Art is a language, an experience, a form of universal education, a historical source enriching itself constantly and continuously transmitting its legacy to every generation in an aesthetic shape meant to consecrate people’s life in its most diverse forms.
Romfilatelia dedicates this philatelic issue to universal art, namely to paintings and works of worldwide consecrated artists that belong to the Romanian heritage and are preserved in the collection of the National Museum of Art of Romania.
The postage stamps of the issue Masterpieces of universal art in the Romanian heritage depict representative paintings of two of the greatest European painters whose works can be found in the Romanian heritage, being exhibited at the National Museum of Art of Romania. The issuing of these postage stamps provides an opportunity to honour the artistic work and the creative genius of these two great painters of mankind: Pieter Breughel the Younger and El Greco.
El Greco (Candia/Crete Island, 1541 – Toledo, 1614), by his real name Dominikos Theotokópoulos, from whose death we commemorate 400 years in 2014, is one of the greatest painters of the universal art Pantheon. His works stand out through a personal style marked by the rejection of naturalism and the promotion of an erudite style of deeply expressive effects and elongated forms suggesting a mystical exaltation, a style known as “Mannerism”.
Peter Brueghel the Younger (Brussels, 1564 – Antwerp, 1638), Flemish painter, from whose birth we celebrate 450 years in 2014, is one of the representatives of the late Renaissance to early Baroque transition period. His work is mainly comprised of landscapes, religious subjects, scenes depicting country life and proverbs, being characterized by a mix of fantastic and grotesque.
The stamp with the face value of lei 4.70 illustrates the work Spring (1565), while the stamps with the face value of lei 5.00 illustrates the painting Summer, both works belonging to Breughel the Younger and being part of the cycle dedicated to the Seasons. The two paintings, as the entire cycle, are representative for the painter’s style through the composition that combines the anthropic and the natural, while keeping a balanced relation between man, labour and nature.
The stamp with the face value of lei 7.60 illustrates a painting of El Greco, The Marriage of the Virgin. The pictorial composition is representative for the Mannerist period. According to art critics, among the characters represented on canvas, there is also a presumed self-portrait of the painter. The stamp with face value of lei 8.10 reproduces The Martyrdom of St. Maurice and the 10,000 Thebans, a version of the painting commissioned by Philip II for the Escorial.
An upper detail of the work The Adoration of the Shepherds, a special painting that knows several versions in El Greco’s work, is represented on the First Day Cover of the issue.
