175. Cassilda reading [cca. 1920]

Paul Miracovici starts as a portraitist, showing a special attention for depicting the human being on canvas. Immediately after graduating from the National School of Fine Arts, he participates in the Official Salon exhibition with a self-portrait. He will be awarded a "travel scholarship" that will finance his studies conducted in the capital of France. In Paris, he visits museums and is fascinated by the Italian Renaissance and the golden age of the Netherlands. He discovers Vermeer van Delft, Corot or Braque, from whose works he will better understand the role of light and color in painting. He will also decipher the mysteries of construction and the rigor of form through the creations of Matisse or Cézanne. His initial chromatic palette, marked by somber, closed tones, in which the expressive power of light is felt, will gradually be replaced by much brighter and open shades. We identify, in this early period, attempts to trace a pictorial language laden with the remnants of academic realism. In the stage where he finalizes his own plastic semantics, we decipher a lyrical expression of reality, especially in seascapes. With an opus rich in monumental art, Paul Miracovici will lend to his easel painting the decorative effects of mural painting. He will become a master of forms and will work with large brush strokes and bright tones, thus conveying pure emotion. Portraits will enjoy a recurring presence in the artist's creation, and the characters represented will often be those from the painter's close entourage. The contours of the present work reveal to us Cassilda Miracovici, the artist's sister, herself a painter. Following her marriage to magistrate and writer André Roland de Renéville, she settles in Paris in 1933. Paul Miracovici captures the female character from behind, while reading. The ethereal atmosphere and the elegant attitude reflected in her clothing and posture; and the diffuse chromatics, dominated by black and shades of gray, introduce us to the discreet universe of the muse.

References

BARBOSA, Octavian, "Dictionary of Contemporary Romanian Artists", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1976. Catalog of the retrospective exhibition "Paul Miracovici", "Danube Delta" Museum, Tulcea, 1984.

Dimensions

width 50 cm, height 59.5 cm

Description

ulei pe pânză lipită pe carton

Dating

cca. 1920

PROVENANCE

the artist's family collection.

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