53. Landscape on Valea Doftanei [1898-1904]

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53. Landscape on Valea Doftanei [1898-1904]

Nicolae Grigorescu

1838, Pitaru, Dâmboviţa - 1907, Câmpina

Estimate:

EUR 15.000 - 25.000

Sold

EUR 19.000

References

BREZIANU, Barbu, "Nicolae Grigorescu", Ed. Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1987
ENACHE, Monica (şi alţii), "Grigorescu – pictor al naturii, (catalog)", MNAR, 2008

oil on wood, 17 x 30.5 cm, 30,5x17, signed lower right, in red, "Grigorescu"

Notes

Pe verso, autentificare olografă Gheorghe Petrașcu

PROVENANCE

historic collection of the Bușulenga family. The painting initially belonged to Cezar Bușulenga, one of the brothers of Apostol Bușulenga, husband of Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga. After 1977, the painting entered the collection of Nicolae Bușulenga, the third Bușulenga brother.

Nicolae Grigorescu's work around 1900 still raises controversy regarding the true source of the modelled imagination - and we are not referring to inspiration, but to the conscious action of interpreting nature in a certain technical approach. Whether Grigorescu is connected to his contemporary movements and we must emphasise the primacy of Art Nouveau in 1900, or sight issues were the real cause of the "white period", the answer is most likely somewhere in between. The primary quality of the work developed over the last 10 years of creation is vision, an unmistakable vision that has been translated by direct contact with the immediate reality, filtered (or not) through such passionate lyrical sensitivity. The landscape was truly won when Nicolae Grigorescu was able to match his style to that vision, through his own opinion on Impressionism, the value of things and the coordinating aesthetics. The gains of this last period, especially as regards the pictorial manner, consisted of the value given to the whole composition, of the artist's ability to paint the whole, but also the fractions, with the same meaning and quality as that of the luminous universe. This work belongs to a series of landscapes - variations on the same theme, images of the sub-Carpathian area near Câmpina and Posada - made with the most subtle notations, on those wood panels indispensable both for painting in front of the motif and for choosing the most significant views.

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