31. Spanish Woman (Portrait of M.D.) [1984]

The childhood spent in his father's workshop, painter Gheorghe Baba, offers Corneliu Baba the precepts of academic training and the peculiarities of classical instruction, in which the student learns to proportion and value the subject by working directly after the model. He manifests an apparent interest for Iser's expressionist constructions and for the harshness in Pallady's drawings. The predilection for human figure acquires an unpredictable and spectacular dynamic, especially in portraits. The realism specific to the artist's temperament extends also in his work. The origins of the manifestations in the genre of portraiture are revealed early on: In high school, Corneliu Baba was known as "the city's portraitist": most of the notable personalities of Caransebeș posed for him. He gradually creates self-portraits, portraits of close friends or famous names such as: Tonitza, Enescu, Sadoveanu and Arghezi, or dwells on particular subjects: the mad king, peasants or the harlequin. His vocation for portrait and the vast sketches the artist dedicated to the motif reveal to us, through the mastery of light and textures, the emphasis on inner states that we also find in Rembrandt's works. This work, dedicated to a reputed personality in love with art and beauty, an active figure in local artistic circles, reveals the timeless deafness that Corneliu Baba lays, with typical virtuosity, over the portraits.

References

ȘUȘARĂ, Pavel, "Corneliu Baba", Monitorul Oficial Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013.

Dimensions

width 75 cm, height 85 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom right, in red, "Baba"

Dating

1984

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