the ineu fortress - print illustration

 Today's post is the third instalment from the West Series, a project in collaboration with ADR Vest, in which I illustrated 4 landmarks from the west region of Romania. You can find the story about the Românești Church here and the one about the Deva Fortress here.

This next one is all about yet another fort, this time the Ineu Fortress. I'll admit, I did not know a lot about this landmark previous to this project, but the research I've done for this postcard illustration, made me quite interested in it. And what I found out is that the first attestation of the Ineu establishment is from around the year 1334. It is believed that the first castle built on this land, also around the 14th century, is somewhere underneath the current structure or that most likely, this monument we see today was built on top of the old castle. So this medieval fortress has been around for quite a while now and over time it has gone under a lot of rebuilding, restructuring and restoring. Also, being this old, you can imagine it has seen a lot of empires come and fall, a lot of rulers reigning over and cities rising and expanding around it. So we are quite lucky to have it still standing here to this day and hopefully, one day, we'll get to see it completely restored to its former glory.

 

I've mentioned in the previous posts that I chose a specific colour palette for each illustration, inspired by the four-season climate we have here, and for this particular drawing, I chose winter. There was just something about the thick walls and towers of this fort that just made me think of all the cold battles that took place there in the dark ages and thereafter.