Lascăr Vorel

Infobox Artist
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name = Lascăr Vorel

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imagesize = 270px
caption = "Train Station"
birthname =
birthdate = birth date|1879|8|19|mf=y
location = Iaşi
deathdate = February 1918
deathplace =
nationality = Romanian
field = painting
training = Franz Stuck
movement = Art Nouveau
Post-impressionism
Expressionism
works =
patrons =
awards =

Lascăr Vorel (August 19, 1879—February 1918) was a Romanian Post-Impressionist painter whose style was linked to Expressionism.

Biography

Born to Czech-Romanian parents in Iaşi, Vorel was the great-grandson of Anton Vorel, a well-known pharmacist and herbalist who had arrived in Moldavia from Bohemia. [Mia Vorel] He spent much of his early life in Piatra Neamţ, where his brothers Constantin and Tudor were to inherit the Vorel pharmacist business (being the last generation to own the practice before its nationalization by the Communist regime). [Mia Vorel]

Lascăr Vorel studied in the German Empire, where he subsequently lived a long part of his life. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he was taught by Franz Stuck, [Grigorescu, p.438] and developed a style influenced by the Vienna Secession and other branches of Art Nouveau. [Grigorescu, p.438]

In time, he adopted an artistic vision which owed inspiration to Paul Cézanne's geometrical guidelines. [Drăguţ "et al.", p.216, 217] Although he refused to join any particular group of artists, his work shares common traits with that of several Expressionists (including George Grosz). [Drăguţ "et al.", p.216-217; Grigorescu, p.438-439] Many of his paintings are satirical in theme, and center on grotesque caricatures of bourgeois society and its entertainers. [Drăguţ "et al.", p.216, 217; Grigorescu, p.438-439] Most of them are painted in gouache, and are dominated by blue, grey, and violet tones. [Drăguţ "et al.", p.217]

His main stylistic choice was contrasted by works depicting his home region: concentrating on wider compositions and landscapes which included more emotional portraits of peasants and artisans, he made use of lighter tones of color. [Drăguţ "et al.", p.217; Grigorescu, p.439]

After the outbreak of World War I, Vorel incorporated pacifist protests into his paintings — this was the last major subject of his art before his death in Germany (which occurred before the end of the conflict). [Drăguţ "et al.", p.217]

Since 1993, Piatra Neamţ has housed a Lascăr Vorel Gallery (part of the Neamţ County Museum Complex), which is the center of a "Vorel Biennale" exhibiting works by contemporary painters. [Mia Vorel]

Gallery

"Click on an image to view it enlarged."

Notes

References

*ro icon [http://www.formula-as.ro/reviste_398__277__din-sipetul-cu-amintiri-al-unei-doamne-devita-veche...-.html Mia Vorel interview with Corina Pavel, in "Formula As", nr. 398]
*Vasile Drăguţ, Vasile Florea, Dan Grigorescu, Marin Mihalache, "Pictura românească în imagini", Ed. Meridiane, Bucharest, 1970
*Dan Grigorescu, "Istoria unei generaţii pierdute: expresioniştii", Ed. Eminescu, Bucharest, 1980

External links

*ro icon [http://www.neamt.ro/cmj/arta/glvpn.html Lascăr Vorel Art Gallery]