184. In the Garden [cca. 1930]

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184. In the Garden [cca. 1930]

Gheorghe Petraşcu

1872, Tecuci, Galați - 1949, Bucureşti

Not sold

Selling price

EUR 13.025

References

FLOREA, Vasile, "Gheorghe Petrașcu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1990. The catalogue of the exhibition "Gh. Petrașcu", Art Museum of the S.R.R., Bucharest, 1972

oil on canvas, 45 x 54 cm, signed bottom left, in red, "G. Petraşcu"

The work represents the artist's wife surrounded by nature, in the back of their house from Târgoviște. This canvas is realised in a period when Gheorghe Petrașcu was already enjoying international acclaim, a period of creative maturity, but the artist's modesty still dominates his work. His favourite model, his wife Lucreția, appears in different scenes in many of his works - in interior, nude or portrait. Although the scenes depicting the characters in nature are rarer in Petrașcu's case, this work is not a stylistic exception, but even embodies the painter's personal voice. The balanced, static composition is a typical feature, as is the construction of the image based on colour - in the mature period, white plays the main role, and the secondary role is given to discreet but effective spots of red and blue. The superposition of the touch-lines and the lack of contour are, along with the chosen motif, elements of impressionist nature in this Petrașcu's synthesis. For the fact that he managed to identify and express the idyll of the most mundane objects, can be named romantic. Petrașcu's romantism is also expressed through drama: He creates on the borderline between "the blaze of imagination and the calm contemplation of phenomena in immediate reality". His own sensitivity can be defined as romantic: he is attached by the past and is inspired by the rustic and traditional, by nature; he is also a declared admirer of Eminescu. In this case, nature has a decorative role and reduces space, thus, avoiding the use of perspective, another feature specific to the artist. In such a landscape, the character, as if frozen, gives the impression of a statue. This atemporal simplicity is obtained by reducing to the essence of what is represented, causing an effect of monumentality that contrasts with the modesty of the subject. (H.T.)

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