29 Facts About Octavian Smigelschi

Octavian or Octav Smigelschi was an Austro-Hungarian painter and printmaker, one of the leading culturally Romanian artists in his native Transylvania.

Octavian Smigelschi was among those commissioned to paint Sibiu Orthodox Cathedral, which required him to study religious art in the neighboring Kingdom of Romania.

Octavian Smigelschi's contribution was relatively ignored in Romania, but well-liked in Transylvania and Transleithania at large, earning Smigelschi the Vilmos Fraknoi prize in 1907.

However, he does allow for the possibility that the elder Octavian Smigelschi adopted the faith after arriving in Transylvania.

Octavian Smigelschi became involved with the cultural life of Romanian communities, and was noted for his participation in a choir which performed at Talmaciu in February 1887.

Octavian Smigelschi began school in his native village, and in 1880 enrolled at the state Hungarian high school in Sibiu.

Octavian Smigelschi was finally integrated by the Hungarian education system, and named art teacher in the Upper Hungarian town of Banska Stiavnica.

In 1890, Octavian Smigelschi held his first exhibition in Sibiu, alongside Schullerus and another Transylvanian Saxon colleague.

Octavian Smigelschi held his teaching position until 1911, when he retired in order to focus on painting, although from 1905, when he moved to Sibiu, he was on a leave of absence for the same reason.

Together with his brother Victor, Octavian Smigelschi joined the Blaj chapter of ASTRA Society, a Romanian nationalist association.

Curators Sabin-Adrian Luca and Dana-Roxana Hrib describe Octavian Smigelschi's painting as bridging "temperate naturalism" and "influences from that branch of Symbolism which descends from German romanticism".

Octavian Smigelschi bunked with Robert Wellman and Arthur Coulin at Cervara di Roma art colony.

Octavian Smigelschi was opposed to the revival of Byzantine mosaics by Miksa Roth and others, describing the technique as "minute and menial", with the inevitable loss of artistic quality between the artistic design and the finished product.

Octavian Smigelschi focused his neo-Byzantine attempts on more pictorial techniques.

Octavian Smigelschi was paid 32,000 crowns for the cupola, the pendentives and the iconostasis.

Accordingly, in 1904, Octavian Smigelschi crossed into the Romanian Old Kingdom as well as the Duchy of Bukovina in order to study the churches and monasteries where the Romanians' spiritual heritage is expressed, familiarizing himself with the Byzantine style that came to complement his knowledge of Renaissance painting.

Reluctantly, Octavian Smigelschi had to incorporate suggestions from the monk Elie Miron Cristea.

Cristea repeatedly asked him to abandon all influences from Armenian art, which reportedly appeared in his original designs; in private notes, Octavian Smigelschi complained that Cristea was uneducated and unproductive.

Octavian Smigelschi analyzed old painted churches at Tismana, Cozia, Bistrita, Horezu, Curtea de Arges, Bucharest, Snagov, Sinaia, Iasi, Suceava, Sucevita, Dragomirna, Putna, Radauti, Humor, Voronet and Cernauti.

Octavian Smigelschi used his study of Gavriil Uric's calligraphy in his illuminated manuscript of the Gospel, completed for Bishop Victor Mihaly de Apsa, and in diplomas for Albina Society founders, which carried his personal seal.

Octavian Smigelschi was sidelined in favor of "others, better seen and better connected".

In 1907, along with painting at Ciacova, Octavian Smigelschi donated funds to the families of those killed during the peasants' revolt.

Octavian Smigelschi received an order for painting the altar in a Rakoczi chapel in Hungary, which remained unfilled, while painting for the Blaj cathedral and the remainder of the Sibiu cathedral was left in the planning stages.

Octavian Smigelschi intended to execute a triptych for the 1911 International Exhibition of Art in Rome, but this remained undone due to a heart attack.

Octavian Smigelschi was expected to continue working at Sibiu Cathedral, but church authorities began looking elsewhere after hearing news of his affliction.

Octavian Smigelschi then traveled to Budapest, where he took part in a contest for painting a chapel in Kosice.

However, as asserted by Ispir, Octavian Smigelschi's neo-Byzantine approach was a "perishable tear into the threads of tradition".

Octavian Smigelschi's son, Victor, was an architect noted for designing Blaj's Palace of Culture in 1930 and Satu Mare's old administrative palace in 1935; he contributed the Romanian pavilion at EXPO Paris 1937.

Octavian Smigelschi married the Italian Maria Anna Giuseppina Trinchieri; their progeny includes two daughters, both of whom are noted artists: ceramist Ioana Setran and printmaker Ana-Maria Smigelschi.