Often called the “poet of Romanian painting,” Ștefan Luchian (1868–1916) left an indelible mark on the art of his homeland. Known for his vibrant use of color and delicate, almost musical brushstrokes, Luchian captured both the beauty of Romanian landscapes and the quiet dignity of everyday life. His floral still lifes, brimming with energy, light, and emotion, remain some of the most celebrated works in Romanian art history. Despite being plagued by illness in his later years, which eventually left him paralyzed, Luchian continued to paint by holding the brush tied to his wrist, a testament to his unwavering passion and resilience. Today, he stands not only as a master painter but also as a symbol of artistic dedication in the face of adversity.
Ștefan Luchian - A Painter (Self-portrait)
Luchian's painting starts from a more vibrant range, its total clarification does not occur untimely, the pure tones are approached with inconsistency. From the beginning, however, Luchian's palette promises to be more saturated and luminous, while the breadth of the brushwork preserves the distinct surfaces.
Luchian alternates oil, watercolor and pastel, a technique that seems ideal for capturing the raw sensation, capturing subtleties and allowing for the rapid notation of impressions.
In his first plein-air landscapes, a striking synthesis is revealed to us. The water invades the split shore; rising towards the very high horizon, the open sea is charged with the sparkling saturation of marine blue. The arbitrary reduction of distances creates, on a dimensional level, a ratio of equivalence between near and far.
The Landscapes of Brebu and Moinești (1908-1909) record the peak of Lucian's painting under the open sky. Strength and the ineffable combine in the pure breath of chromatic constellations, dominated by green and blue, tempered by ochre and yellow that call out faint violets in places.
Landscapes from Brebu and Moinesti
The last landscapes are diametrically opposed to that summer joy that betrayed a deep Dionysian delight, wrapped in Apollonian transparencies. Now they appear desolate, gloomy, accompanied by ominous ravens, a sky with pale smoke and ash snowfalls.
Luchian's portraits, but especially the four self-portraits, moreover, realize the fundamental substance of an art that was supposed to resist impressionism: the human. They contain, in the expressiveness of a human face, a special layer, a psychological background stirred by fanatical searches, by incisive and ruthless research.
Ștefan Luchian - Santa Claus the Cobbar
In the works painted after 1909, the spatial illusion disappears completely, the shadow dissolves, being annulled simultaneously with the incorporation of light into the color. Culminating in Staircase with Flowers, the exuberance of reverberated accents is attenuated, being replaced by ample, sparingly modulated spots, equalized by the use of flat tone.
Ștefan Luchian - Flower Staircase
The fluidity of the contours, the velvety delicacy of the petals, evoked them best through pastel. Luchian had begun to paint flowers earlier, but it was only from 1908 that he concentrated all his creative energy, all his passion for nature, all his love for life and beauty in this direction. Only sometimes, his flowers approach the fiery ardor or wear the somber velvety that hardens into a tragic sumptuousness.
Luchian's "Flowers" have, however, that almost dramatic intensity of feeling, that inner light, that serious simplicity that make many of them - it is enough to mention the Anemones - true masterpieces.
Ștefan Luchian - Anemone
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