[stag_toggle style=”normal” title=”Detalii despre piesă” state=”closed”]ORIENTALA
Kimon Loghi
1898 ulei pe pânză,
91cm x 79cm[/stag_toggle]
In 1898, Kimon Loghi exhibited "Orientala" at the International Secession Movement in Munich and met with unanimous praise from the public. Thus, one of the most gifted artists in Romania at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries made his debut. The young painter's canvas marked the dawn of a prodigious career. Loghi also impressed the critics of the time, who were quick to compare him to Arnold Böcklin, one of the promoters of German Symbolism.
Kimon Loghi was born in 1873 in Serres, Macedonia. In 1890, he enrolled at the National School of Fine Arts in the capital of the Old Kingdom, where he studied with Theodor Aman and Frederick Storck. Imbued with the values of academicism, but tormented by unanswered questions, Loghi set out in search of his own artistic identity.
In 1894, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts in Munich. The Bavarian academic environment, so different from the Romanian one, seemed to captivate him completely. His teachers, the symbolists Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) and Franz von Stuck (1863-1928), promoted the ideas of the new art, Jugendstil. Freed from the rigor of historicism, the visual arts acted by resorting to introspection, the fantastic universe and mythology. Its best-known representatives, Franz von Stuck, Wilhelm Trübner, Max Klinger, Hermann Obrist and August Endell, relied on the dramatic effect caused by probing the subconscious, under the influence of Freudian ideas.
Returning to the country after the rich experience in Munich, Kimon Loghi participated in the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. Encouraged by the success of 1898, he presented "Orientala" again and obtained a well-deserved second prize. A year later, he was among the founders of the "Artistic Youth" Society. At the debut exhibition, opened on March 1, 1902, "Orientala" was once again on display, to the delight of chroniclers and art enthusiasts. A keen connoisseur of German Symbolism and Jugendstil, whose vocabulary he had learned in Darmstadt, Princess Maria purchased the work. In the following years, five of the artist's paintings, three portraits, a religious scene and a rural one, ended up decorating the interiors of Pelişor Castle.
The canvas has preserved its former mystery intact to this day. At a cursory glance, the young woman takes our imagination to the beautiful peasant women of Grigoreș, captured in the idyll of their rural universe. The background of the painting, in vibrant chromatics of red and ochre, vaguely refers to traditional Romanian carpets, and the clothing, to the folk costume. The radiance of freshness of the protagonist, captured frontally, with her gaze softened by the semi-darkness betrays the profound artistic influence of the national painter.
"Orientala" is far from what it seems. The woman in the painting, with a mysterious identity and exotic appearance, suggests rather an urban model. Discreetly combed, with her hair tied back, from which a strand is about to come off, with a tight corset and flowing sleeves, her shoulders and neck artistically bare, "Orientala" is more reminiscent of a coquettish Parisian. During his journey through the Capital of the Enlightenment, Kimon Loghi certainly got to know the Parisian artistic environments, which were in full creative effervescence. Although he stubbornly denied any French influence on his work all his life, Loghi could not remain detached from Moreau's idyllic symbolism, from his fascination for the Orient and mythological subjects. He is also not unfamiliar with the Pre-Raphaelite productions, to which "Orientala" seems typologically related.
But the Munich experience leaves its mark on the portrait the best. Contaminated by the symbolism of Arnold Böcklin's work, by his predilection for mystery, sentimentality and fatalism, Kimon Loghi resorts in "Orientala" to enigmatic light, generating dramatic accents. The woman seems to lean, so that the upper half of the portrait gradually envelops itself in penumbra. The artist relies on the contrast thus created with the immaculate white of the skin, marking the center of interest of the painting. The round and young shoulders, the adolescent bone structure, the strong and tense neck allude to the female portraits of Franz von Stuck. The artist could not remain immune to the dark charm of Franz von Stuck's painting. Moreover, Loghi conceived "Orientala" in the studio of his teacher, with whose work he was fully familiar.
Seen from the perspective of German models, the portrait may just as well embody the female prototype, dressed in a highly embellished Bavarian costume. This possible reverence for local self-love did not escape the Munich critics. And the comparison would not be at all accidental. The magic of Kimon Loghi's painting lies precisely in its ambiguity, in the ability to integrate the most diverse artistic trends into an original stylistic language.
From the Bucharest student experience, she retains the canons of academicism, but the essence of the portrait remains symbolist. The elaborate model of the corset, arranged in two horizontal registers, in red and brown chromatics, with metallic sparkles, the fluid sleeves, as well as the serpentine design of the background refer to Jugendstil. Detached from German Symbolism, influenced by French impressionism and naturalism, Jugendstil finds in the female character one of its favorite subjects. Represented in the position of a muse, the woman has the role of inducing extreme feelings in the viewer. Virginal or "femme fatale", innocent child or refined lady, she embodies the ideal of femininity, transfigured through spiritualization or eroticism.
Kimon Loghi's "Orientala" is situated in an area of ambiguity. Found in the spring of existence, the unknown woman in the painting seems embarrassed by the suspicion of her own femininity. The sensuality aroused by her fragile presence, by the charm of her nakedness, by the half-open mouth clashes with the reserved attitude, the modesty of the lowered shoulders, the violent redness of the face. A woman-child, "Orientala" oscillates between eroticism and innocence. The impact of her deep gaze, diminished to the point of obscuring chiaroscuro, in the manner of a Sérusier or Bonnard, shifts the emphasis from the sensory to the idea, to the meaning.
"Orientala" is not just a beautiful young woman, but the protagonist of an enigmatic opera, in which she plays the role of the Sphinx. Ungratefully, towards the end of her life, fate distributes the merciless score of Oedipus to the artist: Kimon Loghi spends the last decade of his life blind and isolated from the world. After an intense activity, crowned by personal exhibitions, participation in official Salons and the Salons of "Artistic Youth", she disappears from us in 1952. She leaves behind a complex and exciting work, with deep, unexhausted meanings.