NICOLAE GRIGORESCU         

(1838 -1907)

Father of modern Romanian painting, Grigorescu was the great master worshipped by new generations of artists, who, early this century, were striving to reveal the profound wealth of the Romanian soul.

Paesant Woman Wearing an Embroidered Silk Headkerchief

Since his youth he worked as icon -painter for the Orthodox churches at Baicoi (1853) and Caldarusani (1854-1856), and as mural painter for the Zamfira (1857) and Agapia (1858-1861) monasteries and in 1861 is getting a study subsidy to be able to go to Paris. His first years in Paris were spent at Sebastian Cornu's studio, where Renoir also made his apprenticeship. He used to go to the Louvre for reproducing children's faces in Gericault's, Rubens's and Rembrandt's pictures. Being obsessed with the "plein-air" genre, which paved the way to the irruption of the Impressionistic school, Grigorescu spent each summer, as far as 1869, painting at Barbizon and some other places in the neighbourhood of Paris.

  

By the sea

                             

                             Crossroads at Vitre

Collection with “ Oxen’s carts “

During 1873-1874 he went to Wienne, Venice, Naple, Athene and Constantinopole for a study tour. As front painter, he joined the troops in the 1877-1878 Independence War, and realised drawings which were to inspire his later compositions.

One year after the Independence War he would paint in France, mostly in Bretagne, at Vitre, and at his Paris studio for twelve years (1879-1890). After his coming back, a succession of personal exhibitions would be organized at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1891, 1895, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1904.

Shepherd

In the country landscapes and the landscapes painted elsewhere is remarkable his French "plein-air" experience matured into bringing light in his work and into rendering his composition genuinely rigorous and spontaneous.