CULTURE
In spite of these modern developments,
Romania still offers a variety of customs, traditions, and forms
of folk art. Wood carvings, brightly ornamented costumes, skillfully
woven carpets, pottery, and other elements of traditional Romanian
culture remain popular and, with the onset of tourism, have become
known internationally. Folk art is characterized by abstract or
geometric designs and stylized representations of plants and animals.
In embroidery and textiles, designs and colour schemes can be
associated with particular regions of the country. Special folk
arts of Romania are the decoration of highly ornamental Easter
eggs and painting on glass, which, however, is becoming a lost
skill. Folk music includes dance music, laments and ballads, and
pastoral music. Major instruments are the violin, the cobza (a
stringed instrument resembling a lute), the tambal (a dulcimer
played with small hammers), and the flute. Folk melodies are preserved
in the music of modern Romanian composers such as Georges Enesco.
Romanian culture is largely
derived from the Roman, with strains of Slavic, Magyar (Hungarian),
Greek, and Turkish influence. Poems, folktales, and folk music
have always held a central place in Romanian culture. Romanian
literature, art, and music attained maturity in the 19th century.
Although Romania has been influenced by divergent Western trends,
it also has a rich native culture. Romanian art, like Romanian
literature, reached its peak during the 19th century. Among the
leading painters were Theodor Aman, a portraitist, and landscape
painter Nicolae Grigorescu. Between 1945 and 1989 Romanian art
was dominated by socialist realism, a school of art that was officially
sponsored by the Communist government, and through which socialist
ideals were promoted and advanced. A notable contribution to modern
concepts of 20th-century art was the work of Romanian-born French
sculptor Constantin Brancusi.
The Romanian language, although
developing over the centuries in difficult historical conditions,
is as Latin as any other Romance language and, like the culture
as a whole, continues to exhibit a remarkable vitality. This fact
is perhaps paralleled by some of the Modernist tendencies in the
Romanian fine arts: the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, a promoter
of absolute Modernism coupled with a firm sense of classical Mediterranean
values, had great international influence early in the 20th century.
Romanian poets and writers, too, have operated in a cultural tradition
somewhat different from that in neighbouring countries; in architecture,
the Bucharest television centre is but one example of another
Modernist trend.
