Page 10 - The Decameon On 100 Etchings by Petru Russu - A Homage to Giovani Boccaccio

The Decameron They weave through surreal landscapes not in search of realism, Yet his homage is never confined, it evolves. In the comically
poignant Calendrino cycle, Russu dissects Boccaccio’s farcical pain
but in pursuit of rhythm, emotion, and spiritual suggestion. Each
through anatomical exaggeration and symbolic distortion, crafting
etching becomes a parallel tale, a visual echo triggered by the
visual theater from human fragility. Here, his etchings become kinetic
text, yet growing independently within the mind of the artist.
essays, humorous, tragic, and philosophically dense.
Russu’s imagery does not “describe” as much as it “summons.”
Boccaccio’s anthology becomes a field of provocation, igniting
garde innovators. The visceral movement of funnels, crutches,
Russu’s myth-making instinct. Through a unique synergy of
literature and expressionism, the engravings reveal a cosmos Russu’s fascination with mechanical anatomy aligns him with avant-
and gears resembles Francis Picabia’s biomorphic machines,
populated by archetypes, mysterious, ambiguous, and loaded Duchamp’s elusive devices, or Tinguely’s satirical contraptions.
with psychic resonance. These are figures of dream and memory, Yet unlike these figures, Petru Russu turns his mechanisms inward.
shaped by a language that straddles myth and modernity. They act as organs, psychic conduits rather than playful artifacts,
mirroring the inner vulnerabilities of the human soul. Like Jacques
Chromatically, Petru Russu’s sheets glow with softened tonalities, Callot’s carnival of grotesques, Russu’s work dances on the edge
earthy, mystical, “oriental” in temperament, evoking miniature of chaos and order, illusion and confession.
manuscripts from distant ages. But here, the calm palette is
pierced by emotional voltage: a tension that animates the imagery When an illustrator tackles a canonical work, it is natural, essential,
with urgency and ambiguity. The surrealist undercurrent is for them to carry their cultural baggage, their inquiries, and their
unmistakable. His work conjures up a space akin to Victor Brauner’s creativity into the engagement. In this sense, Petru Russu’s
dreamscapes, where the symbolic and the subconscious converge Decameron etchings are deeply personal, drawn from decades of
in theatrical elegance. It’s in this paradoxical terrain, between evolving aesthetic and philosophical exploration. His bravery lies
delicacy and delirium, that Russu truly thrives. in this unflinching transparency: each plate reflects both homage
and invention, respect and rebellion.
His etched world is governed by a dual principle: mechanical
precision intertwined with organic pulsation. Gears, tubes, skeletal Over time, Petru Russu has navigated between minimalist austerity
frames, prosthetics, all function as symbolic appendages, surreal and riotous color, structural rigor and playful chaos. But through
tools of emotional articulation. These forms reference not just all these stylistic metamorphoses, he has remained steadfastly
contemporary machinery, but the ancient root systems of human committed to one principle: the enduring vitality of cultural
ritual and memory. Russu doesn’t illustrate the technological; he models. His work acknowledges the grandeur of heritage while
mythologizes it, placing it in tension with the primal, constructing a pushing it into new expressive realms. Boccaccio, who balanced
visual cartography that spans both origin and future. This synthesis sacred scholarship with earthy wit, would surely approve of Petru
offers not just aesthetic intrigue, but anthropological weight. Russu’s paradoxical gaze. The pairing becomes generative, two
masters, centuries apart, joined in a spirited pursuit of beauty,
From the land of Transylvania, Petru Russu’s artistic DNA connects irony, and human truth.
deeply to Central European Expressionism. The vibrant hues and
charged spatial arrangements echo the spectral chromatics of A critical examination of Boccaccio’s Decameron by Enrico Crispolti,
Italian art critic, curator, and historian of contemporary art, who
Oskar Kokoschka and the transcendental dynamism of Kandinsky. served as professor at the Università degli Studi di Siena and directed
its postgraduate program in art history.
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The Decameron