123. Country Houses [1873-1874] [1873-1874]

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123. Country Houses [1873-1874] [1873-1874]

Ioan Andreescu

1850, Bucureşti - 1882, Bucureşti

Estimate:

EUR 40.000 - 60.000

Sold

EUR 55.000

References

MEREUȚĂ, Iulian, "Andreescu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1972. The catalogue of the commemorative exhibition "Ioan Andreescu", December 21, 1982 – February 6, 1983, Arta Grafică Publishing House.

22.5 x 26.5 cm, signed bottom right, in brown, "I. Andreescu"

Research information

The work is inventoried in the Radu Bogdan archive under the title "Country houses" and appears in the catalogue raisonnÃ© "Andreescu" prepared by Radu Bogdan and still in manuscript, at position 19. The Radu Bogdan Archive is currently owned by the foundation named after the author.

Notes

on the back, the authentication: "Certific cÄ tabloul prezent este operÄ autenticÄ de maestrul Andreescu I." ("I certify that the present painting is the authentic work of Master Andreescu I."), C. Ressu, June 1948.

Defining in the economy of his whole work, the period spent in Buzău region, between 1872 and 1878, represented, for Andreescu, a defining stage for training his artistic qualities. Long disputed among critics, the trajectory of his professional training still remains uncertain. From Bucharest, Buzău and Barbizon, the artist will assimilate the necessary knowledge to reach the pinnacle of his creation. He perfects his technique in the country and arrives in French Bohemia as a trained artist. He will continue to take, gradually, ideas and principles from the famous masters. Andreescu stands out, in the local art, as a painter of nature. He takes the national specificity both in the choice of motif and in the way it is interpreted. He paints in plein-air and transposes, in his style, the geography of the landscapes he is passing through. The present work resembles, both in terms of thematic register and compositional organization, two other works made by the artist in the period 1875-1878: "Village Balance" and "House on the Road". In the catalogue of the commemorative exhibition organized between December 1982 and February 1983, the critic Radu Bogdan records the possibility that these two works were made during the time the artist spent in the Buzău region. Andreescu's personal style is enhanced in these works by the dense touch-lines and by the manner in which he paints the roofs of the houses. The water well and the balance, the symbols of the rustic life, can be seen in all three works even in the middle or in the immediate vicinity of the rural settlement. The houses are solitary or even isolated, and the diagonally sloping road gives depth to the work. The local specificity is resumed to the illustration of the sky and the land, and of the solar light which invades the canvas. The present work, specific to the early period - marked by research and experimentation - demonstrates the artist's aptitude for composition and the development of a particular technique, in which the execution serves the vision and gives it points of support.

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