THEMATIC EXHIBITION AT SUȚU PALACE
TATTARESCU – PERSPECTIVE STUDIES
The exhibition can be visited at the Suțu Palace between July 8th and September 27th, 2020.
While we await the reopening of the Gheorghe Tattarescu Memorial Museum – in the artist’s house at No. 7 Domnița Anastasia Street, the halls of which will eventually house an exhibition showcasing the major works of painter Gheorghe Tattarescu (1820 – 1894) – and close to the bicentenary of his birth, the Museum of Bucharest is preparing an exhibition featuring “niche” graphic works of the artist.
Both the general public and connoisseurs are invited to explore a unique visual segment of the artist’s biography, a segment spent during his studies at the San Luca Academy in Rome, Italy (1845 – 1851), where he mastered painting with Natale Carta and Giovanni Silvagni, and studied perspective with Pietro Gagliardi.
Thus, “Tattarescu – Perspective Studies” will provide visitors with graphic works focused on the study of perspective, sketches that are part of the artist’s intimate laboratory in his process of improvement, along with several artistic drawings in which you can easily see how the master uses this science – an approach illustrated in sketches / compositional studies that underlie well-known paintings (“The Danube Peasant”, “Simeon and Levi”).
Prior to the painting that consecrated it, these true lectures on understanding how to build and render two-dimensional objects in three dimensions were not intended for public exhibition. The rigor of the execution, the holographic testimonies that accompany the sketches and, last but not least, the plasticity of these seemingly strictly technical plates, are, we believe, able to surpass their nature as simple tools used by painter Tattarescu to perfect his craft.
We can say that these drawings became, through their historical interest, independent works and valuable testimonies from a heritage point of view and for researching the history of institutionalized art education in the era.
Returning from his studies, much of Tattarescu’s artistic activity was dedicated to religious art, which he develops in a personal style, between Italian academism and the post-Byzantine iconographic tradition, a manner that established him as the most important modern muralist in the country.
On the other hand, the patriotic character of his easel paintings from the Revolution of 1848 and their visual impact on future generations (“Romanian Renaissance” or “Portrait of N. Bălcescu”), the socio-political implications in this sustained approach, together with Theodor Aman, for the establishment in Bucharest of the School of Fine Arts and the teaching period, complete the well-known portrait of the artist in adulthood.
Through the exhibition “Tattarescu – Perspective Studies”, the Museum of Bucharest completes this portrait and reveals a lesser known side of Gheorghe Tattarescu.
Rodica Ion – Museographer, The Gheorghe Tattarescu Memorial Museum