Page 9 - THE DECAMERON: A Visionary Journey in 100 Stories and 100 Etchings by Petru Russu

The stories vary from funny to tragic and from moral to immoral. This admiration and wonder have nothing to do with indulging in
Boccaccio's writing style is highly entertaining, often using detailed descriptions. It is an exoticism that Russu bends into science
contemporary language and making frequent references to the fiction, populated by characters resembling ancient Egyptians or
people and customs of his time. For example, in the story of Patient Chinese princes dressed in jade stones. Boccaccio would not be angry
Griselda, Boccaccio writes that "to better test her patience and at such an interpretation. He himself took many liberties with the
constancy, her husband put her through all manner of trials, and she epic matter he utilized, exercising the freedom of a superior distance.
endured them all with the utmost patience and constancy." Boccaccio was the first author capable of dominating diverse subjects
with the distance that belongs to artistic discipline. This example is
Boccaccio's stories often contain moral lessons and warnings about important not only for those who create illustrations for books but
the consequences of immoral behavior. He also uses the stories to also for artists confronting this masterpiece's provocation.
satirize the church and its teachings.
Boccaccio reconsiders the epic plot and frames it within the rigorous
In Petru Russu's engravings for Boccaccio's "Decameron," the twisted structure of the "Decameron," where the liveliness of the quip and
frenzy of the bodies creates an impression of true release. This release dialectal allusion obey the discipline of a rhythm. This mixture of
breaks limits, avoiding distinctions between styles, social situations, vividness and high artistic discipline deserves consideration from
and historical-geographical sites. These are not mere illustrations anyone approaching this text. It is important to adopt a certain
confined to a particular moment in European history. Although the attitude, as Russu did exhaustively dealing with the "Decameron"
images contain allusions to the fashion of that age, everything is universe.
wrapped in a dance of vitality that rejects stylistic appearances. The
sensation we get is one of dépaysement, an aspiration for totality In Petru Russu's artwork, the imaginary develops with an accent of
that excludes pedantic philological discriminations. visionary expressionism, dramatic and arousing. This artistic attitude
tests reality through symbolic-oneiric awareness, sometimes changing
Petru Russu offers a variant of local neo-expressionism, primitivizing into a scream. It is a painting of profound psychic investigation, a violent
in the sense of a surprising synthesis between early Romanesque confession of anguish. Russu's work is crowded with presences that
reverberations and extra-European exoticisms. He also resorts to the bring reality back to archetypal truths, contrasting with the leveling of
representational solution of the fragmented body in his engravings the daily horizon.
for "The Decameron."
In this engraving work, the visionary attitude is accentuated by a
While setting up his etchings, an art collector pointed out similarities narrative easing, loosening the dramatic tension and gaining the
with Chinese art. Others found analogies with the vivid chromaticism pleasure of pure dreaming. The plot moves towards dimensions of
of popular Mexican engravings. Nevertheless, the exoticism of Petru pure imagination, as in the exercises of a machine belonging to the
Russu's images comes from a poetic latitude, a distance he assumes world of fantasy.
in front of the narration of the facts. It is the same exoticism used by
Boccaccio when he imagined Saladin traveling around the Christian The characters come alive in a metamorphic dimension, crossing into
world to test the hospitality and magnanimity of the people he fantastic spaces free from logic, apart from the necessity of their narrative
wanted to fight. plot. Russu's fantasy develops a game of possible analogies with the text.

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The Decameron