86. A Good Start [1960]

A lyrical and interpretive artist, we observe in Constantin Piliuță's painting corpus the desire to synthesize forms, seeking to discover and represent the common points between the authentic and the romanticized human plane. The artist manages to build an imagistic repertoire in his own vision in which he interprets the joy of everyday life, depicting the everyday in a romanticized note and highlighting the beauty of the mundane. This work is located at the beginning of the artist's career, being completed in 1960, just 3 years after his first personal exhibition, at the Galateea Hall in Bucharest. During this creative period, we still see the influences of the style of his teacher, Alexandru Ciucurencu. Constantin Piliuță takes from the post-war master the defining (and essentially original) aspect of the style, the line. For Constantin Piliuță, this was to become the primary element of expression, even more so than for his teacher. In Piliuță's art, the line defines the finished product and fixes the author's point of view in the viewer's mind. Additionally, we observe the artist's predisposition to use abundant paste, with the color often applied directly from the tube, following the example of his teacher. This is particularly evident in his self-portraits from 1957 and 1963. We observe in this work the artist's early inclination towards depicting the everyday, towards the common depiction of things. Thus, he seeks to capture the spontaneous lyrical vibration, which he essentializes on canvas and merely suggests to his viewers. In a warm luminosity, but a brief chromatic palette, which includes only shades of grey and accents of blue, the artist captures a corner of a table, alongside a sideboard, capturing a scene that evokes familiar intimacy. He demonstrates confidence in composition, balance, vigor in coloring, and determination in emphasizing tones.

References

CEBUC, Alexandru, "Constantin Piliuță", Arc 2000 Publishing House, Bucharest, 2002 PRUT, Constantin, "Constantin Piliuță. Landscapes of memory", Sport Turism Publishing House, Bucharest, 1983

Dimensions

width 49 cm, height 60 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left, with black, "Piliuță C., 1960"

Research information

The work is reproduced in the catalogue "Constantin Piliuță", Mircea Grozdea, Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1980, cat. 26., under the name "Battery".

Dating

1960

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