Image description
The painting “Entering the bath” signed by Nicolae Grigorescu frontally highlights a young woman stepping in the foreground of a country landscape.
Long hair, carelessly caught in the bun, is marked by a wavy texture.
The vegetation is rendered with the help of small embossed bundles, without striations.
Historical data
Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907) is one of the most important Romanian artists highly appreciated in the History of Arts for the idealization of village life, he himself grew up in the country in a small village not far from Bucharest, Pitaru village. His artistic style is so well known that it is derived from his name, Gregorian and is characterized by a variety of subjects that reflect rural life.
He is a painter with a perfect training based on an apprenticeship since childhood, in the studio of the Czech painter Anton Chladek.
In the first stage of his artistic life he distinguished himself as a church painter by making icons and murals. An example of a special artistic performance is found at the Zamfira church. At the intervention of Mihail Kogălniceanu, who met the artist at Agapia, he received a scholarship in 1861 from the Ministry of Moldavia, to study in Paris. At that time, Paris was the artistic and cultural center of Europe, along with Munich. In Paris he met famous painters such as Renoir and Sebastien Cornu. Little by little, he gets used to the academic style and the interior painting, the cabinet and together with other important artists, they go out in the open air, an expression for the art made in the open air, in the middle of nature. These activities become essential for the formation of the Impressionist artistic current. Landscape also becomes a main theme in his works. Even when painting nudes, they are an integral part of the rural landscape.
It is known that in Sebastien Cornu’s Paris workshop, Grigorescu studied drawing according to empty models. So most of the nudes belong to that period. In her nude compositions, predominate the virginal features of women with flattering shapes and a forming anatomy.
“Entering bathing” is the nude composition of such a model made during the period when Grigorescu was in Paris. The work is part of the collection of the Simu Museum.
Bibliography
Download the image