The painter and revolutionary Constantin Daniel
\nRosenthal is the artist – symbol of the Romanian 1848 revolution in Wallachia. His
\nworks were included in the Romanian history textbooks and many generations
\nstudied history admiring his works. Two of his paintings are best known:
\n‘Romania breaking its chains on C\u00e2mpia Libert\u0103\u021bii’ from 1848 and ‘Revolutionary
\nRomania’ from 1850. These paintings had a powerful impact on the modern idea
\nregarding the creation of the Romanian state and nation.<\/p>\n
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Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, who strongly believed in
\nRomania’s national aspirations, and eventually became a Romanian citizen, was
\nactually born in 1820 in Pest, Hungary, into a family of Jewish merchants who
\nspoke Hungarian and German. He died at only 31, in a prison from Pest, as he
\nwas arrested by the Austrian authorities and accused of espionage and
\ninstigation to revolutionary activity. Constantin Daniel Rosenthal studied art
\nin Vienna and grew attached to radical revolutionary ideas. According to art
\ncritics, Rosenthal came to Bucharest around 1842, for unknown reasons. It seems
\nthat, in Vienna, he became friends with the Romanian painter Ioan Negulici,
\nhimself a future active participant in the 1848 revolution in Bucharest. While
\nin Bucharest, he was regularly attending the Romanian radical revolutionary
\ncircles represented by C.A. Rosetti’s Francophile Liberals.<\/p>\n
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Rosenthal’s most important contribution to the
\nRomanian revolution consists in the two aforementioned paintings. The woman who
\nposed for Rosenthal was the famous Mary Grant, of Scottish origin, who later
\nbecame Maria Rosetti after her marriage with C.A.Rosetti. An overwhelmingly
\nenergetic person, Maria Rosetti personalized Romania’s beauty and determination
\nto build a new destiny. Dressed in an embroidered Romanian blouse, wearing a
\nnecklace made of yellow princely coins that contrasted with her white skin,
\nwith a head scarf made of raw silk covering her dark, shiny hair and holding a
\ntricolor flag in her hands, Maria Rosetti as the symbol of revolutionary
\nRomania was part of the epoch iconography, when a young woman embodied
\npolitical and social ideals. Art historian Adrian-Silvan Ionescu summed up
\nRosenthal’s contribution to the artistic representation of Romania’s 1848
\nrevolutionary ideas. <\/p>\n
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From the point of view of his patriotic feelings,
\nRosenthal impeccably illustrated this Romanian movement by painting ‘Romania breaking
\nits chains on C\u00e2mpia Libert\u0103\u021bii’. Later, a lithography was made after this
\npainting. It is a small-size work and its lithography was popularized and
\ndistributed to the masses at large, contributing to the dissemination of
\nrevolutionary ideas. Afterwards, Rosenthal painted Maria Rosetti, a Scottish
\nwoman. It is quite amusing to see that Romania was represented by a Scottish
\nwoman, but she had a Romanian soul, being married to C.A. Rosetti.<\/p>\n
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Bucharest, like any changing city, especially in the
\nfirst half of the 19th century, was in full effervescence. A
\npredominantly Oriental city before 1800, without any notable public fora,
\nBucharest was commonly perceived by travelers as a marginal city in terms of
\nliving standards and quality of life. In the former Vornicei Market Square,
\ntoday the venue of the Art Collections Museum on Victory Road, a statue devoted
\nto Liberated Romania, designed by Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, was raised on
\nJune 23, 1848. The Pruncul rom\u00e2n (Romanian Infant) journal described the
\nstatue as follows: the monument depicted a gowned woman crowned with a wreath
\nof laurel leaves. Her tressy locks sprawling over her shoulders, the woman
\nstill bears her broken chains on her wrists, in one hand holding a long cross
\nand the scales in the other, both symbols of faith and justice. She is
\ntrampling on the snake, representing her enemies. <\/p>\n
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In the aforementioned journal, C.A. Rosetti spoke
\nabout the tearing down of the statue: the statue depicted Liberated Romania,
\nwith the symbols of justice and Christianity, the cross and the scales,
\nstanding in Vornicei Square, has been teared down under orders from Mr. Emanoil
\nB\u0103leanu, who accompanied this act of vandalism with such villainous and
\nreprobate words that we dare not smear our paper with. The basement of the
\nstatue was also destroyed, with no respect for the property. Adrian-Silvan
\nIonescu is back on the microphone: <\/p>\n
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\n
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Few people know Rosenthal was the first public
\nsculptor in Romania. He created the Statue of Liberty held up in Vornicei
\nSquare on the present-day Victory Road, a statue he built using perishable raw
\nmaterials, from plaster. The moment the interim Government fled to
\nTransylvania, fearing the Ottoman invasion, the statue was brought down by the
\nopposition. The statue stood high for no more than a few weeks. Rosenthal’s
\nstatute was featured a year after the revolution, in 1849, in the Leipzig-based
\nIllustrirte Zeitung magazine, most likely drawing on one of Rosenthal’s
\nsketches. He was fluent in German, one of his uncles was running a
\nGerman-language magazine in Buda. He was well-connected to the European
\npublishers and cultural figures. He loved his art and was an avid learner of
\nhuman physiognomy and psychology, a keen observer of Romanian identity.
\nMoreover, he wanted to be Romanian, he considered himself Romanian, although he
\ndidn’t speak the language. Rosenthal was a Romanian not because he obtained the
\nRomanian citizenship, but due to his works.<\/p>\n
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\n
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Constantin Daniel Rosenthal was the Jew, the Hungarian
\nand the Romanian who lived his life to the fullest according to the principles,
\nvalues and ideologies of his time, which he sought to represent as best he
\ncould. The 1848 Revolution was undoubtedly a central moment in his life.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(translated by L. Simion & V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
\n
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Rosenthal was a central figure of the 1848 revolutionary movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":50395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45600,45599],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-1848-revolution-in-wallachia","tag-constantin-daniel-rosenthal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n