Page 14 - SUMMARIES OF BOCCACCIO’S DECAMERON - A Visionary Journey in 100 Stories and 100 Etchings by Petru Russu

Here, in his work about Boccaccio’s “Decameron,” he has transferred all his is teeming with presences that dramatically bring reality back to archetypal
fundamental problems. In fact, when an illustrator approaches a masterpiece of truths, contrasting with the leveling monotony of the daily horizon.
the past, it is legitimate that he carries with himself all his cultural background,
his problems, his sensibility. In his engraving work, Petru Russu’s visionary attitude is accentuated by
a narrative easing. This shift loosens the dramatic tension and embraces
Petru Russu is a courageous artist. Over the years, his work has been the pleasure of pure dreaming. The atmosphere becomes lighter, ironic,
characterized by austere and sober solutions, as well as by more provocative, and fluid. The plot evolves towards dimensions of pure imagination,
colorful liveliness. All these prolific variations are characterized by two main reminiscent of a fantastical machine’s exercises. Characters come alive
things: the stimulating resumption of a great cultural model and the importance in a metamorphic dimension, crossing into fantastic spaces. They are
of a certain persistency. liberated from conventional logic, driven solely by the necessity of their
narrative plot. This narrative plot, crafted by Russu’s fantasy, creates a
game of possible analogies with the text.
The fact that Giovanni Boccaccio was one of the first readers of Homer’s original

texts and an artist capable of conjugating the “holy studies” with apparent
Petru Russu’s figurative tales are not merely descriptive. They connect
frivolousness can lead, illustrators and artists alike, to assume as a gift this
with the text through pure, fantastical solicitation that the artist
prolific persistency.
renews time after time. The text stimulates his taste and genius for
An analysis of Boccaccio’s Decameron and an examination of Dan Haulica, a literary essayist, art a narrative plot derived from his pure, fantastical, visionary world,
critic, editor, and publisher of Secolul 20 magazine, president of AICA International Association of
Art Critics Paris, and president of World Council for Art Editing and Research, USA/Romania. where symbolic presences, archetypal and mysterious, emerge. His
sheets are precious for their vivid yet softened chromatic, insinuating
among the spaces created by a skillful etching mark aware of the
medium’s expressive qualities. Observing Petru Russu’s engravings
feels like encountering ancient miniatures animated by tensions and
Visionary Expressionism in Petru enchantments. A surrealist component in Petru Russu’s figurative

Russu’s Decameron: world grants him the freedom to reach a fantastic dimension as a
space of visionary revelation, echoing the archetypal surrealism of
An Analysis Romanian artist Victor Brauner.

Petru Russu is a fascinating figure in the art world, known Dan Haulica* spoke about a “double dimension of technological
mechanics and organic unity” in Petru Russu’s artworks. The visionary
for his deep engagement with archetypal symbols. He
world of Petru Russu seems to allude to both dimensions, as two
draws upon the rich tapestry of universal symbols and
competing archetypes within our reality’s folds. These dimensions appear
myths that have been part of human consciousness for indistinguishable within his visionary plot, where floating presences of
millennia. His work is a blend of contemporary art and surreal symbolic figures coexist.

timeless symbolism, weaving together the old and the new
in a unique and compelling way. These dimensions remain spheres of allusion. They reference the mechanical
plot of our contemporary world and the iconic plot that follows us daily. They
also reference a remote organic root, an anthropological truth on which the
Petru Russu’s etchings from 1985 are a testament to his visionary motivations of a visionary symbolism, like Petru Russu’s, are based.
expressionism. His work is dramatic, arousing, and brimming with excitement,
challenging reality through the emergence of a symbolic-oneiric (dream-like) During an exhibition, I had the opportunity to interview Petru Russu for my
awareness that sharpens into a scream. This artistic approach serves as a print collector friends in the States. Petru Rusu shared that he had read
profound psychic investigation, a violent confession of anguish. Russu’s work the Decameron at 14. The erotic tales lingered in his mind while he grew
DECAMERON 14