It's Cold Outside, It's Time To Visit A Museum - Art Museum

Memories. After the smaller and bigger trips, with the passage of time I forgot almost everything I saw. The memories fade now faster, everything is faster now. The solution I have found to solve this problem is to write short blogs, to write them as close to the time as it happened.

This beautiful autumn is reaching its limits. It's getting colder, the sun is hiding behind the clouds and it is time to change the long walks through the park or on the streets in short visits to the museum.

I wrote a lot about the city of Iasi in Romania. A constant of all blogs about this beautiful city is the mention of the Palace of Culture. The emblematic building of the city, a building as beautiful both day and night.

This building was built, actually started construction in 1804. There were several fires that affected this palace and in 1907 it was rebuilt and took the shape that exists today. After several types of use, from the Prince's residence, palace of justice and even barracks of German and Russian troops during World Wars, it's now the headquarters of several museums.

So far, we have presented only the building seen from the outside. I have been asked many times to show the interior. Now is the time for this, because I want to introduce you to the museums inside.

The interior consists of huge halls and many rooms in which different museums have been arranged: The History Museum of Moldova; The Ethnographic Museum of Moldova; Art Museum; Museum of science and technology. These museums refers to Moldova because Iasi is the capital of Moldova from Romania.

Today about the Art Museum. I will start with some pictures inside the palace.

Art Museum

Iasi is an important city in Romania but not very big. Because of this I was surprised to see the art museum ... in the sense that I was surprised by the value of the paintings on display. Classic Romanian painters of great value! It was a great pleasure to admire some paintings of these masters.

You know what they say: Small and insignificant country, small and insignificant culture! That is unknown in the world.

The chances that you may have heard of some classic Romanian painters are almost nil. For this reason I will make a small presentation to painters whose paintings I will show here. Paintings from the Art Museum located in the Palace of Culture in Iasi, Romania.

Now let me tell you about some painters. Names unknown in the world but important to me. I learned about them in school long before I saw the paintings.

Nicolae Grigorescu 1838 - 1907

Source

He left school and joined the Impressionists, was part of the group from Barbizon, a village in France, being a colleague with Jean-François Millet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Théodore Rousseau. Here they specialized in nature painting, dear to the Impressionists and followed the trend of en plein air painting!
He participated in the Universal Exposition of Paris (1867), with seven works.

He returned to Romania and was recognized as the most important Romanian painter. He painted during the independence war a series of extremely emotional and valuable paintings about the battles between the Romanian army and the Turkish army.

He painted a lot about life in the Romanian village, some famous paintings I saw at the museum in Iasi ...

An impressive painting is also this portrait of a Jew.

Nicolae Tonitza 1886 - 1940

Source

Nicolae Tonitza studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Iasi. He was not only a painter, he was also a journalist. He was a contestant of Nicolae Grigorescu whom he considered overly nationalistic and with too many peasant motives.

This paradox appears again: this painter had great financial problems and lived in difficult conditions of poverty and now, after sixty years since his death, his paintings are the bestsellers. The most expensive in Romania!

It is famous for its paintings with girls and for its nudes. Models were his daughters and his beautiful wife.

Gheorghe Petrașcu 1872 - 1949

Source

He is one of my favorite painters. He was born near the place where Tonitza was born. In Moldova, near Iasi. He was a very appreciated painter, especially for the paintings made in Venice. He had the same fate as most of the great painters. It was more appreciated after death than during life. He had great posthumous exhibitions at the Paris International Exhibition and the Venice Biennale.

Theodor Pallady 1871 - 1956

Source

Born in Iasi. Apart from Nicolae Grigorescu, the other three painters I presented here were born in the same region. Interestingly, maybe that's why they were so well represented in the museum in Iasi.

Pallady has two important characteristics. He painted more nudes and was a close friend of Henri Matisse, the famous French impressionist painter. It is said that they were so good friends that they painted together and sometimes signed each other's paintings. This makes some of the paintings attributed to Matisse actually painted by Pallady and vice versa. The problem would not be with Pallady's paintings but with Matisse's paintings, which are extremely expensive. But in the end, for collectors, the signature matters!

These were the painters I chose to present here, painters with many paintings in the Art Museum of Iasi. The exhibition includes many other important painters, such as Nicolae Luchian, one of the most unhappy Romanian painters and who died young. Although he had little time to paint, his work is impressive and is considered one of the most important painters.

The art museum is my favorite museum of all those housed in the Palace of Culture.

For art lovers it is a place to visit, to admire the paintings of many of the most important painters. It gives me great pleasure to visit a painting exhibition. I have a feeling I can't describe when I look at a painting. There is a connection with the author, with the painter who painted ... and he looked at the painting all the time when he worked on it and I now stand as he was decades or hundreds of years ago.

@bluemoon		Disclaimer
	I made this post with passion, effort and respect for you. I hope the result proves it.	Since English is not my first language, please forgive any grammatical errors.