A Painted Church and Graveyard in Transylvania

There must be a fascinating history behind this amazing painted church and its graveyard that I am posting for Monday Mural and Taphophile Tragics. It pains me that I cannot find anything about it (online)!

On the start of a long weekend last June my brother and I drove north from Bucharest a bit over three hours, then got off the main road at Boita to explore a string of 18 traditional Romanian settlements in a special area called Mărginimea Sibiului in southern Transylvania. Earlier I posted village scenes from this well-preserved ethnographic area along the foothills of the Cindrel Mountains.

We spotted this little Romanian Orthodox church not far from Boita, driving east toward Tălmacel (map below). Unfortunately, this is all I can tell you about this particular painted church and its graveyard. My photos will have to tell the story.

However, there are a great number of such architectural treasures - painted churches and monasteries - in Romania and Moldova built in the 16th and 17th centuries; many are listed in UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites.

It's quite possible, since we did not see headstones predating the 20th century, that this is a more recent church and graveyard. But it is still a marvel to behold.

Post script: Thanks to fellow blogger Traveling Hawk from Romania, I can now tell you a little more. This church was erected between the years 1775-1784 in Tălmacel, first recorded in 1488 as a small hamlet of ten families. Along with 246 others in Romania, the church was dedicated to the popular Saint Paraschiva. It was built and financed by the community, who made the bricks and transported them to the site on horses. Legend has it the money ran out before winter 1779, but the next spring a woman found a tub of gold coins. With this the interior was completed and painted by local masters. Restoration work was done 1975-80. [Sources: here and here.]

 

 

The main interior of the church was locked, but in the small entranceway we were greeted with a ceiling to floor fresco depiction of hell or purgatory.

Location: You can see all the towns on this map, with the highlighted orange area showing where this church should be.

The orange rectangle on this second map shows the approximate area of Marginimea Sibiului (meaning margins of Sibiu) in relation to Sibiu and Bucharest.

For more marvelous murals and fascinating burial grounds, follow the links in my opening paragraph. (Monday Murals now has a home; YaY!) I will visit as many as I can before I must close down for my trip to China. From there, accessing blogs is very difficult, thanks to an overzealous Big Brother.

V is for Vandalism

Vandalism can be simply defined as "willful or malicious destruction of public or private property." Few would argue that smashing windows or burning cars is criminal behavior, no less than trespassing or burglary, subject to prosecution and punishment.

Yet when it comes to graffiti - writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place - a debate has raged for centuries.

Bucharest, 2011

On one end of the spectrum are those who argue that graffiti can be an artful expression of rebellion, an acceptable form of individual, political or social commentary by the powerless and marginalized.

Hardliners on the other end firmly believe that graffiti, totally unlike commissioned or requested wall/public art (like yesterday's post), is an unwelcome sign of anarchy, a loathsome act of disrespect for property, a crime, and certainly never to be called art.

What do you think? Can we discuss artistic or social merit when looking at the graffiti in these photos I took in Bucharest earlier this year? Is there a middle-of-the-spectrum position? Or is it all merely vandalism, period?

Of course graffiti filled spaces are nothing unique to Bucharest. Still I see more of it throughout Europe than in North America, and even less in Asia.

What role does culture play in the acceptance or tolerance of graffiti? I don't know; I'm asking.

(Ne Travaillez Jamais = Never Work)

Municipalities and businesses bear significant costs to clean up graffiti (when they can afford to do so at all). So I wonder whether it would do any good to provide clean and accessible walls for people to come and express themselves (sort of like the ill-fated Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978)? Or is the illicitness of the vandalism an intrinsic part of the message? Again, just asking.

(La Vie Est Ailleurs = Life Is Elsewhere)

I'm linking with the blogging communities at Our World Tuesday and ABC Wednesday with the letter V.

Monday Mural II - Peles Castle V

It's Monday and again I join a small group of bloggers posting interesting murals found around the world. Check them out... one in Ontario, one in Flint, MI, and the other where the mural blog-hop started, in Oakland, CA. Why not join and show us yours?

Today my mural is in Romania. This is the delightful fresco in a small courtyard near the public entrance to the fairytale Peles Castle in Sinaia. The link takes you to my earlier posts on this outstanding castle built between 1873 and 1914 (and a couple of other castles).

Sinaia, 2011

Concrete Fence with Roses

Bucharest, 2011

Found this intricate concrete fence with roses in full bloom on a walk in Bucharest earlier this year. [Details better seen enlarged.]

That feels like a long time ago already. 

Linking with a new meme I just found, Friday Fences. Go take a look at other interesting fences from around the world.

H is for Horsepower

 Romania, 2011

It excites me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower.....even in this space age.  And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton, and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder, and challenge.

     ~ Marguret Henry, American author (1902-1997)

 

A new morning... a new hard day for beasts of burden. For both man and his horse. And so it has been since the New Stone Age, roughly 10,000 years ago, when man transformed from forager to farmer.

[all photos can be enlarged with a click]

Then came the Industrial Revolution with its machinery. Since these new inventions often replaced the work of horses, it was considered useful to compare the output of machines with the power of draft horses.

