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oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 80 Ã 100 cm, signed and dated bottom right, in blue, "Gng. V., (19)74"
Named "the greatest Romanian Expressionist, Gheorghe Vânătoru demonstrates unquestionable visual force and awards colour the statute of essential language in his paintings. From as early as his debut, the artist evinced notable propensities in terms of colours. His palette thus came to function as an extension of the personality, just as vibrant, loquacious, and colourful. A contemplative nature, a discriminating observer of reality, Vânătoru relied on the vitality and on the deep expressiveness of the shades on his canvases. An adept of the soliloquy, the artist entrusted his thoughts to the canvas and to his notebook. His appetite for a solid construction of shapes, his balance in composition, or the harmonious distribution of shades and his preference for austere tones, particularly black - which valorises all the other colours - are taken from his master, Gheorghe Petrașcu. He also dallied with scenography, while he worked as a decorator painter at the National Theatre in Bucharest, which proved useful in constructing scenes of interiors with female characters - a theme that was prevalent in his work. He sometimes stopped on specific characters, whom he constantly brought in the centre of his canvas. He often captured typologies close to himself: writer and painter Vasile Parizescu, actor Tiberiu Puica, or painter Rudolf Schweitzer-Cumpăna. He focused on encasing character traits in lines, shapes, and colours, aiming to capture both topographic details, and the psychology of his models. The artist disclosed states, attitudes, or concerns of his characters, using the sketches or the notes executed on site. Gheorghe Vânătoru’s early paintings disclose protagonists sketched against dark backgrounds, inspired from Rembrandt; the artist’s palette would later open up to adopt an intense resonance. His full maturity years, when the object of his creation was revealed to us in his scenes of the interior, with female characters, disclose a typology favoured by the artist: the young, svelte woman, seated on a chair, armchair, or sofa; she is captured while reading, leafing, talking, or lost in her own thoughts. In this stage of his creation, the colours have an expressive dialogue, harmonizing with the shapes they describe. In this work, the incandescent, almost visceral red is noted, crowned and chromatically augmented by the dense blue and by the ethereal white. The dynamism of the lines and of the black line contours render a stark rhythm to the flat or rounded forms of the characters. (D.C.)
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