53. Spring [anii '60]

Adam Bălțatu's artistic debut took place right in his parental home, amidst his father's sketchbooks. The young artist took delight in drawing from nature, reproducing in his notebook horses, carts, and other creatures that passed by on the street of his childhood. He then began to adopt trees as his preferred pictorial motif, and would illustrate them under various lighting effects determined by the time of day in which he was working. After several study trips to Italy, Adam Bălțatu returned in 1921 to Huși, where he took a long-term position as a drawing teacher. From this point on, he had the opportunity to undertake numerous artistic exercises and primarily transcribed the beauty and nostalgia of the Romanian landscape. Huși's streets with oxen or carts with horses, hills and houses, markets, birch trees, or alleys bathed in midday light have become recurring subjects in the artist's work starting from the 1920s. As always, we find a new perspective on a landscape-leitmotif of his work. The orchard depicted in rust colors, trees stripped of the rustle of leaves, distant houses, or the protagonist weaving her way through still-green grass, suggest an artist deeply marked by the existential questions raised by reading "The Brothers Karamazov". The drawing intertwines with the chromatic power and enhances the virtuosity that the painter will demonstrate throughout his career. This work remains, therefore, a benchmark in the representation of Adam Bălțatu's native Huși and is also evidence of mastery in depicting picturesque landscapes on canvas.

References

TEODORESCU, D.N., "Adam Bălțatu", "Mercur" Print, "E. Mârvan" Cliches, Bucharest, 1924.

Dimensions

width 128.5 cm, height 91 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed bottom right, in red, "A. Bălțatu"

Dating

anii '60

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