Born in Craiova
\non November 18, 1906 and having lived a long period in Bucharest, where he
\npassed away in December 1997, painter Corneliu Baba left a very original mark
\non the Romanian arts for more than half a century. The shapes, colours and even
\nthemes in his works are reminiscent of the classical elements of painting. But
\nalthough Baba would not abandon these conventions, which were already seen as
\nobsolete by the artistic avant-garde of the inter-war years, he created a very
\npersonal style within these classical boundaries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Corneliu Baba
\nmade his debut in 1934, with an exhibition organised in Baile Herculane and
\nfinanced by his father, Gheorghe Baba, himself a church mural painter. But his
\nfirst university years had not been devoted to the field of painting. Until
\n1930, he had studied literature and philosophy in Bucharest. It was only after
\nthe exhibition in Baile Herculane that he moved to Iasi, to attend the Fine
\nArts Academy under the coordination of painter Nicolae Tonitza. He stayed in
\nIasi for 16 years, and came to teach at the Fine Arts Academy. After 1946,
\nright after he had been granted tenure at the Academy, the communist
\nauthorities censured him as too formalist, a painter who failed to appreciate
\nthe new realities in the country and who continued to find inspiration in the
\nworks of Nicolae Grigorescu, Tonitza, El Greco, Goya and Rembrandt. Imprisoned
\nand then transferred to Bucharest, Corneliu Baba was paradoxically safe from
\nfurther persecution thanks to Soviet artists. The latter appreciated the
\nhumanism of Baba’s aesthetic beliefs and found him to be very close in this
\nrespect to Socialist realism. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Here is art critic Pavel Susara, the author of a
\nmonograph on Baba’s art, with an explanation:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Baba had
\nembraced a humanist perspective, an approach centered on man, to which he had
\nbeen driven by his personality and his experience. Man is at the core of Baba’s
\nworldview. And coincidentally, the Russian and Soviet painters of the time preferred
\nthis humanist paradigm, which was mid-way between the propaganda of Socialist
\nrealism and the vocation of high art. So Baba and the Soviet artists converged
\non this topic of the heroism of human nature. He had nothing to do with
\nSocialist realism. But Socialist realism was seeking its precursors, apostles
\nor prophets. In the category of humanist painters, the supporters of Socialist
\nrealism found fertile ground for their own interests. Corneliu Baba was
\ntherefore appropriated by Socialist realism, although in retrospect his
\nrelationship with this current was limited to the names of his works, such as
\n‘Steelworker,’ ‘Lunch on the crop fields,’ which are related to the Socialist
\noutlook, focusing on the proletariat and peasantry. So in fact Baba made no
\nchange in his individual artistic universe. He would have stood by his beliefs
\neven if the communist propaganda had not appeared. And even when socialist
\nrealism was no longer the prevailing doctrine in Romanian fine art, Baba
\ncarried on with his individual outlook which is perfectly consistent with what
\nhe had been done before.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Once
\nrehabilitated thanks to the appreciation of the Soviet artists, but more
\nimportantly thanks to the public confidence he had gained slowly but steadily,
\nCorneliu Baba carried on his professional career. He became a professor at the
\nBucharest Institute of Fine Arts, he won countless awards and had exhibitions
\nabroad. He was a member of the Romanian Academy, an honorary member of the
\nRussian Arts Academy and a corresponding member of the Berlin Academy.
\nThroughout this time, Corneliu Baba never stopped being a tragic humanist, one
\nwho perceives the outstanding greatness of man, and as time goes by, also the
\nvulnerability, the frailty of human beings, as art critic Pavel Susara put it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
All these are
\nparticularly evident in Coneliu Baba’s later works, the series of harlequin
\nkings and the self-portraits. As for Corneliu Baba’s artistic legacy, Pavel
\nSusara concludes:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Baba was
\nnever truly liked by the communist regime. They found a way to live with one
\nanother, but it was a cohabitation marred by tensions and suspicions. The
\ncommunists could not use Baba as a readily available propaganda instrument, as
\nother painters were at that time. If Adrian Ghenie is so successful today in
\nRomania and abroad, this is in part because to a significant extent he
\ncontinues in a different paradigm Corneliu Baba’s nightmarish project and his
\ndissolutive vision. Ghenie was the student of painter Corneliu Brudascu in
\nCluj, and Brudascu was the student of Corneliu Baba. So in a way, Ghenie is the
\nsuccessor of Corneliu Baba, even in terms of this view on humanity in brackets
\npioneered by Corneliu Baba. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Born in Craiova on November 18, 1906 and having lived a long period in Bucharest, where he passed away in December 1997, painter Corneliu Baba left a very original mark on the Romanian arts for more than half a century. The shapes, colours and even themes in his works are reminiscent of the classical elements […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":168848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45421,45420],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-168847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-art-critic-pavel-susara","tag-painter-corneliu-baba"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n