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The Chapel
of the Theological Seminary/Institute
CLUJ - NAPOCA
Painted in the technique
of fresco,1993 -1994
The painting of this chapel, built to serve
the students of the Theological Seminary and Institute,
from Cluj - Napoca, has been designed as a
self explanatory - almost didactic - illustration of images
depicting The Old and New Testament.
To understand the multitude of images in an
Eastern Orthodox Church, one has to understand that,
according the tradition, such a church is literally painted
from top to bottom, inch by inch, and the artist has always
to follow a predetermined iconography program set up many
centuries ago in compliance to irrevocable rules.
In the fall of 1983,
when Petru was invited to paint the Chapel of the Theological
Seminary and Institute in Cluj-Napoca, (2nd largest city
in Romania) this seemed to be a nice little winter project,
a surface of about 400- 500 sq. yards, a charming, promising
ground of peaceful creation, surprisingly located in the
middle of the city, though secretly hidden to the non-initiated,
behind the heavy walls of the Archiepiscopal Palace, far
from the outside crowded world, still only a few steps away
from what used to be one of the most culturally sophisticated
areas in Romania at that time.
The Chapel
was built more or less secretly:
The Chapel, like many other places
of worship during the communist dictatorship of Ceausescu
- had to be built more or less secretly,
camouflaged inside a student dormitory building, inside
the perimeter of the Archbishop Palace.
Petru’s initial
intention - after accepting the commission, was
to treat this miniature chapel as “an
icon”, or a crown jewel, dedicating a
special attention to details, creating a never seen before
decorative style, modeling in fresco ( in the
fresh plaster) reliefs, meant to induce a certain
threedimensionality, used before only in the decoration
of the icons, details which would have not only highlighted,
but also revolutionized the traditional richness of the
Byzantine concept of illustrating the Biblical narrative.
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This
was a daring undertaking.
As he did with every
other one of his church projects, Petru set up to take apart
the standardized, conventional Byzantine concepts of religious
painting, determined to find means to transfer what used
to be considered even barbarous, as
a style, sometimes in the past, into the 20th century
visual perception.
It was not necessarily the rebellion against the
immutable cannons of the style brought about by total denial
of any personal artistic interpretation.
It was not even the artistic
personal ego which would have wanted by all means
to be expressed, but mostly, the desire to emancipate the
centuries old Byzantine Style, deadlocked apparently in
some kind of an everlasting conceptual trap.
Using the innate simplicity
of the style, as a starting foundation, Petru wanted
to bring into the foreground its resemblance to the modern
and contemporary art, unifying thus the centuries old linear-
geometrical and flat compositions of heavenly visions, with
the newer, younger, more contemporary spiritual perception
of the visual liturgical narratives in the Eastern Orthodox
Churches..
Modernizing
the canonical, backward Byzantine painting: pure heresy
Petru’s intention
to modify, and even modernize, within the church painting
what was represented for so long as stiff, schematic, figures,
depicted with strict outlines, in somber, dark, colors,
was regarded more as a heresy within the Orthodox
Church dogmatism, and made the artist vulnerable.
Even before any significant materialization of his intentions
took place, he was condemned for having started to paint
in a rather ... “Catholic” style,... therefore,
in a more Westernized way, contradictory to the Orthodox
Church canons and precepts.
The conflict
- which
was far from being about devotional lessons -
triggered by a key representative involved in the bureaucracy
of the Archbishop Palace, determined
though a radical change of project.
The accusation of not following exactly the traditional
Byzantine style, wasn’t though, as one would expect,
a typical case of non adherence to the church requests.
It would be very difficult for a foreign, modern
day reader, to understand that life at the end of the 20th
century inside the Palace of such an Ecclesiastical Authority,
resembled to a late medieval Court, with an autocratic monarch
imposing total and absolute submission. The game of power,
the overwhelming sense of all mighty dominance of a single
ruler, as well as the intrigues, were flourishing there,
as they always did around any centrum of power in past or
still are in the present times .
We will never know
exactly what where the personal
interests of the intrigues personage who pulled the trigger
on the conflict.
We will only know
for sure that it was not the
fate, the beauty of the frescoes in the Chapel or the obedience
of the artist to the strict Byzantine style.
And, as in any other intricate labyrinth, a spark
of negligible proportions, was soon to degenerate into a
mega-conflict.
Nevertheless, a radical
change of the project was determined.
From the initial concept only The Dome of Jesus Christ
Pantokrator (Allmighty) had survived....
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A highly considered monk, greatly appreciated
by the Orthodox Church Hierarchy was brought to decide a
new “design” or “plan”
for the chapel painting and conceive a new image
distribution, respecting ad literam the official,
canonic iconographyc program. There was no room left to
inventiveness, personal interpretation,
or too much creativity.
The concept
that the artist does not exist, being assimilated in the
process of representation of a supernatural world,...
had
prevailed.
In spite of the extenuating
developments caused by the accusations, which were disturbing
and often energy dispersing, Petru managed eventually to
concentrate instead on the creation and production of one
of the most original and sophisticated ensembles of ornamentation
ever created as part of a church painting in fresco
program.
Developed and modeled directly
on the wall, in the freshly applied layer of plaster,
or “fresco” , (consisting of a mixture of lime
and finely chopped natural fibers, in this case, hemp) the
bas-reliefs that Petru started to introduce, and
which had a rudimentary precedent in the raised nimbuses
in the frescoes painted by Giotto and other few Primitive
Italians, appeared as a fascinating innovation in the decorative
methods.
Petru
creates an original, - totally unconventional - decorative
ensemble in fresco
Used to create separation
bands or highlighting backgrounds, or as repetitive elements,
(angels, crosses, nimbuses, floral elements, etc) part of
the complicated representation of a spiritual cosmogony,
invested, most of the times, with a symbolical intent, the
reliefs richly covered with gold leaf, managed to
suggest a three- dimensional impression, contributing together
with the brilliant, more vivacious colors towards an overwhelming
perception of richness, which was one of the most wanted
effects the Byzantine painting wanted to impose...
Through the lavish use of gold
at the ornamentations in relief accomplished at the Cluj-
Napoca Chapel, the artist aimed to put together all the
elements available in order to achieve within the Biblical
epic representation the illusion of an apotheosis reserved
only to The Other World.
It is Petru’s merit
to have taken over a few Pre-Renaissance elements of inspiration
and turn them into a new technique of fascinating ornamental
impact.
It is not only a matter
of craftsmanship within the technique of fresco used
now for centuries, by generations and generations of fresco
masters. It was a potential never exploited before, a wonderful
discovery - to the viewers delight - an ornamentation method
that Petru passed on to his students, apprentices - and
inevitably - imitators -, setting
a new stylistic development, and a new era in the sacred
mural art decoration ...
As to the personage who initiated the conflict, he
would forever be attached to the Chapel: immortalized in
the scene of Resurrection, where, the artist assigned
him the look of that little devil of death for having
killed an artistic project, he could not even comprehend.
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masterpetru@yahoo.com
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