169. Spoonmaker (Portrait of Matei Rudaru) [1900-1904]

Grigorescu's exceptional spirit of observation of physiognomic characteristics, his knowledge of the anatomy of the figure learned at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and then continued through the analysis of the themes of phrenology that preoccupied psychologists and artists at the time (cranial typologies correlated with character traits), are aspects of the master's art that have already been recorded. The artist is not concerned here with the issues of a compositional portrait. A thin, almost unloaded male face is brought to the foreground and placed in a strikingly close relationship with the viewer. The light accents skilfully placed on the bumps of the physiognomy, on the forehead, on the soft cheeks, on the aquiline line of the nose, define the round shape of the small skull and the prominent cheekbones, highlighting the almost feminine delicacy of this bone structure. As if sprung from a medical lamp, used to highlight the unrelenting details of the figure, the patches of light reconstitute a face escaping from inner life through the gleam of the gaze and the tightening of the lips hidden by the moustache. The defined thin lines of the face, the colouring, the shoulder-length hair, the round hat turned backwards evoke Matei Rudaru, a character that Grigorescu painted on several occasions and at various ages. Depicted with the harmonious features of his youth, with dark, curly hair and eyebrows in the superb romantic profile of the 'Iranian prince' in the National Gallery (MNAR, inv. 145), or in the similar smaller painting in the Iasi Museum of Art (G. Oprescu, Grigorescu, 1960, fig. 83), the aged Matei Rudaru seems to have been the model for this unusual portrait, with a weathered face, a realistic image that speaks to the essence of character and the anthropological data of race. The qualities of this small physiognomic study painted on wood with the sovereign freedom of brushwork that is characteristic of Grigorescu, evoke the exceptional double portrait 'Turkish Prisoners' at the Museum of Art in Cluj. (I.B)

References

[Ioana Beldiman, Gheorghe Cosma], 'Nicolae Grigorescu, pictură-grafică' ('Nicolae Grigorescu, painting-graphics'), [exhibition catalogue], Art Museum of the Socialist Republic of Romania, Bucharest, 1984 The RPR Museum of Art, National Gallery, Catalog, State Publishing House for Literature and Art [1954] NICULESCU, Remus, 'Nicolae Grigorescu Exhibition', catalogue, The R.P.R. Museum of Art, Bucharest, 1957 NICULESCU, Remus, 'N.Grigorescu în amintirile şi corespondenţa lui Alfred Bernath' ('N.Grigorescu in the memories and correspondence of Alfred Bernath'), in S.C.I.A., Publishing House of the RSR Academy, tom 12, no.2/1965, p. 219-261 OPRESCU, George, 'Grigorescu', Bucharest, Meridiane Publishing House, 1960 OPRESCU, George [-Remus Niculescu], 'N. Grigorescu', Bucharest, Meridiane Publishing House, 1961, vol.I VLAHUȚĂ, A, 'Pictorul N. I. Grigorescu. Vieaţa şi opera' ('The painter N. I. Grigorescu. Life and work'), Bucharest, Socec, 1910

Dimensions

width 25 cm, height 35 cm, custom 35 × 25 cm

Description

oil on plywood

Dating

1900-1904

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