63. Bagneuse by the River

The 20s brought even more clarity in artist Ressu’s stylistic vision: the drawing became more confined, the colour palette was reduced to only a few tonalities, and the strokes acquire the capacity of covering the compact areas. Together, these qualities contributed to the definition of a rigorous style, as part of which the artist made a synthesis in representing reality, highlighting the essential. In absolute antithesis with the other painters - Petrașcu, Dărăscu, Steriadi, Tonitza - whose artistic vision leaned on the complex elaboration of coloristic expressivity (interest for the pictorial), the artist Ressu has the immense merit of having introduced in Romanian painting the interest towards the nude genre and towards objects, through the plasticity of shape. A fostering of plasticity was also added to the artist’s interest in the motif of the landscape, particularly in the third decade of the 20th century, when he introduced the representation of the plastic shapes of nude in the heart of nature. The grand theme of the baigneuse would enter Ressu’s imagery as early as in his first period of creation, when he was able to note the subject in the modern French painting of artists such as Cézanne, Matisse, or Renoir.

References

ENESCU, Teodor, „Camil Ressu”, Ed. Academiei Republicii Populare Române, București, 1958. SCHOBEL, Doina, Catalogul „Expoziției retrospective Camil Ressu. Pictură și grafică”, Muzeul de Artă al Republicii Socialiste România, București, 1981-1982. ENESCU, Teodor, „C. Ressu”, Ed. Meridiane, București, 1984.

Dimensions

width 60.5 cm, height 48.5 cm, custom 48,5 × 60,5 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed bottom right, with pencil, "C. Ressu"

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