I’ve always been a culture vulture. Literature major, art history minor, big classical music goer, repertory film type …
I’m also a big geography nerd. Put the two together, and you get … something like this.
So, what is this, exactly? Well, basically, I tried to see if I could name a writer, musician, composer, and director for all of the countries in Europe.
Yeah, France, Italy, Germany … easy-peasy. But, how about Serbia, though, or Portugal, or Finland? A little more difficult, huh?
Nada
Slovenia, the Baltics, Montenegro, N Macedonia, Luxembourg, Bosnia, Albania (and Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City & Liechtenstein)
One-Offs
Portugal – Luis de Camoes (writer)
Bulgaria – Christo (artist)
Finland – Sibelius (composer)
Denmark – Hans Christian Andersen (writer)
Ukraine – Nikolai Gogol (writer)
Ireland – Joyce (writer)
Netherlands – Rembrandt (artist)
Twos
Switzerland – Hermann Hesse (writer), Paul Klee (artist)
Poland – Chopin (composer), Polanski (director)
Sweden – Strindberg (writer), Bergman (director)
Romania – Ionesco (writer), Brancusi (artist)
Threes
Hungary – Liszt (composer), Alexander Korda (director). Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (artist)
Norway – Ibsen (writer), Munch (artist), Grieg (composer)
Greece – Homer (writer), El Greco (artist), Costa-Gavras (director)
All Four
Belgium – Rubens (artist), Georges Simenon (writer), Cesar Franck (composer), Chantal Akerman (director)
Austria – Mozart (composer), Gustav Klimt (artist), Fritz Lang (director), Stefan Zweig (writer)
Czechia – Kafka (writer), Dvorak (music), Alphonse Mucha (artist), Milos Forman (director)
Britain – Shakespeare (writer), Hitchcock (director), JMW Turner (artist), Benjamin Britten (composer)
Spain – Picasso (artist), Cervantes (writer), Manuel de Falla (composer), Pedro Almodovar (director)
Russia – Tolstoy (writer), Tchaikovsky (composer), Wassily Kandinsky (artist), Sergei Eisenstein (director)
Germany – Beethoven (composer), Goethe (writer), Albrecht Durer (artist) Werner Herzog (director)
France – Proust (writer), Monet (artist), Debussy (composer), Godard (director)
Italy – Dante (writer), Michelangelo (artist), Verdi (composer), Fellini (director)
Who knows, maybe I'll do non-European countries next.
