13. Museum [1977]

Unmistakable in the style that he cultivated in his work, Sabin Bălașa is a recurring storyteller, who chose throughout his artistic career to return to the themes that consecrated him. Bălașa is a romantic artist, slightly lost at the borders of the dream space, his work being based on an abundance of legends and fairy tales, which led to the creation of a personal myth, distinctive in the Romanian artistic space. Thus, Sabin Bălașa, dubbed the painter of the infinite blue, has provided contemporary Romanian art with a prestigious and complete work, constantly amplified, always managing to emerge from the bed of his canvases and transcend the pressure of the fabulous-less everyday. Most of the themes, chosen by the artist, were initially gleaned from the history of the Romanian people, such as representations of Dochia, the Sphinx, or the legend of Meșterul Manole, but the artist's interests were not limited to the local space. Therefore, the artist imposed his revelatory creed, which has at its center man and all its components, along with the unwritten bond between ephemeral being and cosmos. Sabin Bălașa always showed a great passion for figurative art, which he attempted to comprehend through its theme and the poetry of the chosen colors. In Sabin Bălașa's work, we can observe his affinity for an almost lyrical painting, amplified by the nudity of the bodies of his muses, as well as by the symbiosis of colors with the represented subject. The blue, which defines the artist's work, symbolizes the entrance into the fantastic space, and implicitly, the abandonment of the material world. Thus, during the '70s-'80s, Sabin Bălașa becomes the painter of metaphors, intuiting man's predilection for surrendering to fate. Eliminating the impenetrability of walls, Sabin Bălașa resorts to a fantastic world, governed by muses, guiding animals, and waves. "Art isn't invented, it continues," the artist stated in a 1981 issue of "Flacăra" magazine. In the present work, entitled "Muses," we can observe one of the most frequently encountered themes in the painter's work. Despite their naked bodies, Bălașa's muses are mysterious and seem to be suspended in a continuous waiting, caught in the nets of an endless dream. With full eyes and hair filling with sand, his muses represent life itself. The fantastic world they are part of, is a disruption of known order, becoming, at the same time, a release to cosmos.

References

DEAC, Mircea, "Sabin Bălașa", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1984.

Dimensions

width 55.5 cm, height 34 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and dated bottom right, in blue, "S. Bălașa, (19)87"

Dating

1977

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