#Exhibit of the Month

To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, 2026 was declared by the President of Romania the Year of Constantin Brâncuși. Constantin Brâncuși, one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century, was born in 1876 in Hobița, Gorj County, and passed away in 1957 in Paris; he was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. In 1904 he arrived in Paris, where he attended courses at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. There he also worked in the studio of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), the founder of modern sculpture, and met Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920), the Italian sculptor settled in France. Inspired by the work of these artists, he perfected his artistic training in Paris. His works are held in museums both at home and abroad, in the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, France, and the United States of America. For his outstanding merits he was awarded the Order of the Star of Romania in 1923; in 1931 Nicolae Iorga proposed him for the Order of Cultural Merit; and only in 1990 was he posthumously elected a member of the Romanian Academy.
One of the artist's most famous creations is the sculpture Mademoiselle Pogany, considered a national symbol of modern Romanian art. Its protagonist was Margaret Pogany (1879-1964), a young Hungarian painter who came to Paris in 1909 to study painting techniques. Visiting her studio, she asked the sculptor to make her portrait, even leaving him a photograph and a self-portrait. In 1911 Brâncuși sculpted her likeness from memory in marble and in bronze, focusing on the deep, large, almond-shaped eyes, the subdued eyebrows, the narrow nose, the small mouth, the austere hairstyle and the modest gesture of the hands, rested against the face. Between 1912 and 1933 he produced nineteen versions of Mademoiselle Pogany.

The commemorative medal "Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1976). Expoziție Filatelică Omagială - București 1976" was struck in Romania at the State Mint by the engraver Ștefan Grudinschi. Executed in bronze with a diameter of 60 mm and a weight of 113.73 g, the medal is remarkable for its memorial and artistic value. Obverse: the sculptor's bust facing left, with the semicircular legend "CONSTANTIN BRÂNCUȘI - 1876-1976." Reverse: a fragment of the triptych The Gate of the Kiss. Semicircular legend: "EXPOZIȚIA FILATELICĂ OMAGIALĂ - BUCUREȘTI 1976."
The medal "Constantin Brâncuși. Mademoiselle Pogany. Craiova Art Museum. 1987" was also executed in bronze at the State Mint (Bucharest); it has a nominal diameter of 60 mm (because of the circular cutting the actual dimensions are D: 45 mm; weight: 53.55 g). The obverse shows, in the central field, an image of the Craiova Art Museum framed by the semicircular legend "MUZEUL DE ARTĂ - CRAIOVA / 1987." The reverse depicts a replica of the sculpture Mademoiselle Pogany made by Brâncuși's pupil O. Moșescu, accompanied by the inscription "CONSTANTIN BRÂNCUȘI - M-elle POGANY / 1913."

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Publications

Journal „Tyragetia"

vol. IX [XXIV], nr. 2

The registers of prophets and apostles from the spire tholobate of the St. George Church of Suceava. Liturgical and historical implications

ISSN 1857-0240
E-ISSN 2537-6330

Emil Dragnev

The registers of prophets and apostles from the spire tholobate of the St. George Church of Suceava. Liturgical and historical implications

Tyragetia, serie nouă, vol. IX [XXIV], nr. 2, Istorie. Muzeologie Chișinău, 2015

Abstract

The frescoes of the St. George Metropolitan Church of Suceava, painted inside and outside in 1534, until now have been studied only partly. In the hereby study we aim an iconographic consideration of the paintings within the vaulting system of the nave. Special attention is paid to the registers of prophets and apostles inside the tholobate, which display several important peculiarities. In the superior register are represented 12 Minor Prophets and 3 Major Prophets, to which prophets Elijah and David are added. Surprisingly, the fourth Major Prophet, Jeremiah, is missing, instead of him, even more surprisingly, being represented Naboth the Israelite - the single image of this character within the register of prophets during the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine epoch. In the case of this unexpected insertion, we have attempted to draw several interpretation tracks, connected with the historical re-alities of the epoch. The inferior register also contains an uncommon mixture, including eight ﬁgures of apostles and prophets each, as well as a little habitual practice of endowing the apostles with texts written on rotuli. The study draws a repertory of the inscriptions from the rotuli of prophets and apostles, which are analyzed from the perspective of the practices in this ﬁeld from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art, as well as in the context of their liturgical implications. At the same time, the author presented the inscriptions on the rotuli of prophets from the Dodecaorton (The Great Feasts) from the soﬃt of the oblique arches, trying also to establish a relationship between the prophetical registers of the St. George Church of Suceava and the evolutions of these registers in the Moldavian art from the 15th -16th centuries.

List of illustrations:
Fig. 1. The St. George Church of Suceava, the paintings of the nave spire.
Fig. 2. The St. George Church of Suceava, Christ Pantocrator on the dome of the nave.
Fig. 3. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the angelic registers.
Fig. 4. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the registers of the prophets and apostles and of the Heavenly Liturgy.
Fig. 5. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: David, Micah, Isaiah, Habakkuk.
Fig. 6. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: Habakkuk, Nahum, Zephaniah (?), Amos.
Fig. 7. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: Elijah, Haggai, Abdias.
Fig. 8. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: Abdias, Jonah, Ezekiel, Joel.
Fig. 9. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: Ezekiel, Joel, Malachi.
Fig. 10. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, the prophets' register: Zechariah, Na- both, Daniel, Hosea.
Fig. 11. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, registers of the prophets and apostles: Sts. Peter, John the Baptist and Paul.
Fig. 12. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, registers of the prophets and apostles: Sts. Philip, Bartholomew and Andrew.
Fig. 13. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, registers of the prophets and apostles: Sts. Paul, Simon, James and Thomas.
Fig. 14. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, registers of the prophets and apostles: Samuel, Elisha, Moses, Salomon.
Fig. 15. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tholobate of the nave spire, registers of the prophets and apostles: Aaron, unidentiﬁed prophet, Gideon.
Fig. 16. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tympanum and the intrados of the northeast arch: The Annunciation
and the prophets David and Salomon.
Fig. 17. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tympanum and the intrados of the southeast arch: The Nativity of Jesus and the prophets Isaiah and Micah.
Fig. 18. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tympanum and the intrados of the southwest arch: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the prophets Moses and Isaiah.
Fig. 19. The St. George Church of Suceava, the tympanum and the intrados of the northwest arch: The Baptism of Jesus and the prophets St. John the Baptist and Nahum.
Fig. 20. The St. Nicholas Church of Popăuti-Botoșani, the prophets' registers on the arch of the central apse. Fig. 21. The St. George Church of Voronet the prophets' registers on the arch of the central apse.
Fig. 22. The St. Nicholas Church of Bălinești, the prophets' register in the central apse.