15.02.1850–22.10.1882
Ion Andreescu
Ion Andreescu (1850–1882) became a drawing teacher in the provincial town of Buzău and took up painting in earnest late, at about thirty. In 1878 he went to Paris, and in the summers he painted at Barbizon alongside Nicolae Grigorescu. About five hundred works survive, mostly landscapes, still lifes and portraits. Among them is “The Oak”: the tree in the Crâng park in Buzău believed to be the one in the painting still stands.
Biography
In the Crâng park in Buzău visitors are still shown an old oak, believed to be the very tree of Andreescu’s “Oak”. Botanists and nature lovers look after it to prolong its life. The painting of this tree became one of the artist’s best-known works: the vertical of the trunk, dense masses of foliage and a deep sky, with warm and cool tones set against one another.
Ion Andreescu was born on 15 February 1850 (27 February, New Style; 15 February, Old Style) in Bucharest or somewhere near the city; the exact place of birth is unknown. He was the eldest of seven children of Andrei Dobrescu and Anastasia Pencovici. His father dealt in beverages and kept an inn in the Staicului quarter of Bucharest.
He had his first lessons from a private teacher, Andreas Apostolas. From 1863 he studied at the Gheorghe Lazăr school in Bucharest, then at the Saint Sava school, where he won first prize in a drawing contest. He left in 1869 and entered the National School of Fine Arts, headed by Theodor Aman, one of the best-known Romanian painters of the time. Money was short. In 1870 Andreescu won a competition for a teaching post at the same school but, because of bureaucratic obstacles, never took it up. Thanks to Aman’s patronage he taught drawing for a short time at a commercial school in Bucharest.
Then the provinces begin. From 1872 he was a teacher of drawing and calligraphy in Buzău: first at the Bishop’s School, then, in 1873, at the Tudor Vladimirescu communal secondary school, and in 1875 at the school of crafts. His life, to my mind, is almost without events: painting comes to a quiet provincial teacher as a sudden need to speak.
Disappointed with the Romanian system of art education and drawn by the example of Grigorescu, he left for Paris at the end of 1878. There he attended the private Académie Julian. According to some accounts, two of his paintings were accepted at the Paris Salon, “Start of Spring” and “The Fair in Romania”. In the summers he worked at Barbizon and in other rural places, mastered plein-air painting and spent time with Grigorescu. By some accounts he worked alongside Alexandru Djuvara, Corot, Millet and Monet, and his pictures were shown together with works by Manet, Monet and Renoir. His last years in France are regarded as a time of maturity: he commanded his means firmly and built space through subtle relations of colour. Later he was called the first Romanian Impressionist.
In 1881 he returned to Romania.
On 22 October 1882 Andreescu died in Bucharest, aged thirty-two. He was buried in Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest.
About five hundred paintings survive, as well as graphic works. Among the landscapes are “Edge of the Forest”, “Trees in Blossom”, “Winter at Barbizon” and “The Rocks of Apremont”; among the portraits, “Peasant Woman in a Green Headscarf”, “Peasant Woman with a Bag”, “Woman with a Cat” and a self-portrait; among the still lifes, “Ducks”, “Currants” and “Slices of Watermelon”. In 1948 the Romanian Academy elected him a member posthumously.
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