6. Harbor in Brittany [1920-1925]

Alongside Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck, Olga Greceanu or Nina Arbore, Rodica Maniu is one of the representative female personalities of arts of the last century. Her first exhibition, which brings together a series of rural frescoes in which the artist transcribes the harbors she knows in Brittany onto Romanian lands, will be praised in chronicles by personalities such as B. Brănișteanu or Tudor Arghezi. As an exhibitor at the Salon of the Society of Fine Arts in Paris, Rodica Maniu will enjoy praiseful appreciations from the French critics. From this moment (around 1929), the artist will become more and more concerned with watercolors. As a technique, she will be characterized by the spontaneity of execution, the firm line reduced to the essentials and the faithful representation of nature. She adopts a different color palette, in which the blue-gray predominates and takes from the impressionists the preference for working in front of the motif. Rodica Maniu will become a great watercolorist, especially during the interwar period and will receive the praises of Nicolae Tonitza, who declared that the artist is "without equal" in this technique. The calm atmosphere and the tranquility of the sea expanses are depicted in the artist’s remembrances from France or Italy. Whether she paints boats docked in ports, or she focuses on canvases through which wind gusts shine through; whether she paints Douarnenez, the Danube Delta or Agapia, Rodica Maniu makes truthful compositions, carefully studied, for which she will be rewarded with awards in Paris or Barcelona.

References

ANDREESCU, Viorica, "Rodica Maniu," Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1987.

Dimensions

width 50 cm, height 32 cm

Description

watercolor on paper glued to cardboard, signed bottom left, in red, "R. Maniu"

Dating

1920-1925

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