In the Carpathian villages of Romania, horses and carts and scythe-wielding farmers are still the norm
The Carpathian villages of Romania are places where horses and carts are still more useful than cars. So when a charity working for their preservation wanted a visual record of local life, it plumped not for a photographer with a digital camera but an artist dipping pen into ink.
The resulting exhibition by George Butler, ranging from intimate portraits of men wielding scythes to panoramas of livestock markets, can be seen from today [Tuesday October 28] at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London.
The 100-or-so villages, scattered along the southern range of the Carpathian Mountains (Transylvanian Alps), date from the 12th century, and are among the last vestiges of European medieval planning and culture, but they are threatened by development and a pace of change that has quickened since the end of communism and Romania’s entry (in 2007) into the European Union.
