127. Peasant Women in Vlaici [prima jumătate a anilor '20]

1880, Galaţi - 1962, Bucureşti

Estimate

EUR 7.000 - 12.000

Sold

EUR 7.500

Session

Tue, 20 June 2023 19:00

The central figure of his work is the peasant, to which the artist returns both in the fine brushstrokes of drawing and in oil painting. He does not idealise rustic life, but he paints with all its difficulties and obstacles. He captures faces framed by worries and thoughts and deliberately geometrizes shapes, in the Gaguin-Cezanne manner. He gets to Vlaici village, Olt County, at the beginning of the last century, at the invitation of collector Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești. This meeting represents the beginning of his appetite for rural life. Initially, he studies and creates drawings which he will then transpose in oil, on canvas. He goes beyond the academic precepts acquired in the two months in Munich and builds his own plastic, eloquent and well finished semantic. He often comes to Vlaici, so his existence will be divided, over time, between the uniformity of urban life and the prolific experiences that village life offers him. He will use the direct contact with peasants, in order to develop a deeply subjective vision. The artist insists to go deeper in the psychology of the represented characters, so he will provoke discussion and insist on knowing their models. He thus identifies the true aspects of rural life. The expressive power of the characters' psychology is revealed even when they do not take on monumental, foreground dimensions. In the present work, the drawer masterfully asserts itself in sure and eloquent lines and illustrates man in connection with nature and his native lands. Ressu manifests, through his multitude of works on the subject, his preference for earthy figures, energetic, well rooted in the fertile soil of the village. He organizes his compositions horizontally and realizes authentic frescoes of the villages from Olt, Moldova and Vrancea. His compositions are balanced and he keeps the real proportions; he thoroughly builds his drawings, subduing the colour. In his works, he uses a mostly linear rhythm and a luminous chromatic, attempting to emphasize the characters' silhouettes. The artist's works exemplifies life, labour and rural life's traditions, but they sometimes reveal peaceful moments. Ressu's lapidary realism is revealed especially in the cold tones, in the wide surfaces of light and shadow and in the truthful rendering of volumes and rhythms.

References

TEODORU, Rada, "Camil Ressu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1962. COSMA, Gheorghe, "Camil Ressu", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1967. SCHOBEL, Doina, The catalogue of the retrospective exhibition "Camil Ressu", Bucharest, 1981.

Dimensions

width 64 cm, height 50 cm

Description

oil on cardboard, signed bottom left, by layer scratching, "C. Ressu"

Dating

prima jumătate a anilor '20

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