57. Crown of Life [cca. 1919]

Ignat Bednarik's artistic training, and especially the timing of this phase, becomes a decisive factor in placing the artist on various levels of native art. The period and styles of 1900 were to be definitive for a young artist (he was 18 years old in 1900), who in 1901 had the courage to give up the courses of the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest for the ideal of studying abroad. The 5 years spent in Vienna are eloquent for the discussion at hand, the Royal Academy, but especially the museums, being an invaluable source of information and model for Bednarik. The attraction to decorative art would lead him in the following years to Munich, where, together with his newlywed wife, Elena, he would study at the Royal Academy of Decorative Art and even exhibit at resort events. The return of the Bednarik couple to the country also coincides with the budding of the symbolist style in Bucharest clubs, around characters like Alexandru Macedonski or Ion Minulescu. The attraction to symbolist line themes thus becomes increasingly prominent in the second half of the second decade of the 20th century, and the painter will not be absent from the most relevant artistic movement of the moment - the Idealist Club, organized by Macedonski and Alexandru Călinescu. The symbolist themes addressed by Bednarik in these years announce a concern for the dark, easily observable also in this work, and the quality of his technique, both in drawing, watercolor, and oil, will establish him within the artistic life of Bucharest as a thoughtful artist, with philosophical and mystical tendencies.

References

BEDNARIK, Beatrice, "Ignat Bednarik," Meridiane Publishing, Bucharest, 1987.

Dimensions

width 44.5 cm, height 83.5 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed lower left, in brown, "Ignat Bednarik"

Dating

cca. 1919

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