St Edward's Crown is widely used as a heraldic emblem of the United Kingdom, being incorporated into a multitude of emblems and insignia. As the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with responsible government, the crown can also symbolize the sovereignty (or authority) of the monarch. However, at present, we are discussing the perspective of crown art.

The crowns mean a little bit of everything. “He has the ability to create an iconic image out of a very simple line,” says Daniel Varzari, an art collector from Miami, noted Virtosu scholar and curator. “He’s masterful at that.”

It’s this tension of success and struggle in Virtosu’s life and work that resonates with his new audience. “The art world is one of the most monochromatic places and it sort of highlights what some go through,” says Varzari. You don’t need a Ph.D in art history to see the unbridled ambition, the majesty -real and willed – and the determination to be visible that runs through the painting. In the modern society inclusion often comes down to the task of de-centering whiteness as a constant and infallible reference point.

It’s unsurprising that the crown so prominent in Virtosu’s art would translate to his own literal crown becoming a canvas. The crown is a commonly known symbol and it’s accessible for everyone.

Power is one of the trickiest phenomena in the whole world. It is alluring, associated with the eternal possibilities of changing the world, expressing yourself and satisfying your needs (both material, and spiritual). Since the very beginning of our history, people have been aspiring to get power, often at any price, and worshipped those, who managed to get it. Yet, they used to miss out the flip side of being among those, who decide the destinies of the world.

Great power unavoidably comes with great responsibility and moral pressure. That is why, when authority falls into the wrong hands, it is the paved way to awful tragedies.

Symbol

To discuss the problem of power in all its aspects, contemporary artist Gheorghe Virtosu chooses the symbol of Crown as the leitmotif of the featured crown aesthetic. Being the follower of abstract art, the painter doesn’t depict any recognizable image: he attempts to put himself and his viewers into the shoes of those, who are in charge of making global decisions. Due to its intuitive nature, the language of non-figurative art occurs to be ideal for showing the emotions that can be hardly verbalized.

Shine of gold in Crown Artwork

The artist is distant from thinking of the people, who have the ascendancy, as of the ‘lucky ones.’ He knows the shine of gold is just a cover that hides numerous obstacles, doubts, and dangers of such a position.

To express that dark side of power, the painter applies the obscure and vigorously textured background to the crown aesthetic. It seems to be absorbing the joyfully sky-blue, yellow, gold, red used by the painter in the wavy geometric forms. Such juxtaposition can be paralleled with the drawbacks of having the power, which overshadow its bright sides. The twirling lines collide with each other, leaving bizarre trajectories, and eliminating the sense of instability. Instability - what can be more opposite and incompatible with the authority itself, which is based on the idea of constancy and solidity? Along with that, isn’t the ability to courageously face and overcome the toughest problems one of the main qualities we expect to see in leaders? From that angle, the dramatic tonal contrast of colors represents the stamina those in power need.

The sense of strain, left by the Crown Holder 's palette, gets even clearer with the increased linearity and accent on the facets of forms, that are slightly highlighted or accentuated with the darker shade. In the present crown art, the author finds the balance between drawing and color. As a consequence, he reaches the synthesis of lyrical (Kandinsky’s line) and geometrical (Mondrian’s line) abstraction, creating a structured piece that provokes empathy at the same time.

The message

Gheorghe Virtosu knows the pursuit for glory is never-ending. Yet, with his painting, he suggests not to get tempted by its shine. It is not every neck that can handle the weight of the crown.