80. Houses in Balchik

“When he wants to look at the world, Mr. Petrașcu pulls his hat down over his brows or waits for nightfall. […] smoky beings and things seem to have been rolled in soot and ink […] Mr. Petrașcu’s palette seems forever linked to the tools of an anthracite and peat storehouse. The houses, made of briquettes and painted with fine soot, are covered in slate and graphite. The trees, prepared while still alive for the lathe, seem to undergo the acid treatment of the cabinet maker. Hard plates cover the roads. The waters are lacquered velvet and cotton.” The words of Tudor Arghezi, published in the “Facla” magazine (16 March) as a review of one of Petrașcu’s exhibitions in 1913 – the individual exhibition he had at the Romanian Athenaeum, 3 March-1 April – offers us the main directives of Gheorghe Petrașcu’s painting, as defined at the beginning of his maturity period. This painting belongs to the decade after the discovery of Balchik (1913), when the artist’s palette felt certain instances of transcendence with respect to colours, clearly influenced by the South Dobrogea atmosphere – universally true for most artists who discovered Balchik and the entire Silver Coast. As regards the seascape, Petrașcu was guided not only by the imaginary flow of Dobrogea, as we know the entire itinerary that the artist modelled following some initiatic journeys. Along with the cities on the shore of the Black Sea or the Danube, Petrașcu painted as early as the second decade of last century in the north of France (Roscoff, Saint Malo) or seascapes in Italy (Venice and Chioggia), developing a true typology as regards the design, the painting and the aesthetic direction of these landscapes defined by the aquatic environment. The material and volumetric aspect given by the rich paste is sometimes counterbalanced in the landscape by the spots of colour of a palette that has become gradually lighter, Petrașcu being renowned for his love for painting at night or at dusk or, as the same Arghezi noticed, “all his colours spring from black”. Besides, not just Arghezi translated a certain poetry of Petrașcu’s landscapes, as Zambaccian was also attracted by the painter’s seascapes. “That marine nostalgia that only we, those born and raised by the sea, thought we could feel, was masterfully shown by Petrașcu, who was born on a plain. At the seaside or in the regions filled with steam, where light comes down filtered and contrasts disappear, Petrașcu’s palette softens as if by some miracle. It is in this shrouded atmosphere that the strong painter calms down, his black is diluted on the palette, the red is muted, and blue and cobalt blend bathed in emerald green, which gives the painting that beautiful harmony and nobility of the West.” (I.P.)

Dimenzije

width 41 cm, height 26.5 cm

Opis

oil on wood, signed lower right, in black, "G. Petraşcu"

Informacije o istraživanju

Opera de față aparține decadei de după descoperirea Balcicului (1913), moment în care paleta artistului resimte anumite transcendențe în regimul cromatic, evident sub directa influență a atmosferei sud-dobrogene – fapt universal adevărat pentru majoritatea artiștilor ce descopereau Balcicul și întreaga Coastă de Argint. În ceea ce privește peisajul marin, Petrașcu nu este direcționat doar de fluxul imaginar dobrogean, fiind cunoscut întregul itinerar pe care artistul îl modelează în urma unor călătorii inițiatice. Alături de orașele de pe malul Mării Negre sau al Dunării, Petrașcu va picta încă din deceniului doi al secolului trecut în nordul Franței (Roscoff, Saint Malo) sau marine italienești (Veneția și Chioggia), dezvoltând o adevărată tipologie în conceperea, pictarea și direcția estetică a acestor peisaje definite de mediul acvatic.

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