and Sibiu totalises 107 images (9,64% from the total and 20,73% from the Transylvanian cities). Excepting the works of the Saxons and Hungarians from Transylvania, Romanian artists created only four of these images. All of them are partial representations, created at the middle of the 19PthP century. * * * Old graphic representations of the Romanian cities aims at filling up a lacuna in the Romanian historiography, which lacks a synthesis of the problem; there are only papers which are approaching the subject, partially, namely from the thematic, chronological or geographical point of view. The main objective of my work is providing a catalogue of the graphic representations of cities. It is an original and unique paper, which, introducing the repertoire in the scientific circuit, together the analysis of the images it comprises, constitute a starting point for researchers in the field of urban history. 551