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CONSTANTINESCU, Paula, SCHOBEL, Doina, “Expoziție de pictură Gheorghe Petrașcu”, Muzeul de Artă al R.S.R, București, 1972
COSTESCU, Eleonora, „Gheorghe Petraşcu”, Ed. Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1975
oil on canvas, 39 x 34 cm, 34x39, signed lower right, in black, "G. Petrașcu"
After 1922, the year when he built a studio house in Târgoviște, Petrașcu will constantly return to the old town in Muntenia. His own house, but particularly the monastic complex and that of the princely court with its ruins, will be motifs chosen often by a painter in a constant pursuit of an imposing figurative. When painting the monastic complex, the artist is not necessarily concerned with the ecclesiastical importance of the edifices, but rather seems to remain frozen in front of the gates, at the entrance, like an observer. Besides, most of the works dealing with the monastery in Târgovişte only depict the belfry, often from similar angles, in a declaration of fidelity that Petrașcu makes to the motif.
With the easel in front of the belfry, closer, so as to shape that inorganic materiality of the wall, of the tower, or, further, to secure the monumentality of the construction in the landscape, Petrașcu remains consistent in painting an immovable subject. He returns for many years in search of the effect, which he actually hints at every time in the paste, a paste that abounds, either on the brush or on the knife. As in the case of "The Entrance to the Monastery" (Cluj Napoca Art Museum), the closest version of the present work, here we also encounter a Petrașcu concerned with capturing the construction in its relation to the environment, by choosing an angle with a more generous opening, precisely to use the materiality of the sky and the foliage near the belfry.
The Romanian itinerary transforms Petrașcu's work into one with ethnographic tangents, pointing intelligently to the most representative places of that continuity and historical persistence. The ruins of Târgovişte - the old princely residence, the monastic ensemble of Agapia, Curtea de Argeş, as well as the neighbouring areas, keepers of the Romanian spirit and tradition. In this relevant cycle he introduces Viforâta, the monastery near Târgovişte that caught Petrașcu’s attention in the early 20th century, when, back in 1901, he used to travel and paint the places where he stopped.
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