Page 237 - THE DECAMERON: 100 Days on 100 Etchings by Petru Rusu
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Boccaccio dominates the subject. He reconsiders the mechanisms of that artistic tradition become in some of
epic plot and at the same time, he framed it inside the his engravings similar to the movement of the watches
rigorous structure of the Decameron, inside sentences of Callot’s engraving, a world in which this dimension
where the liveliness of the quip and of the dialectal has already gone through the vulnerability of human
allusion obeys the discipline of a rhythm. A rhythm, nature.
distinguished by participles with a lain flavor and by
everything that recalls the rules, the refined modalities In our Technological time, this dimension - both
of creating a phrase with nobility, as it is in the tradition mechanical and organic - perfectly obeys a
of the ancient rhetoric. contemporary attitude. It is not casual in fact, that
Petru Rusu has already been invited to participate at
This mixture of promiscuous vividness that forms exhibitions regarding themes about the contemporary
Boccaccio’s subject an - at the same time - of high experimentalism: “Space-Mirror”, “Alternative”; but he
artistic discipline, it seems to me a theme that deserves has also demonstrated his interest for that subject
consideration from anyone who wants to approach this in his solo-shows. Undoubtedly, he likes this kind of
text. It is important to feel pushed to a certain attitude, investigation.
as Rusu did exhaustively dealing with the Decameron
universe.
Here, in his work, about Boccaccio’s Decameron, he has
transferred all his fundamental problems. In fact, when
Petru Rusu comes from Transylvania. His art seems an illustrator approaches a masterpiece of the past, it
influenced by some expressionist master: Kokoschka in is legitimate that he carries with himself all his cultural
his best period (1914), with his unique chromaticity and background, his problems, his sensibility.
his particular way of considering the space of the page;
Kandinsky, with the twisty strength of this image. Petru Rusu is a courageous artist. During the years
his work has been correlated by austere and sober
Consequently, we can easily say that the artistic solutions, as by more provocative, colorful liveliness.
attitude of Petru Rusu is like a sort of a dialogue around All these prolific variations are characterized by two
the origins of the middle European Expressionism. main things: the stimulating resumption of a great
Nevertheless, here the artist privileges the game among cultural model, the importance of a certain persistency.
historical-stylistic connotation, which overcomes that
main quality: suddenly he wants to reach a formal The fact that Boccaccio was one of the first readers of
mechanism verifiable in the entire cycle dedicated Homer’s original texts and an artist capable to conjugate
to Calendrino, with all those lamentable cases that the “holly studies” with an apparent frivolousness, can
Boccaccio assigns him. It is a mechanism comparable conduces - as illustrators - to assume as a gift this
to some tendency of the modern art: the mechanic prolific persistency.
anatomy of Picabia’s drawings, Duchamp, the facetious
combination of Tinguely and Luginbuhl, where the sense
of humor doesn’t exclude an accent of restlessness.
Dan Haulica
In Rusu’s work, these mechanisms are easily comparable Honorary President of the Art International
to an inner organ. The funnels, the crutches and all the Critic Association A.I.C.A. 1985 Paris France
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