110. Still Life with Dove and Pocket Watch

Basing his entire creation around three key principles: conception-construction-execution, Theodor Pallady goes beyond the realization of a simple painting and proposes to his works the status of works of art. The artist focuses on surpassing the suggestion and the empirical sensory in an attempt to transpose deeper meanings onto the canvas. The still life represents a recurring theme in his creation, and its message is usually encrypted in the juxtaposition of more or less conventional objects. Pallady produces an intimate painting, inspired by the everyday, in which he reveals himself to the public. He builds true pictorial poems in which the subjects are harmoniously decoded through rhythms and colors. Whether they are flower vases, food, dishes, newspapers, or books; or even the elements of his usual props: glasses or his cane, the subjects proposed by Pallady are most often inspired by immediate reality. In the artist's works, the incisive line of design prevails. The importance of graphic style is taken from Degas. The latter used to constantly reiterate the primacy of form to the detriment of brush strokes and chromaticity. A master of composition, Pallady excels in arranging the subjects that make up his still lifes. Books usually crowning the tables in his compositions refer to volumes which form the literary nucleus of the painter: Baudelaire, Proust or Nietzsche. Therefore, we can translate the literary, poetic or philosophical rhythms from his creation into the interpretation of universal masterpieces. The musicality of his works is deeply influenced by the solemnity that the artist takes from Beethoven's scores. This time, the artist stops at a beautifully bound volume under the auspices of a solid blue cover, carefully placing the pocket watch on it. Nearby, he places a white dove, a symbol of purity, peace, and hope in close connection with spruce branches. We can therefore affirm that Pallady ingeniously rendered the beauty of seemingly banal forms and excelled in encoding symbols in most of his canvases.

References

"Drawings by Theodor Pallady from the Collection of the Museum of Crisana", in "Biharea", 1980, pp. 291-322. Florin Rogneanu, "Theodor Pallady and the Temptation of the Absolute", in "Oltenia. Studies and Communications", no. V-VI, 1986, pp. 205-209. SORBAN, Raoul, "Theodor Pallady", Ed. Meridiane, Bucharest, 1975. CEBUC, Alexandru, "Pallady", Ed. Official Monitor R. A., Bucharest, 2008.

Dimensions

width 41.5 cm, height 47 cm

Description

oil on paper glued to cardboard, signed on the left side, in pencil, "TP"

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