84. Houses at Câmpina [1902]

Although he lingered in various studios and studied in Paris, as well, Nicolae Grigorescu was a self-taught artist, capable to harness his natural talents on his own. The study period spent abroad corresponds to the accomplishment of true analytical exercises in the French museums. He capitalized his spare time, turning it into sessions of reproductions after the works of great universal artists. This way, he managed to better understand their vision and technique. At the end of his studies, Grigorescu acquired full aesthetic maturity, as well as a significant force of pictorial expression. Paris was the city where the artist developed on the intellectual and particularly on the human level. He harnessed the time spent in France in order to exhibit as much as possible. In 1867, during the Exposition Universelle in Paris, one of his works was purchased by Napoleon III himself. Unlike the Naturalists, who used to focus on inexpressive details, Grigorescu succeeded in harnessing the astounding force of the essential. Most of the times, during his artistic explorations, he started from a humble motif, which he elevated to art status - with the help of an imaginary pedestal. The end of the 1880s marked Grigorescu's final settlement in the countryside, at Câmpina, where he lived and worked over the past 17 years of his life. The artist thus returned to his native land and took trips that drew him closer to people, to customs, and to folk costumes. He travelled low country roads during summer, and he stopped, with curiosity, in the yards of people who were willing to welcome him in. Under the guidance of Czech painter Anton Chladek, Grigorescu managed to develop his artistic propensity, and he gained the appreciation of the master for the mode in which he created the lands on his canvases. From the landscapes painted in the middle of nature, to which the artist devotes numerous paintings, we reach the transcriptions of rural architecture. In these compositions, Grigorescu relies both on a rendering of country houses, and on setting them in the landscape, in the green of the forest, under the grey-blue of the sky and above the ochre of the well-trodden path. In full communion with nature, the artist lent authentic pictorial attire to the fragments of Romanian lands, outlining peasants’ cottages, rustic houses, or taverns specific for the picturesque world. Built with clay and supported by wooden posts, according to the specific character of the place, with their appearance, the peasants’ houses retain the solemnity of the archaic space. Thus, the creative impulse felt by Grigorescu regarding the Miorița space turned pictorial motif is not to be wondered. (D.C.)

References

VLAHUȚĂ, Alexandru, "Pictorul Grigorescu - Viața și opera lui" ("The painter Grigorescu - His life and works"), Alexandru Vlahuță, Bucharest, 1910. OPRESCU, George, "Nicolae Grigorescu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1963. CEBUC, Alexandru, "Grigorescu", Monitorul Oficial, 2017.

Dimensions

width 44.5 cm, height 26.5 cm, custom 26,5 × 44,5 cm

Description

oil on wood, signed and dated bottom left, in red, "Grigorescu, (1)902"

Dating

1902

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