University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest

Museum of the Romanian Peasant

Prof. univ. Popescu Liliana Student: Andra Burlacu
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European Museum of the year 1996-1997

In 1996, sixty-four museums from twenty-one countries aspired to the title of European Museum of the Year. After lengthy deliberation, the Committee decided to award the title to the Museum of the Roumanian Peasant. In the opinion of the jury, the museum has achived the highest European level in the area of aesthetic presentation, demonstrating in its conception o rarely encountered imaginative quality.

The Cross The Tree of Life

We realise, from the adjacent photograph, that we are confronted with a reproduction of an object present in a number of villages in Oltenia, where the relatives of the dead place covenant (or forgiveness) crosses in a trees as a way of fulfilling their unkept promises to the deceased.

ICONS
And so the peasants added the making of copies to their occupations. To meet the massivr demand from pilgrims, thenceforth they built workshops on their farmsteads, where they manufactured icons painted on glass. The woman mostley took care of preparing the pigments, scraping the outlines, and filling(painting), and the men carried out the other tasks, such as procuring the glass (glaj), making frames and lids, and selling the icons. Some families specialised in trading the icons, taking them to market or other villages. The icons and their templates were handed down in the family, and each family had their favourite subjects.
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 Icons

Garments
Garments is the name given to the corner with fourteen mannequins dressed in womans garb, over which the male figures in the fotographs embeded in the walls of the exhibition keep watch.

Holy Relics

In 1992, the Museum of the Romanian Peasant acquired six wooden churchen from the Apuseni Mountains. Four were left in ditu and restored, and two were brought to the Museum. The more dilapidated of the two was exhibited in a room we named Holy Relics.

Windows
The window is a metaphor for the connexion and easy passage between worlds, between sacred and profane. It is impossible not to remark the window from a peasant house in the exhibition. Placed on a tall pedestal, the window is illuminated in a such a way that the shadow it casts upon the wall dominates the setting.
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FOUNDERS of Museum of the Romanian Peasant

Alexandru Tzigara-Samurca (1872-1952) Tancred Ovidiu-Bneanu (1922-1987) Horia Bernea (1938-2000) Irina Nicolau (1946-2002)

 I have placed the peasants icon at the centre of our museum and the word peasant in the title. I am ruled by a strong belief in the values of peasant art, in its validity, and by respect for those people who have not been able to defend themselves. Horia Bernea
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 Bibliography:

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