Did you know that one horsepower equals 33,000 foot-pounds per minute? So it was determined by James Watt of the unit of power fame.

The story goes that Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals. He found that, on average, a mine pony could do 22,000 foot-pounds of work in a minute. He then increased that number by 50 percent and pegged the measurement of horsepower at 33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute. It is that arbitrary unit of measure that has made its way down through the centuries and now appears on your car, your lawn mower, your chain saw and even in some cases your vacuum cleaner. [source: How Stuff Works]

To learn what other units horsepower are converted to, read here.

The letter of the week is H and this is my link for ABC Wednesday.

T is for Theatre - Peles Castle IV

It's time for Alphabe-Thursday and the letter is T. My T today is for theatre... that is theater for my American blogger friends. 

While I often use American spelling, in my mind, the King's English befits this word. Especially so when the subject of my post is the elaborate private theatre in the gorgeous Peles Castle in Romania I visited last May (first introduced here and here). 

The theatre, built in the style of Louis XIV, holds sixty seats.  

We were not allowed in the room, so these are only quick walk-by shots taken from the door.

 Sinaia, Romania, 2011

This second photo is very similar, but I wanted to show you as much as possible, as I find this mellow yellow room quite extraordinary. Enlarge the photos to take a closer look at the murals painted by the Austrian Art Nouveau duo Gustav Klimt and Franz Matsch. I'm sorry I didn't stop to take better photos of the murals, but believe me, this palace produces sensory overload!

A final piece of historical trivia: the first motion picture in Romania was viewed in this room in 1906.

S is for School

When times are tough, the first things we go without are those we deem non-basics or luxuries. This goes for government budgets, too. Yet I find it incomprehensible and sad that we consider art and cultural programs, including art and music education for our youth in schools, among the dispensable, especially while the war machines are kept humming at full tilt. This value system does not speak well of us as civilized humans.

I am guessing that this once-handsome music school in Bucharest too had its funding slashed.

 Bucharest, 2011

The signs posted in front of the school show there is still a lively interest in a range of music in the city.

Posting for S at Alphabe-Thursday and Signs, Signs.

F is for Farmhouse

This florid fallen-in farmhouse near Sibiel was my favorite homestead in Transylvania. I found it on our foray through the fabulous old villages I posted a few months ago.

Sibiel, Romania, 2011

Check out the other fantastic F posts linked to ABC Wednesday.

[SkyWatch] Vivid Rooftop Skies

Indulge me once more as I share these two skies taken a few months ago. They are as vividly awesome today as they were then.

Bucharest, 2011

My post today is dedicated to Klaus Peter, nature photographer and owner of the wildly popular meme SkyWatch Friday, where he and sky watchers from around the world share their love of the skies. Klaus is with us no more.

"Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."
                               ~ Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky) 

Face of an Angel

Bucharest, 2011

Top part of a caryatid on a dilapidated building in Bucharest.

Linking with Weekend in Black and White.

P is for Plow

On our way back home after a meeting in the city of Târgovişte we stopped at a roadside car wash in a small village about an hour north of Bucharest. While the car was getting a good clean, I went for a stroll with my camera.

This friendly farmer with a simple manual plow walked towards me and I asked (with body language) if I could take his photo. Didn't he give me a wonderful smile and pose? 

He may be one of the 64% of Romanian farmers who produces on a rather small plot of land for personal consumption.

Despite the vintage look I gave this photograph, I took it only two months ago.

This primitive plow and perky plower join Jennie's Alphabe-Thursday where P is the letter of the week.

How Much for This Trinket?

My honey and I have spent the better part of the last few weeks packing and moving house. And while neither of us are much into shopping, it shocks me how many knickknacks and doodads we've still managed to accumulate over the years. We could set up our own flea market, I kid you not.

This is a photo of a woman in a mirror I took a few months ago at a flea market in Bucharest. For Weekend Reflections and Weekend in Black and White.

Bucharest, 2011

Tonight will be our first sleep in our new home.

M is for Metal Memorial

There are many roadside memorials in the Balkan region. I spotted this metal cross on a meander in Bucharest, but I found more of them in the countryside than in urban centers.

Bucharest, 2011

This is a mournful memorial for a mother (31) and child (6) who I'd surmise met a mortal motor car mishap together on this spot on November 20, 2005. 

Memorials like this make me pause and reflect how fragile and unpredictable life is. And reminds me to carpe diem. 

I've seen them in other regions of the world, too. Do you see any in your neighborhood? 

In recent years, these kinds of public shrines are meeting a measure of opposition and have sparked mainstream media debates. Want to share your musing on this matter?

M is the letter at Alphabe-Thursday. Many more M mentions may be found there.

They are also placed as a warning sign for drivers to stay alert and drive carefully. So I join Signs, Signs, too.

Woodpeckers

This cute baby and its mama I spotted in Bucharest just a few weeks ago join Camera Critters and NatureFootstep Winged.

They are Great Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopos major), quite common in Europe and northern Asia.

Bucharest, 2011