What is civilization? It is the ability to distinguish oneself from the chaos of the surrounding world, to realize and manifest your essence. Civilization is about building borders, marking your territory, and identifying ‘Us’-‘Them’ relations. For sure, the ability to tell, whether someone/something is a ‘friend or foe’ can often be a matter of survival. However, the history of humanity brightly illustrates the consequence of following the worldview focused on differences. It led to nothing but endless wars, catastrophes, and discrimination. Wouldn’t looking for what unites us instead be more productive?

Juxtaposition

Eastern-Western cultures, post-contemporary epochs, male-female – we are really used to thinking of everything in terms of juxtaposition. However, when giving a panoramic view of the history of human culture, it occurs that behind all those ‘decorations,’ we have more similarities than differences. That is the idea of looking at Virtosu ’s painting get you thinking of.

Principle

Art requires integrity, especially non-figurative one: it can’t exist without the sense of wholeness, otherwise, a painting loses its aesthetical attractiveness. It is like in music – you need to keep the entire harmony in mind. Gheorghe Virtosu follows the symphonic principle in arranging his pieces. Colors, lines, textures are the notes of his painterly melody that shapes up the composition of the oil painting.

Palette

The ‘tune’ of the oil painting is energetic, even bravura. Such mood is created by the vivid palette, based on yellow, red and blue tints. This is the so-called triad of primary colors – the most intensive and expressive combination.

Its effect is amplified by the expressive loose brushwork, especially in the rendering of the background. Pastose painting surface creates the impression that abstract forms are floating in the ocean of color. Centric composition conveys the sense of isolation from the rest of the space.

However, this unity isn’t solid and stiff – Gheorghe Virtosu ’s oil painting canvas is filled with the sense of inner dynamism and motion. This reminds of the great rule of history – we should precept it as the phenomenon that is permanently in progress. Once we think something is over and conserved, we’re bounded to repeat the same mistakes.