Nude in an Armchair 1936

Alexandru Ciucurencu painted this ‘Nude in an Armchair’ with an economy of means, focusing on the structure of the figure and its setting. The composition is immediately striking in its arrangement of simplified shapes and colours. The juxtaposition of the pale nude against the vivid red drape and teal chair creates a visual tension. Ciucurencu's reduction of form directs our attention to the essential geometry of the scene. The lines of the chair and window frame are rendered with a deliberate crudeness, almost as if to dismantle traditional artistic conventions. He treats the nude similarly, minimizing detail to emphasize the underlying structure of the human form. The interplay between the flat planes of colour and the suggestion of depth complicates our reading of the space. It resists easy categorization, existing instead in a perpetual state of becoming. The roughly applied paint insists on its materiality, reminding us that this is above all a construction. And it’s through this construction that Ciucurencu prompts us to reconsider the relationship between representation and abstraction, and perception and reality.