The art show

One of the reasons I was in Romania this last week was for an art show by Ion Constantinescu. His show was in Medias in the Cultural Museum, and the great and good from round about were invited - and me.
Best known for his paintings, his works on woodblock and other gravure methods are what set him apart from his contemporaries.He uses both lime and chestnut,using the different textures of the woods to give different effects, and create other meanings to his work. His imaginations is clearly thrown forward from his soul, and many of his works display allegorical and semi-mystical themes. For only a few Lei you can have something that speaks to your mind.
We were invited for lunch on Sunday before departure for the overnight train back to Budapest. You might think the juxtaposition of " lunch" and "overnight" sounds strange, but not in Romania. We had excellent salad soup, made with lashings of cream, eggs, bacon and garlic - clearly to keep the vampires at bay - followed by sarmale, pork chops, roasted vegetables and boiled potatoes of such excellence that everyone had third helpings of them. The grand finale was a cake, made with intermingled sponges of different kinds. His own wine was decanted from wax-sealed bottles, and the tuica was made from pears rather than the more usual plums. The lunch was in his studio, surrounded by paintings, castings, wood blocks and catalogues of past and present exhibitions.
You may ask what all this has to do with doing business in Romania, and the answer is very little really. But he is a member of the Romania Artists Union, a prestigious self-help association that requires exacting standards of excellence. One of their objects is to find and promote new young talent. To this end, our company has donated a prize for the best young artist of 2009, and as a thank you, Ion intends to present a picture at the ceremony on November 4th 2008, commemorating 10 years since Prince Charles visited Mosna.
It's not business as we know it, but it's the way things get done in Romania.