185. Nude from the Back [ca. 1929]

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185. Nude from the Back [ca. 1929]

Nicolae Tonitza

1886, Bârlad - 1940, Bucureşti

Estimate:

EUR 35.000 - 55.000

Sold

EUR 35.000

References

BREZIANU, Barbu, "N.N.Tonitza", Ed. Academiei, București, 1967
BREZIANU, Barbu, "N.N.Tonitza", Ed. Meridiane, București, 1986
CIUCĂ, Valentin, "Pe urmele lui Tonitza", Ed. Sport-Turism, București, 1984

oil on cardboard, 58 x 48 cm, 48x58, signed upper left, in brown, "Tonitza"

Research information

Cel mai probabil opera a participat la Expoziția Grupul celor Patru.

Notes

Pe verso, marcat olograf, "G IV/ 108"

For Tonitza, nude paintings were the most intense trial of an artist's aesthetic consciousness: "… knowing how to draw is a profession, knowing how to express an emotional wave is art." The painting of the nude itself, the opportunity to try out his forces with the motif revealed to him, becomes the primeval purpose of art, recalling the way in which Pallady saw the nude, without emotional involvement, but an aesthetic, philosophical one. This work impresses by the choice of colours, which reminds us of the palette that Tonitza developed after 1925, as soon as the sunny atmosphere of Mangalia took over the figurative. Besides, the painter extracts from the original colourful environment the very pictorial qualities of the Dobruja landscapes that can also define the aspect of the works done inside. Shades of pink and tints of ochre are thickened and moulded on the skin of the model, and the naked back and leg lines come to life in careful and varied nuances. The effects of light and shadow are obtained by variations of the same colour (depending on the surface it covers) mixed with neutral tones - the dirty white of the bedding - which we find in the other registers of the composition. The outline touch reminds us of the pictorial tradition taken from Luchian and is also meant to emphasise an action or its imminence (the tension of the torso, like in ancient sculptures). Painting the model from behind, a typical choice in fact, was caused precisely by the anatomical qualities, the smoothness, the plasticity and the transparency of her flesh, which were affectionately depicted by Tonitza. While in this painting we are not surprised by the variety of the palette, in which we find his chromatic parsimony, the artist’s limitation to that light yellow ochre in various shades is the one that perfects the painting of the model’s flesh. At the same time, Tonitza gives a certain meaning and distinct plans to the nude, so the background and the surface on which the model is painted receive a heightened pictorial solution.

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