Woman With Guitar 1932

Gheorghe Petrascu painted "Woman With Guitar" at an unknown date, using what looks like oil paint on canvas. He’s laying it on thick here! Look at how Petrascu works with texture. The layers of paint create a tactile surface. It's like he's sculpting the image as much as painting it. The way he handles the pinks and greys, they're not just colors, they're moods. There’s a passage in the lower left, around the books on the floor, where you can see how the paint has been built up. The way the strokes blend and blur, it's almost like a memory fading in and out. Petrascu seems like a painter who really feels his way through the process. It reminds me a little of Vuillard, that same sense of intimacy and everyday life transformed through paint. Both artists embrace the messy, imperfect nature of painting, and it’s that very quality that makes the work so engaging.