Comparative Considerations: Mircea Grozdea’s Arta monumentală în România socialistă (1973)

Today’s blog post is a departure from the typically Albanian-centered content on this blog. The post contains a scan of Mircea Grozdea’s Arta monumentală în România socialistă [Monumental Art in Socialist Romania] (1973), an album documenting trends in socialist Romanian monumental art in a variety of media. Grozdea (also the author of Arta monumentală contemporană (1987)) provides an overview of the developments of monumental art in Romania, including information on the major artists and on the institutional framework for the production of the monuments (the introduction is in Romanian, but an overview in French accompanies it).

Obviously, in the present context (read: with an eye towards comparison with the Albanian context), the album is logically compared with Përmendore të Heroizmit Shqiptar [Memorials of Albanian Heroism], published the same year in the People’s Republic of Albania. Monuments such as Boris Caragea’s Monumentul Vicotriei (1968), Anton Eberwein’s Steag (1972), and Andrei Ostap’s Monumentul Ostașului Român (1958) immediately sugget formal comparisons with monumental works in socialist Albania. However, the broader range of media (including tapestries and mosaics) in Grozdea’s album provides a more sweeping (and diverse) aesthetic assortment than the images collected in volumes like Përmendore të Heroizmit Shqiptar.

Happy reading!