Springtime 1987

Horia Bernea created this oil painting, titled ‘Springtime,’ at an unknown date. Bernea was a Romanian painter who served as the director of the National Museum of Art of Romania following the Romanian Revolution of 1989. During the Communist era, art institutions were governed by the state, and artists who did not conform to the official style of socialist realism faced marginalization. Bernea was among those who struggled to find a place in the official art world, though he was not openly dissident. Looking at the art produced during and after the Communist period in Romania, we see a change in the role of art and its relationship to social and political power. Bernea’s time as director of the National Museum would be important for reconsidering the recent past and the place of the artist within the social structures of the country. This painting might be seen in the light of that institutional shift. To understand this artwork better, we might look into the archives of the National Museum of Art and explore the changing criteria by which art was evaluated and displayed.