Constanta Art Museum

„On the Sea Shore”

Dimitrie HÂRLESCU (1872–1923)

The painting represents a socialization scene from the beginning of the 20th century in the space of the Romanian coast and presents a series of characters on a rustically arranged terrace, in a bay on the sea shore. Although the features are not clearly rendered, the expressiveness of the image suggests a range of different emotions and psychological states: an old man looking at the sea meditatively, a Turk smoking a cigar in the calm after a tiring day of work, two ladies discussing banalities and other silhouettes in the background. The characters outline a portrait of the urban society of that time. A certain melancholy transpires from the predominant shades of gray and the short, horizontal, monotonous lines. The blue of the barely sketched waves, a color for which the artist had a predilection, resumed on the roof of the terrace, creates a state of introspection of the characters, who have in common the sea, which seems to have the role of gathering everyone’s worries to dispel them. The composition is sober and denotes a sad nobility that reflects the painter’s soul. The landscape is perfectly harmonized with this mood, the dim light and shadows create a note of mystery, amplified by the faces without precise features of the characters, which allow a projection of the inner self into a collective character.

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