So, we have spent time in the monasteries, in the churches, and up the towers (goodness knows how many steps we have climbed). Now we had the opportunity to develop our creative appreciation with time spent on the visual arts.
We have been overnight in Sibiu, a lively 12th century Saxon city. A trip out today took us to Sibiel (the names are so often sounding the same) and the Glass Icon Museum containing around 600 Orthodox Christian artworks of the 18th and 19th centuries. These were not created by highly experienced artists of the time, but by Romanian peasants painters in a variety of art schools across the country. The styles differ by region, some having a predominance of a particular colour or soft tone, for example. The styles have been described as ‘naive’. The artwork had to be created on the rear of the glass, thus a mirror image had to be painted. This led to some interesting end results, particularly with lettering.
Our evening time spent in Sibiu coincided with a 10 day festival of arts. During our visits we were entertained by exciting and creative circus artists parading along the town’s streets, some on bouncing stilts dressed in bright red costumes and pulling strange faces at the onlookers. Other acts included musicians clowning around; and the sound of bagpipes drew us down a small street to find an orchestra with each performer doing his own thing. This led to a cacophony of sound as they geared up for their evening performance.
But we could not leave the region without getting a close up of the creativity of wildlife, and in this case the storks which nest in Romania each year, and particularly around a town named Cristian. A metal frame is fitted on the top of the telegraph poles across the country in order to support the nests. This helps prevent the birds settling on chimneys, although this does happen. Many nests contain the parents and two or three offspring. Our timing cannot have been much before they started to fledge for their journey to South Africa.
Copyright: words and photos Sue Barnard 2019