Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești was a Romanian Symbolist poet, essayist, and art and literary critic, who was also known as a journalist and left-wing political agitator. A wealthy landowner, he invested his fortune in patronage and art collecting, becoming one of the main local promoters of modern art, and a sponsor of the Romanian Symbolist movement. Together with other Post-Impressionist and Symbolist cultural figures, Bogdan-Pitești established Societatea Ileana, which was one of the first Romanian associations dedicated to promoting the avant-garde and independent art. He was also noted for his friendship with the writers Joris-Karl Huysmans, Alexandru Macedonski, Tudor Arghezi and Mateiu Caragiale, as well as for sponsoring, among others, the painters Ștefan Luchian, Constantin Artachino and Nicolae Vermont. In addition to his literary and political activities, Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești was himself a painter and graphic artist.
Anonymous sketch of Bogdan-Pitești, 1917 (signed Correggio)
Nicolae Petrescu-Găină's caricature of C. I. Stăncescu, original watercolor
Photograph of Bogdan-Pitești (left) and Joséphin Péladan, during the latter's visit to Bucharest
Nicolae Vermont's Vara la conac ("Summer at the Manor"), a 1912 depiction of Bogdan-Pitești's estate
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts. Bringing the assimilation of France's Symbolism, Decadence and Parnassianism, it promoted a distinctly urban culture, characterized by cosmopolitanism, Francophilia and endorsement of Westernization, and was generally opposed to either rural themes or patriotic displays in art. Like its Western European counterparts, the movement stood for idealism, sentimentalism or exoticism, alongside a noted interest in spirituality and esotericism, covering on its own the ground between local Romanticism and the emerging modernism of the fin de siècle. Despite such unifying traits, Romanian Symbolism was an eclectic, factionalized and often self-contradictory current.
Chimera, ink drawing by Dimitrie Paciurea
"The Symbolist poet", as portrayed by cartoonist Constantin Jiquidi. At the bottom, a stack of papers with the title Literatorul
Some of the Tinerimea Artistică founders, in a caricature by Nicolae Petrescu-Găină (1903)
Ștefan Luchian, Primăvara ("Spring")