Gheorghe Tattarescu

GHEORGHE TATTARESCU (1818 – 1894) IS A ROMANIAN PAINTER, PIONEER OF NEOCLASSICISM IN THE COUNTRY’S MODERN PAINTING.

Gheorghe Tattarescu was born in Focsani in 1818. He started out as an apprentice to his uncle Nicolae Teodorescu, a church painter. He went on to study at the Painting School from Buzau, when his uncle moved there. The Bishop of Buzau, Chesarie, helped him obtain a scholarship in Rome, where he was guided by professors from the San Luca Academy. He made reproductions from paintings by Raphael, Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, Salvatore Rosa, Guido Reni.

Political and artistic activity Tattarescu was a participant in the 1848 Revolution in Wallachia. After the revolution, he made portraits of Romanian revolutionaries in exile such as Gheorghe Magheru, Stefan Golescu and others and in 1851 he painted Nicolae Balcescu (in three almost identical copies). The national liberation ideal inspired his allegorical compositions with revolutionary (Romania’s rebirth, 1849) patriotic (The Principalities’ Unification, 1857) subjects.

In 1860, being commissioned to draw up a National Album of sights and historical monuments of the country, his talent of painting vaguely romantic landscapes was revealed. For showing his sympathy with the peasants’ uprisings, he purposely painted The peasant at the Danube in 1875. He also painted churches in neoclassical manner.

In 1864, together with painter Theodor Aman, he founded the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest. There he was to teach painting for a long time and to be the school master for two years (1891-1892).

In 1865 he wrote Useful Principles and Studies on Proportions of the Human Body and Drawing after the Most Famous Painters.

The house that he bought in 1855 and in which he lived for almost 40 years is now hosting the Gheorghe Tattarescu Memorial Museum. The museum has been open since 1951 and it hosts some of his original artwork.