157. Catrina [1928-1930]

Worked as a portrait, the present painting introduces a variation on the theme by using a semi-nude model. The ingenuity of the composition is typical of Tonitza, who throughout his career tried to experiment in painting, avoiding the prosaic at all costs. Tonitza's portraits, especially those created in the 1920s and 1930s, move from an intimate universe (wife, children) to a universal-Romanian creation. The children's faces open the way to an affective portraiture in which Tonitza declares his artistic creed. For the artist, the portrait does not have to respond to requirements of absolute veracity, the portrayal of features being very often approached in a summary manner, even vague at times. The intensity of colour thus becomes the main defining feature in the presentation of the face, even in the drawing of the body. The play of nuances sought by Tonitza, nuances of interpretation but also of chromatic nuances, led to the effective conception of human complexity, which must not be quantified in a cold, insensitive reproduction after "nature". The in-depth study of the portrait has thus led to a psychological interpretation, also due to the painter's character, which is torn by his own tumultuous existence. The dramatic tendency does not appear immediately, but develops gradually, but it will manifest itself quite strongly from the second half of the third decade of the last century. Emotionally fragile, with patches of tragedy "colouring" his life, Tonitza focused his attention mainly on the human universe, indisputably created, shaped and passed through a personal psychological filter. Thus we find in portraiture the artist's adherence to the evidence of life, and, even if the formal plane does not become the translator of the universe near, the oil paintings of the artist achieving the essence of the human face in its deepest meaning.

References

CIUCĂ, Valentin, "Pe urmele lui Nicolae Tonitza" ("In the footsteps of Nicolae Tonitza"), Sport-Turism Publishing House, Bucharest, 1984 COMARNESCU, Petru,"N.N.Tonitza", Tineretului Publishing House, Bucharest, 1962

Dimensions

width 30 cm, height 40 cm, custom 40 × 30 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed upper right, with brown, "Tonitza"

Research information

The artwork is reproduced in the catalogue "Nudul în pictura românească" ("The nude in Romanian painting"), Mircea Deac, Monitorul Oficial Publishing House, Bucharest, 2010. The artwork is reproduced in the magazine "Antic Art Magazin", No. 45-46, August-September 2011, at p. 5. The artwork was part of the exhibition "Tonitza și geniul copilăriei" ("Tonitza and the genius of childhood"), Art Safari, Bucharest, 2019.

Dating

1928-1930

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