‘Kunstgeographie’ – the study of the geographical dimension of art is a relatively undeveloped field, at least in English language studies. This article, which is developed from art history research at Sussex University, studies the images of Bucharest in art as it grew from a loosely organised collection of village-like groups to the capital of a new state – over the same period that Romanian art broke away from the religious art of the Orthodox church to become westernised as exchanges with western Europe grew. The growth of Bucharest has been analysed by Guiseppe Cina (2010) in four distinct phases, and these are used as the basis of this analysis.