Ex libris

Annotations - painting lessons - Constantin Flondor and the NOIMA group

Ciprian Bodea, Dan Gherman, Sorin Neamțu, Andrei Rosetti, Sorin Scurtulescu, Róbert Köteles, Liliana Popa Mercioiu, Ierom. Pantelimon Șușnea.

"Painting as a profession requires several skills that can be grouped in the following three directions:

a. the cultivation of the eye, the capacity of observation and the cultivation of visual thinking;

b. the knowledge, practice and development of the technical means of painting; c. the acquisition and growth of a sense of value and personal motivation (= an ethic of the profession) (...)"

Painting in Layers. Constantin Flondor / Notes from 1986-1987 (Art High School), 1994 and 2000-2001 (Faculty of Arts)

"On Monday, February 16, 2004, I went to London to see the retrospective exhibitions of the moment: El Greco, Vuillard, Philip Guston, Brâncuși, Roy Llichtenstein. I didn't manage to see them all. I saw three of them. El Greco - 10 ₤, Vuillard and Philip Guston. At 12 noon, midday, I went to the El Greco exhibit at the National Gallery, an exhibit that had come from New York. There were 58 works on display, about 3-4 drawings and 2 polychrome statues (he painted after statues with directed light). Anyway, I want to say that I was overwhelmed by the exhibition. There were six halls. It was the most extraordinary and impressive exhibition I have ever seen in my life. I was in the exhibition for about two hours and 30 minutes. I went through it once, and then I went back to the first hall and went through it again, and the third time I went back and saw only the best works in each hall.

In the first room I saw, for the first time, three icons on wood resembling the best Orthodox icons painted in tempera. Stunning colors, white and blichés, a dexterity of technique worthy of a Rubliov. Also in the first room were some early works. A larger Venetian-like portrait (the icons were smaller, about 50/40, 30/20 cm). Entering the second room, I began to see what El Greco is. That mannerism of his. Of course, being a painter, the only thing on my mind at that moment was that I could paint like him or copy him. But how? That I could no longer have his life or his age. (...)