6. Self-Portrait [1984]

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6. Self-Portrait [1984]

Corneliu Baba

1906, Craiova - 1997, Bucureşti

Starting price:

EUR 18.500

Sold

EUR 20.000

References

Muzeul de Artă Timişoara, "Palatul Baroc şi Colecţiile sale", Samuel Tastet Editeur, Timişoara, 2006
Şuşară, Pavel, "Corneliu Baba", Ed. Monitorul Oficial, Bucureşti, 2013

oil on canvas glued on cardboard, 54.5 x 49 cm, 49x54,5, signed and dated lower right "Baba, (19)84", in black; dedicated on the back, "Domnului Colonel Vasile Ienceanu şi dinastiei de ziua lui Dan (31 ani), să îl păstreze şi să îl aprecieze sănătoşi, amintindu-şi de bătrânul de pe verso cu aceeaşi plăcere, Baba, 21 VII (19)84; Cu toată dragostea, Bunului

The work of Corneliu Baba is given a pace by the numerous themes and motifs, some turned into obsessions and correlated to certain periods of creation. The only constant theme throughout his life is that of his own face, generating the most complex and fascinating gallery of self-portraits in the history of Romanian art. The artist himself said that "self-portrait imposes itself as a compulsory presence in the atmosphere of the chaotic drama we are going through." Thus, in Corneliu Baba's view, self-portrait is the complete, essentialised image of his entire painting. Over the years, from his first self-portrait in 1919 until his last ones, the artist's face is, in turn, astounded, seraphic, self-confident and slightly arrogant, vain and virile, tired and touched by melancholy. From this perspective, Corneliu Baba's self-portraits are a key to reading his entire work, a profound meditation on art and the human condition. In this "Self-Portrait", the artist proposes an archetypal image for his entire portrait work. The individual, the adult, the man and the refined intellectual come together in the painter's obsession to capture the fate and specific manifestation of a symbol, of a representative of the species. It is in this atmosphere that the character proposed in the self-portrait suggests dignity cohabiting with defeat, triumph with suffering, as well as an entire spectrum of moral reflections. It is no accident that portrait and self-portrait as a subdivision have been a constant theme in the master's creation. In physiognomy one can find the expression and the inner life of a person. "I preferably paint people. I am a realist by tradition, temperament and belief. Portrait is a summum. It obligates. Decomposed..., composed... Portraits should make you shudder and not allow you to forget them for a long time, they should follow you ceaselessly."

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