We live in an era where the visual holds preeminence, and in this context, the work of great fine artists teaches us how to look, as a way of appreciating the world around us. The title of this album reflects precisely this idea.

The drawings in the album Fascinaţia vizualului: manuscrise și desene ale pictorului Nicolae Tonitza în Colecțiile Speciale ale Bibliotecii Naționale a României are not spectacular from a coloristic point of view. Instead, one can see in them the hand of the great master, with Tonitza being considered by many as the second greatest Romanian painter, after Nicolae Grigorescu.

The themes covered are varied, from portraits of children to nudes, and from a baptism scene to a sleeping figure. Many of the drawings and sketches are undated, but it can be observed, from the style and manner of execution, that they belong to different stages of the artist’s creation.

At the end of the album, five of Tonitza’s manuscripts are also reproduced (both as images and in transcription, for ease of reading). Two of them represent pieces of correspondence—a letter to the socialist Panait Mușoiu and another to Mișu Takorian, the entrepreneur of several exhibition halls. These are joined by an art chronicle regarding the great sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea, as well as two texts on more general themes: the intellectual honesty of the Romanian artist, and the artistic education of children.

Like music, the visual arts utilize a universal language. Nicolae Tonitza’s creation lies halfway between the figurative and the symbolic: too precise and lifelike to be a “fleshless” symbol, yet too essentialized to be a mere copy of reality. It can thus be admired by people belonging to any cultural tradition and is a proof of the Romanian creative potential.