57. The Kiss [1992]

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57. The Kiss [1992]

Vladimir (Mirel) Zamfirescu

1936, Ploiești - 2020, București

Estimate:

EUR 12.000 - 18.000

Sold

EUR 14.000

oil on canvas, 196 x 130.5 cm, 196 Ã 130,5 cm, signed and dated bottom right, with red, "V. M. Zamfirescu,1992"

Research information

The artwork is reproduced on stamps issued by Rompress Filatelia, "Contemporary Romanian Artists" series, 2018. The artwork participated in the exhibition "Trupul Èi fiinÈa", Dalles Hall, June 2009 and can be seen in the film made for the occasion.

In the Romanian artistic pantheon, the theme of sacrifice, be it of a religious or mythical origin, is approached constantly and tenaciously by a series of artists, among which we mention Vladimir Zamfirescu, Nicolae Maniu, Corneliu Baba or Ștefan Câlția. In Vladimir Zamfirescu's painting, we notice a spiritual and biblical component, built around the feeling of guilt and the need for redemption. The artist turns his characters into emblematic figures, making recourse to stylistic means in order to achieve a psychosomatic description for them. The slightly contorted, yet slender, silhouettes illustrate the tragic nature of the characters, at the same time reminding of the "knots" that cross a person's life path: love, death, betrayal, beauty. In his works, Vladimir Zamfirescu is inspired by the Byzantine tradition, by the Old and the New Testament, turning his works into meditation themes concerning the very existence. He paints the lived religion, the legend and the dream, the pain and the enlightenment, while the light that surrounds them all suggests the mystery, the ineffable, and the timeless atmosphere. An essential concern shown by the painter is the "wound", the slit through which blood, this symbolic, spiritual and material liquid, is seen and flows. "In Vladimir Zamfirescu's paintings we have the splits which tie the seen and unseen world, being true wounds of the space..." Cristian Petru Bălan described very well one of Zamfirescu's individual traits, noticing how the painter positions himself in relation to the values, particularly to the estimation of the most durable qualities which his own style receives and maintains. This way, Zamfirescu's own universe takes shape. Vladimir Zamfirescu was one of the few artists to bravely approach, in these hectic times, the image of theandric expression.

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