Olteni plecând din Piaţă cu coşurile
încărcate, Bucureşti 1924
People from Oltenia Leaving the Market with Fully
Loaded Baskets, Bucharest 1924
The word „olteni” refers to the people living in
Oltenia, which is a region located within the
southern part of the country. Into Ionescu’s world,
the word had lost its initial meaning and it had
become a generic term used to design the vegetable
salesmen (who were living in the southern part of
the city, where they grew their vegetable gardens).
Such people would practice the itinerant trade (by
calling out their merchandise on the streets), as
well as other forms of more organized trade (at the
Central Market, they had their own display area).
The series of photos is dedicated to the market
place, to the moments that created the daily ritual
of the people from Oltenia: their arrival at the
market and the blocking out of the neighboring
streets (due to the people from Oltenia, the market
place overflows, since it cannot be contained within
its own limits; the impression is one of disorder,
but disorder is part of the ritual too), the setting
of the vegetables in the baskets and the trading.
Ionescu’s photo is an oblique composition, where the
privileged angle is ascendant (the movement goes
from left to right). The common reading system
(according to which what is on the left denotes
familiarity and what is on the right refers to the
unknown) decodes the movement as a departure, not as
an arrival.
Ionescu’s photo actually catches a sequence from the
protest generated by the ban on itinerant trade.
Except for the reactions of certain building owners,
opposing the tearing down process, there is no
protest reaction in this world. There is no
resistance to the new, or if there is, it is not an
aggressive one. The transformations occurring within
the public space do not engender any reactions.
Although the photo is not a snapshot, the
composition is so rigorous, that it inevitably
reminds us of the creations of Cartier-Bresson.
Ionescu masters the art of grasping the moments when
the forms in movement reach the plenitude of
harmony.
