108. Nude on the Divan

Defined by realism in plastic expression, transformed into a source of presentation of the surrounding world, Ștefan Dimitrescu did not alienate himself from the principles that defined him as a narrator of his intimate universe. Starting from a spirit carefully tuned to the descriptive details of the life of the ordinary man, the painter consciously eliminated the bland constructions, ordering the elements of each canvas according to a single, central motif coordinating the entire composition. In the maturity age, the light describes Dimitrescu's palette, but does not dissolve the forms, rather opens the path to a much more intensely chromatic approach of the motif. This vibrant tone, materialized in works that address various topics, would not bring overall stylistic changes, but only the chromatic component. These things are obvious in the interior workshop painting, where he managed to build perfect compositions. The nude, a subject particularly approached in the second half of his career, gets here a solid, strong and fully controlled brush. The varied palette, intentionally vivid and strongly tonal, precisely exaggerates the central motif, yet it is more of a plastic exercise. Even if the category of "nude" has a special place in the history of the arts, Dimitrescu's painting seems to find its source not in the encounter with the posing model, but rather in the same considerations for the expression of form, as he shapes the human being in all its manifestations. Monumental in execution, both in terms of dimensions, and especially in terms of technique and the naive way of placing the model in the pictorial setting, "Nude on the couch" utterly offers us Dimitrescu's mastery

References

PARADAIS, Claudiu, ”Ştefan Dimitrescu”, Ed. Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1978 PĂULEANU, Doina, “Grupul celor Patru”, Monitorul Oficial, București, 2012

Dimensions

width 75 cm, height 60 cm, custom 60 × 75 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom right, with black, "St. Dimitrescu"

Research information

The artwork was part of "Representative artistic values from Bucharest collections" Exhibition, Museum of Art Collections, Bucharest, 2002.

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