Poet Laurian Stanchescu is on a quest to bring Constanin Brancusi 's bones back to his native Romania. Inspired by the legendary story that Brancusi walked to Paris when emigrating there in 1904, Stanchescu is headed to Paris on foot to draw attention to his cause. Representing 84 of the sculptor's relatives, he intends to deliver a letter with his request to French president Nicolas Sarkozy . "On our knees, we ask the French people to give back Constanin Brancusi's remains to Romania," Stanchescu said when he began his march on Monday, . He expects to cover the distance of over 1,200 miles by early September. On his , Stanchescu claims to represent the final wishes of the artist, stating that the dying Brancusi told the Romanian bishop of Paris that "he wanted to be buried in Hobiţa, his native village, next to his mother's grave. Eventually, the great Brancusi lived in Paris, in his Romanian way, living his last years speaking only Romanian and died as a Romanian." The artist died in Paris in 1957 and is buried in Montparnasse cemetery, where one of his early sculptures, "The Kiss," adorns the grave of a young Russian woman who killed herself for love. Brancusi became a French citizen in 1952 and left part of his collection to the French state on the condition that his studio be rebuilt as it was on the day he died. (In fact, his first wish was for the works to go to the Romanian government, but Communist authorities rejected them, which made them French property.) Architect Renzo Piano oversaw the process of reconstructing the studio for visitors, and it is managed today by the Pompidou Center . Romania has recently begun preparations for nominating a group of monumental sculptures by Brancusi to be included in UNESCO 's list of protected world heritage sites, . In the late 1930s, Brancusi created the sculptures as a World War I memorial in Târgu Jiu, near his hometown. He originally intended a series of 12 sculptures, but only completed four. The 98-foot "Infinite Column" is the most iconic of the group, and is located at the eastern end of a street called Calea Eroilor. The sculptures were recently restored are already listed on Europe's cultural heritage list.
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