Dumitru Matcovschi Quotes

We could say that Romanian Onirisme was born from painting and not from surrealist literature. The visual is primordial. Dimov said, 'Dreams are not a source, but a canon, a legislative model.' ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

The reader's impression is one of a dream - the only thing that's left upon waking is the memory of a melody at the end of a concert. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

In so-called communist Romania, chess was held in high esteem, even if our champions were weaker than the Soviets. This game, this "sport of the mind," was at the time a better way to establish your reputation than literature. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

It's true that in Romanian I feel more relaxed, as if I'm wearing slippers ... but I came to this decision primarily for other reasons: I had only published three collections of texts in Romania. Even before my exile I was prohibited from publishing, I was ignored and forgotten. In going back to Romanian I had the opportunity to take my revenge. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

Our Onirisme movement was a synthesis between the Romantic Fantastique and Surrealism. Dimov and I rejected automatic writing. We loved surrealist painters: Chirico, Magritte, Tanguy and especially Brauner (also a Romanian), who never respected the laws that Breton imposed in his manifests. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

In Necessary Marriage, I tried to repeat entire phrases without the reader noticing. My work doesn't have the rigor of music, but I hope it alludes to it. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

The East was no longer a threat to the western world, and when there's nothing to fear we turn our backs, we look elsewhere. Eastern literature is still the poor relative that everyone wants to forget, the Cinderella who hasn't (yet) found her prince. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

Never trust guys with tunics!i did that once ... by the way i dont have a tunic. ~ Dumitru Mardari

I had severed relations with the Romanian exiles who had become politically conservative and even extremely right wing; I was giving chess lessons to earn a living. Luckily we spoke quite a bit of French at home so it wasn't too difficult for me to write in my adopted language. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

Since adolescence I've had a passion for Romantic Fantastique literature, which continued with Expressionism and culminated with the genius of Kafka. It's that German thread of the metaphysic - they were looking for the beyond in dreams. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-portrait and not much more. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

As my editor had no desire to frighten readers with the Romanian pages, he had them translated and published the whole thing in French in 1984. It was only years later, in Romania, that I was able to publish the book as I wrote it. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

St. Irenaeus: 'To create is,Proper to the kindness of God, but to be created is proper to man. ~ Dumitru Staniloae

Where is automatism in the work of Chirico or Tanguy? Even Dali had to renounce it in order to be able to organize the space of the canvas according to the combined laws of dreams and pictorial aesthetics. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

Many images of animals, mammals or birds, resurface regularly in my narratives. They are not symbols, but chromatic benchmarks. For me, music has always been the perfect construction - an inaccessible ideal. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

We don't recount our dreams; we construct them with the materials of reality. We aren't looking for God, psychic truth or authenticity, but for esthetic effect. That's why I baptized our movement Structural, or Esthetic, Onirism. Dreams and music were our models. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

But music doesn't sum up my approach to literature - even in Vain Art of the Fugue. To 'fugue' I had to invent 'trap-words,' or words that would force the narrator to turn around and start his path anew. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag

The narrative image has more dimensions than the painted image - literature is more complex than painting. Initially, this complexity represents a disadvantage, because the reader has to concentrate much more than when they're looking at a canvas. It gives the author, on the other hand, the opportunity to feel like a creator: they can offer their readers a world in which there's room for everyone, as every reader has their own reading and vision. ~ Dumitru Tepeneag