Dimitrie Gavrilean Exposition

This evening is an exposition at the museum for Dimitrie Gavrilean. He is an artist from Gura Humorului. He currently lives in Iasi where he is a master artist and professor at the University. The opening event is at 5 but I do not want to be too early. Romanians are the ones who coined the phrase "fashionably late." I am going to have to hitch a ride into town as the maxitaxis have stopped running for the day. I have never hitched a ride in my life and am not really sure how to do this. I am wearing a wool suit with a silk scarf and heels. Somehow it is not what I imagine to the typical hitchhiker apparel to be. Hitchhiking is standard procedure in Romania and is safe. You pay the driver what the maxitaxi would earn for the same trip. It seems like a good idea until I am out here in the rain in my wool suit and heels waiting. Supposedly, you stand at the bus station and anyone in a car with an extra seat will stop to take you into town. I wait for twenty minutes for a ride. I start by peering intently into the first few cars that pass. That does not work. Then I try lifting my hand in their direction as they pass. Then I try waving and pointing to town. I have seen all three maxitaxis head out of town but they have not returned and I have been here for over twenty minutes. This goes on for about twenty minutes during which time I am getting wetter and wetter. Finally, I decide this is not going to work and start walking. It can't be that far and I am determined not to hire another taxi today. They really are not that inexpensive. I head for town, turning to signal each vehicle that passes me. Nobody has any room or chooses to stop. It is impossible to blend in and so I continue to plod into town. I get to the bridge and no one has offered to take me to town. I walk a bit farther when I hear something larger coming up behind me. It is one of the maxitaxis! He picks me up mercifully. I ride the rest of the way.

I arrive in town and walk to the museum. It is 5:07 and already there is someone speaking. Of course, it is all in Romania so I have no idea what is being said, but there are several speakers and they all seem to have much to say. I stand listening attentively in the growing crowd and clap at all the appropriate times and it looks like I know what I am doing. Several of my students are here, as is the art teacher and Costel, the French teacher who invited me. As I do not understand very much of what I am seeing, I turn to crowd watching for entertainment. There are quite a few very well-dressed people at the opening. Several of my students notice me and translate bits of the story that is being told about one of the monasteries that Gavrilean has painted.

It seems that each of the pastorals is a depiction of a Romanian story. His new one is the story of the _________ Monastery. Each day the architect would build all day, accomplishing much and then go home to get some much-needed rest. Every morning he would return to the construction site only to find that much of what he had accomplished the previous day had been reduced to rubble. This went on for some time but he doggedly continued to build every day. Finally, the builder had a dream one evening that he must wall in the first woman to arrive at the monastery the following day. In the morning he went to the site of the monastery to prepare a space to wall in that woman. He waited all day for a woman to arrive but none came. Finally, it was getting on the dinnertime and he spied his pregnant wife coming down the lane with his meal. As she was the first woman to arrive, he put her in the wall of the monastery.

The painting has a haunting quality to it as if the artist's hand could feel the sadness of the architect and it painted that sadness into the painting. Gavrilean paints lovely medieval scenes of peasants in their daily tasks. They are chubby and have happy faces. The paintings have a medieval aura about them. The eerie thing about them is that I recognize these daily chores as those that are still being done today. Men still go out hunting for pheasant and bring them home for dinner. Hay and straw is still cut down with a scythe and pitch-forked onto a carute for the horse to bring home. Huge gardens are still tended by hand. There is an interesting custom that continues that involves a parade of goat-masked revelers going house to house to celebrate the New Year. My favorite is a huge painting of a wedding at the Voronet monastery. It is called Nanta la Voronet, or Wedding at Voronet. The paintings vibrate with life.

After the speaking is finished, everyone mills out into the lobby. I wasn't paying attention. By the time I returned to the lobby all that was left was half-empty wine glasses and crumbs on the cookie plate. I have managed to catch the artist posing with his family. His mother is wearing the authentic Romanian dress. I imagine that some of his paintings are from his own memories, while others are from a time he knows but many others have forgotten.