Bucureşti
1935. Ultimele trăsuri în centrul oraşului
Bucharest 1935. The last carriages in
the town center
The photo is taken on the street, and the eye of the
photographer is not dominant but allows to be
dominated by the vertical architecture of the city.
The air zone from above is invaded by the light that
makes unclear the shapes of the taller buildings. On
lowering the eyes, the image becomes opaque. The
shadows that can be seen towards the photographer
reveal the way he made these light-dark effects: the
light doesn’t come from behind him, as normal, but
from his face. The street is occupied with carriages
and cars that head in different directions. But,
while the carriage is standing right in front of the
photographer, the cars outrun him in the right.
That’s why the composition is not perfectly
symmetric, but a little bit oblique. The tall
building from the background is the hotel Splendid,
destroyed by bombing in the Second World War.
The photography is autonomic, does not belong to a
series. The image is somehow equivocal: it does not
hold enough info to make us understand the moment of
the day. Ionescu’s text - "The last carriages in the
town center" - suggests the dawn of the day and not
the evening. But the text itself it’s equivocal. Are
they the last carriages of the night or the last
carriages of the city? The first interpretation is
more plausible. The second one integrates the moment
as a final point of an evolution. If this
interpretation is correct, Ionescu was aware of the
fading of a world. Which equalize the purpose of the
photographic act with the desire to hold on to a
present that will soon be past.
