36. Promenade [1912-1913]

The Impressionist baggage, first relevant in Petrasco's journey towards a modernism aligned with European references, remained, perhaps more than the use of classic techniques, the tribute for his first master. Light and shadow will thus be assimilated into a continuously developed pictorial complex where density, volume, weight, matter in a word, become the components that translate the imaginary conceived by Gheorghe Petrașcu. The specificity of the current work entitles us to discuss one of the less obvious concerns of master Petrașcu. If we would list the main stages and styles of the artist's career, we would emphasize especially the initial, post-Grigorescu stage, in which Petrașcu juggled the landscape through the prism of a pure form and color Impressionism, and the maturity stage, in which modernism holds the reins of a work that coincides with the most significant creations of the local space. This concern mentioned above consists in decorative painting, which appears at various times in the biography of Gheorghe Petrașcu. In an objective and technical listing, this concern for decorative art can be identified in the exhibitions from 1900 (the first, indeed), 1925, but also on the occasion of some orders or personal projects (Petrașcu's house from the Roman square, or the last dwelling of the painter from Zambaccian street no.3). The present work is practically a visual document of what was to be the first decorative order received by Gheorghe Petrașcu at the beginning of the second decade of the last century. At the request of Barbu Delavrancea, Minister of Public Works during the period 1910-1912, Petrașcu executed a decoration meant to adorn the Hall of the Superior Technical Council from the new building of the Ministry, currently the headquarters of the Bucharest City Hall. The work captures a subject relevant to the ministry, probably the equally new Slanic, Targu Ocna road, as Petrașcu entitled it. The generous perspective treatment of the landscape reminds us of the works of the first decade, the technical solution still being tributary to a quasi-Impressionist register, certainly seen exclusively through the own manner developed by Petrașcu in those early years.

References

OPRESCU, George, "Gheorghe Petrașcu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1963 SCHOBEL, Doina, CONSTANTINESCU, Paula, "Gheorghe Petrașcu Painting Exhibition", Art Museum of the S.R.R., Bucharest, 1972

Dimensions

width 55.5 cm, height 65 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and located bottom left, in black, "Slănic Road, T. Ocna, G. Petraşcu"

Research information

Version for the decorative project with the same subject intended for the Technical Council Hall of the Ministry of Public Works, commissioned by Minister Barbu Delavrancea in the period 1910-1912.

Lot.notes

On the back, in pencil, "To the poet friend G. Dima, memory from the 1913 exhibition".

Dating

1912-1913

PROVENANCE

the collection of Gheorghe Dima (1847-1925), Romanian composer, pedagogue and conductor.

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