L'Enlevement de Proserpine 1985

Nicolae Maniu created L'Enlevement de Proserpine with oil paints, using subtle tonal gradations to build up the image. The illusion is so complete. Look at the surface: Maniu’s use of thin, transparent layers really gives the painting a luminous quality. The texture isn't about the paint, it’s all about the image! He makes you believe that the marble statue is bursting out of the painting, and that painting is casting a shadow. It’s all smoke and mirrors, but done so well. I’m drawn to the faces within the painting, emerging from the darkness, almost as though the artwork itself is giving birth to these figures. You think about artists like Odd Nerdrum, whose work has a similar, slightly unsettling, theatrical quality. It reminds you that art can be an ongoing dialogue where images never really have one fixed meaning.