57. Tatar Woman with Headscarf

The Dobrogea space was particularly charming for the artist, a world that he preserved in his thoughts, writings or paintings. The artist’s perception of Oriental women, which occupied an important place in his works, “breathed” through the discovery of the very specific universe of Mangalia and Balchik, places that overwhelmingly define the activity of his last 15 years of career (approx. 1926-1938). Tonitza’s Turkish women transcend the purely pictorial representation, often being integrated into poetic compositions, full of a romanticism that often defined the painter. The narrativism created by the painter is obviously inspired by the lifestyle, the temporal and spatial conception that these local “Orientals” showed. The thoughts about the feelings awakened by the Oriental woman appear even before 1933, when Tonitza arrived in Balchik and painted its world. “I sprinkled mother-of-pearl powder on my garden alleys because her feet were rosier and more delicate than rose petals ... I wove a silk thread kiosk for her so that the sun wouldn’t touch her, for her body was whiter than the white of a dove’s chest ... I decided to pull all the gems out of her hair, because in her hair these gems looked like unworthy rocks ... When she laughed, her laughter tore the clouds apart, for her laughter was the only joy of heaven ... "[Nicolae Tonitza, When Darimé dies, apud Petru Comarnescu, N.N. Tonitza, Ed. Tineretului, pp. 277-275]. Thinking profoundly about the purpose of painting and art in general, Tonitza’s “poetry” moves towards painting much more through its sensibility than through the realism of pure observation. The “Tatar Woman with Headscarf” vibrates precisely through this sensibility, her daydreaming visage defining a new archetype of the Oriental character, as Tonitza who loved deep Dobrogea imagined it.

References

BARBU BREZIANU, "N.N. Tonitza", Ed. Meridiane, București, 1986
JIANU, Ionel, "Tonitza", Căminul Artei, București, 1945

Dimensions

width 23 cm, height 27 cm, custom 23x27

Description

gouache and oil on paper, signed, noted and located upper right, in pencil, "N. N. Tonitza, Studiu, Balcic" ("N. N. Tonitza, Study, Balchik")

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