57. The Blue Fan [anii '30]

The end of the 19th century found Theodor Pallady amidst the frenzy of Paris, where he would often return throughout his life. Inspired by the landscapes and locals along the Seine, the artist dedicated numerous works to the subject. However, he would limit himself to his own vision and personal experiences, never moving beyond that horizon. He was familiar with the French protipendulum, studying alongside Matisse, Marquet, or Rouault under the guidance of Gustave Moreau. The group he joined decidedly set against academicism, naturalism, and impressionism. In 1920 he made a statement with a personal exhibition in Paris, which would consecrate him among the critics of the time. In the intimate atmosphere of interiors, Pallady captured the entire essence of the female character, who became, in his work, a muse and a leitmotif. He often painted nudes, but also excelled in portraits. He would capture the female model sitting in an armchair, lying on a bed or a divan, but he was also interested in the calculated arrangement of inorganic objects, which he grouped balanced, and which often took the form of a coffee table, a desk, a newspaper, or a book. The fluid course of the line, the harmonies and chromatic rhythms are not chosen randomly. The artist takes a meditative look at interior scenes and constantly brings the female character back into the foreground of the canvas, under different variations. Pallady creates a true poetry of interiors and assigns a hieratic symbolism to his muses. The individuation of the protagonists takes place primarily in portraits. In the work at hand, Pallady's French woman appears crowned with a turquoise turban, which in similar works takes on shades of red or green. The mystery of the female body, so often elucidated in the works dedicated to the nude, is now encrypted in brightly colored garments. The human figure appears as a pretext for line and color. The artist does not seek to render with photographic details the models that pose for him, instead he strives to capture the atmosphere and the essence of the character's psychology through chromatic tricks, refractions of light and undulation of line. The diffuse chromatics, detached from reality, refines the pigment and conspires to the creation of an intimate space, where the elegant forms of the muse converge beyond the profane dimension proposed by nudes, towards the sacred.

References

BLAZIAN, H., "Pallady", State Publishing House for Literature and Art, Bucharest, 1957. ȘORBAN, Raoul, "Theodor Pallady", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1975.

Dimensions

width 37.5 cm, height 44.5 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed on the left side, in pencil, "T. Pallady"

Dating

anii '30

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