Page 55 - World of Art magazine (2000)
P. 55
emphasize onto internal society-rules of the were viable). However, as none of the other
fairy kingdom, beside the telling of the entities from the other worlds has a purely
important gifts fairies made illo tempore economic or juridical relevance, it would be
to humans (Dizionario della fiaba, 1998, absurd to consider their incidence as a threat
p.165-166). Romanian folklore makes and nothing else but a threat toward the
humans meet with fairies a lot more inci- woman or the girl who did not finish spinning
dentally and insists onto some parallelism and weaving. There must be another reason
between our world and their other world; for sequencing ordinary time with ordinary
from this, the extremely fragile boundary of - but still efficient - laws. The most dreadful
the culturally admitted custom into dealing is the personification of the Thursday on the
with them; and this fragility begins with the Passions’ Week (Joimarita - I.Muslea, 1972,
impossibility of naming them on the generic p.213-237; I.Ghinoiu, 1997, p.101); but there
name (they are called: iele, zane, zanioare, are also forbidden Fridays for the fairies -
sfinte, soimane, danse, frumoase, iezme, ielele- and forbidden Tuesday evenings, per-
fecioare, rusalii, milostive, miluite, maiestre, sonified in another terrible demon called
puternice, doamne, imparatesele vazduhului, Martolea, Marti-sara; she is also an old
ursoaice), with the interdiction of talking, and ugly, even deformed, woman, torturing
imitating their song or letting on any way women who do not know to protect them-
their presence to be guessed while those fair- selves and their homes (I.Evseev, 1997,
ies are accidentally surprised, on the terrible p.210-212, 257-258; A.Fochi, 1976,
respect that is to be paid to their dancing, p.196-197, 182-186).
places, songs and forbidden days (O.Birlea, A lot of things remain uncovered in the field
1976, p. 196-199; I.Muslea, O.Birlea, 1970, of mythological imaginary; we underlined just
p207-218; A.Fochi, 1976, p.138-146). a few traits and tried to lighten some connec-
Another entity, this time a purely forester tions that Romanian mythological representa-
daemon, is the Maid of the Forest (Fata Padu- tions bring into understanding. A lot of work
rii, Padureanca - M.Ionita, 1982, p.34-91; awaits the scholar who wants to unravel some
A.Fochi, 1976, p. 12-122); a lot more savage, true assumptions about our native propensity
she still sings but hasn’t the appearance of toward the transcendent, the other, more and SuzAnA fânTânARiu
a normal woman, tempting young boys with more distant, worlds; moreover, his task gets RoMaNia
her strange feminity; the children resulted are complicated by the accelerating process of dis- PORTReT ASTeniC i
to be changed by theft with the children of solution of traditional culture and way of life. 1998 MixeD MeDia
20 x 20 cM /
inattentive mothers. Here she plays a double In the context of the total transformation of 8 x 8 iN
role into the life-cycle of a person: as a child realities within our modern society, we will very
and as a young man. For the young man, she soon find ourselves in front of the same silent paRTicipaTioN
WoRK oN THe
may harm him in a similar way with the iele type of archive as any historical archive is; we 1ST MASkS in veniCe
(cf. the nympholeptic enthusiasm of the Greek will, of course, subsequently define a new Eth- iNTeRNaTioNal exHiBi-
TioN
mythology). nology - the pair of the horror concretization of oRGaNiZeD BY
Romanian traditional imagery contains this new world’s longing for the Other. aRT aDDicTioN
another type of figures: they regulate domes- Worlds - but what has to say our still-present palaZZo coRReR
tic activities of women through the year (or at day field, Romanian field in our case, would be VeNice iTalY 1998
least did so for that long that those activities very soon completely unused, and so forgotten.
CRiSTiAn neAgOe
HollaND
ghOSTS
1995 oil oN caNVaS
80 x 60 cM /
31½x 23½ iN
CORLATAn vASiLe
paRTicipaTioN RoMaNia
WoRK oN THe unTiTLeD
MOST TALenTeD ART- 1999 oil oN caNVaS
iSTS 20 x 12 cM /
iNTeRNaTioNal pRiZe 8 x 4¾ iN
oRGaNiZeD BY
aRT aDDicTioN paRTicipaTioN
STocKHolM WoRK oN THe
SWeDeN 1997
1ST SPRing AnnuAL in
veniCe
iNTeRNaTioNal exHiBiTioN
oRGaNiZeD BY
aRT aDDicTioN
palaZZo coRReR
VeNice iTalY 1999
Special iSSue 2000 WORLD of ART 53