Page 234 - Genius

Petru ruSu

lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden

SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.artaddiction.net

...the artist was there, too. rUSU THE PrINTMAkEr forces the viewer to return to his prints and try
That was too much of a good thing, and I asked whether I might interview to interpret the meaning of their iconography. While they are immediately
him for my print collector friends in the States. The idea was lovingly attractive visually, they ask for more attention in the long run.
accepted.
"The entire suite of 100 prints of boccaccio’s Decameron by Petru rusu
I WAS DElIgHTED that by pure coincidence we may be able to look into on view" by Ingrid rose, Art Critic, The Washington Print Club, Washing-
the working habits of one printmaker. ton DC USA, curator MoMA New york USA
rusu said that as a 14 year old he had read the Decameron. The erotic tales
ruminated in his mind while he was growing up, and some 15 years later
he decided to make 10 prints of the tales that had impressed him most.
Once begun in late 1983, however, he did not finish until he had illustrated
all the tales on 100 plates two years later. He printed the edition of 10
impressions per plate himself.
Initially, he worked in finely drawn black lines and brown-toned aquatint,
printing 3 to 5 impressions of each plate in these subdued colors. As he
went on working, he found himself changing and added stronger colors
in aquatint. Today, he said, he prefers again more subdued colors and
is even thinking of printing in black and white only. He worked with iron
plates because iron, according to him, lent itself better to illustrating the
Decameron than copper or zinc. Zinc plates, by the way, are often used by
printmakers for etching intaglio prints, while plexiglass or similar material
is preferred for engravings. russu explained that the edges of his plates
were irregular and crooked on purpose because he wanted to simulate
the condition and looks of an original edition of the tales which he thought
would be printed on vellum or early handmade paper and certainly not have
an even, ruler-straight edge. The broad, deeply bitten lines in the plate that
sit massively on the paper’s surface are the result of dipping the prepared
plate repeatedly into sulphuric acid.

WHIlE WOrkINg, rusu also changed his technique. In the early plates, fine
nervously vibrating lines crisscross the plate or run parallel. Over time,
these sensitive lines give way to single, strong cords, solidly incised into
the plate and solidly stacked on the paper, surrounding the aquatinted
areas like a wall.

DECIPHErINg THE ErOTICISM of the iconography was a challenge. One may
even be tempted to reread boccaccio’s tales. rusu provides an image of
14th century Italian life by weaving certain artifacts into his graphic tale.
Checkerboard tablecloths, wine glasses, rigged sailing vessels, horsemen
and horsewomen, the headgear of the period appear throughout the prints,
in variations. Men and women are barely humanoid, heads, torsi, limbs
are floating in space, disconnected, yet making sense and fitting together.
banquet tables with checkered tablecloths are overturned, wine glasses
have fallen down, unbroken, the wine flowing out. A real orgy. One head
with a Cocteau-like profile is barely connected to a necktie of the 20th
century. limbs terminate in stumps or clumps or geometric finials. The
anthropomorphic shapes in prehistoric caves come to mind.
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