27. Pitcher with Cornflowers

Undoubtedly, Ștefan Luchian's flowers are part of those "products" of Romanian visual culture which impregnated mass awareness, their appearance and perpetuation within the artistic imagery being almost simultaneous. Although the most important and consistent part of Luchian's creation is concentrated across a decade and a half (1898-1912), the cycles and the great masterpieces find their individuality easily and successfully within this time frame, without having a generic analysis of the works themselves. We can find an excellent example in this regard in the special category of water colours, placing Luchian in an extraordinary register, as his creation is capable of producing not only important oil paintings, but also minor technique works (water colours, pastels, drawings), which eventually define his style. Upon a thorough analysis of the time frames and cycles created by the artist during the aforementioned years, and by focusing on the water colour painting, we discover that the first flower compositions appeared around 1900, when Luchian allowed himself to be influenced by the 1900 art movement, Art Nouveau. The highly decorative allegoric compositions, featuring female characters and floral panels, appear during those times, when the artist creates the first self-sustaining still life paintings featuring bunches of flowers, using both oil and water colours. Using water colours led to a very fast completion, based only on a sketched preliminary drawing, and the technique had to be adjusted not only to the surface, but also to the subject. The innovation that Ștefan Luchian brought to flower paintings, apart from his inimitable technique and colour range, consisted of introducing the contact with popular art as well. Considering the supremacy of Grigorescu's creation, which somehow seized the rural subject, yet, from an idyllic angle, Luchian's style had a more profound closeness with the spirit of popular art - ceramic was used as a main element. This characteristic was bound to become truly important during the decade immediately following the Great Union, when the entire cultural and artistic movement preached that "national specific". Nicolae Tonitza (who, actually, was one of Luchian's greatest admirers), Theodorescu-Sion, Ștefan Dimitrescu or Dumitru Ghiață reveal, in a modern language, transpositions of that "traditional" style established by Ștefan Luchian in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hence, the clay vessel became Luchian's authorship signature, managing, in just a few years, to seize the still life with flowers, leaving its imprint of the entire artistic creation of the 20th Century.

References

CIOFLEC, Virgil, "Luchian", Cultura Naţională Publishing House, Bucharest, 1924 COMARNESCU, Petru, "Luchian", State Publishing House for Literature and Art, Bucharest, 1955 COMARNESCU, Petru, "Luchian", Tineretului Publishing House, Bucharest, 1965 ENESCU, Teodor, "Ştefan Luchian: Pictură. Pastel. Acuarelă. Desen" ("Ştefan Luchian: Painting. Pastel. Watercolour. Drawing"), Romanian Cultural Institute, Bucharest, 2007 JIANU, Ionel, "Luchian", Căminul Artei Publishing House, Bucharest, 1947 LASSAIGNE, Jacques, "Ştefan Luchian", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1972

Dimensions

width 51 cm, height 65.5 cm, custom 65,5 × 51 cm

Description

watercolour on paper, signed bottom right, with brown, "Luchian"

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