90. The Riddle in the Cards [1912-1915]

Among the portraits made by Octav Băncilă, those dedicated to renowned personalities stand out: Gheorghe Panaiteanu-Bardasare, Mihai Eminescu, Ion Creangă or Sofia Nădejde. However, the artist often directs his attention towards the working class, peasants, soldiers or minorities, studying their behaviors and customs extensively, thus managing to pictorially transcribe their entire psychology. His creation abounds in paintings inspired by the life of nomads. Octav Băncilă captures the wagons wandering through far-off places or tents camped on grass, right in the middle of nature, using a vivid chromatic spectrum. Regarding typologies, the artist reveals his preference for the feminine character, who embodies the witch, the fortune teller or the soothsayer. A painter of people and nature, Băncilă places the "chivuțele" (women usually associated with a gypsy lifestyle) in backgrounds with tones of raw green, lilac or blue. The lively and poetic chromatic intertwines with the colorful headscarves, with the long skirts, in vibrant shades, but also with the pipes or the mechanically sketched smile at times. With their hair undone, flowing from under the headscarves, the artist's protagonists are slender, casual and confident. Unlike the peasant girls presented during work, the "chivuțele" enjoy much more relaxed and freer conditions, often illustrated alongside cards (in the case of soothsayers) or pipes. Thus, the nomads appear, in contrast with other social categories that we distinguish in the artist's work, benefiting from a high degree of libertinism.

References

SATEANU, C., "The Painter Octav Bancila", in "Art and Archaeology", year III, fascicle 4, 1930, pp. 11-24. COMAN, Anton, "Octav Bancila", State Publishing House for Literature and Art, Bucharest, 1954.

Dimensions

width 53.5 cm, height 73 cm

Description

ulei pe pânză, signed top left, in red, "Octav Băncilă"

Dating

1912-1915

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