26. Sunset in Venice (San Giorgio Maggiore Island) [1938]

In the summer of 1924, Eustațiu Stoenescu spent several weeks in Venice, on the occasion of participating in the Biennale, alongside other remarkable names of Romanian art of the time, such as Grigorescu, Pallady, Tonitza and Ressu. He thus discovered the city and then painted his first series of landscapes, being enchanted by the light and specific color. In the following years, he returned repeatedly to the Italian lagoon, which he painted fervently whenever he had the chance. In an extensive series of Venetian landscapes, created in various stages of his career, Stoenescu manages to outline a monograph of the city, which is transformed through the eyes of the painter. For Stoenescu, Venice thus becomes more than just the simple subject painted. The artist's painting revisits the same corners; the elements begin to lose their immediate tangibility and become an integral part of an autonomous pictorialism. Thus, Stoenescu presents us with urban landscapes passed through his own vision, not urban landscapes of Venice. In the case of the present work, the painting manner can be framed in the one that took shape towards 1938-1939, moments that capture the last trips to Venice. The atmosphere is carefully illuminated through chromatic effects - the sun predominates, but not in a direct, sharp manner, it is reminded by the touches of orange. The object of the painting is not to accurately represent reality. Thus, the attention to detail is limited, the buildings in the background being only outlined by the techniques of an impressionist visual. (L.M.)

References

REZEANU, Paul, "Eustatiu Stoenescu", ARC Publishing, 2000 OPRESCU, Gheorghe, "Stoenescu", The Publishing House of Bucharest Schools, 1946 CIOCAN, Ioana, "Eustatiu Stoenescu: the portraitist of the aristocracy", University of Bucharest Publishing, 2024

Dimensions

width 70 cm, height 50 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed and dated bottom right, in black, "E. Stoenescu, (1)938"

Research information

The artwork is reproduced in "Stoenescu", Gheorghe Oprescu, Publishing House of Schools Bucharest, 1946, page 81.

Dating

1938

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