Artist's Biography:

Nicolae Blei, born in 1949, in Hotarele, Giurgiu, is a Romanian painter who graduated from a major Romanian art institute in the early 1970s.

A member of the Romanian Artists’ Union since 1982, he has consistently exhibited his work at group shows and official events throughout Romania and internationally, including Sweden, Switzerland, and France. 

Blei attended the “Nicolae Grigorescu” Institute of Fine Arts, Bucharest, Painting Department – ​​class of teachers Ileana Balotă and Traian Brădean.

After graduating from the faculty, he participated every year in the official exhibitions organized by the UAP, the Council of Culture and by the municipality at the Museum of Art of the Republic, the Museum of Collections, the “Dalles Hall” and other art galleries in the country.

“In a pantheon of Romanian painting, Nicolae Blei will undoubtedly stand to the right of his great teachers: Grigorescu, Andreescu, Luchian.” Dinu Moraru

"Nicolae Blei's creation is a demonstration of the fact that, in art, originality is conditioned by the sincerity expressed and that the means by which this can be proven are a permanent, even exasperating, chiseling of sensitivity under the sign of will and courage" Gabriela Bidu

A member of the Romanian Artists’ Union since 1982, he has consistently exhibited his work at group shows and official events throughout Romania and internationally, including Sweden, Switzerland, and France.

Works in OFFICIAL and PRIVATE COLLECTIONS from: Romania, Belgium, Canada, China, Korea, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Israel, Morocco, Netherlands, USA, Sweden, Spain.

Additional Information: 

Nicolae Blei: Preafrumosul liber exprimat

Fara îndoiala, cel mai simplu si cel mai corect lucru care s-ar putea spune despre Nicolae Blei (nascut la 14 august 1949 în comuna Hotarele, judetul Giurgiu) este acela ca a reintrodus în pictura româneasca a ultimelor doua decenii si jumatate respectul neconditionat pentru categoria estetica numita, la propriu, “frumos”. Pare un enunt pleonastic, de vreme ce estetica este definita  ca “stiinta a frumosului”, dar sa nu uitam ca de la Baudelaire si – în cazul culturii autohtone – de la  Arghezi încoace  a început sa se vorbeasca tot mai  insistent de “estetica urâtului”. Asta pe de o parte. Pe de alta,  nu trebuie omis nici  faptul ca invocând în mod mecanic “frumosul”, autori din toate zonele de expresie si din toate zarile au pactizat adesea cu destructurarea, incongruenta, dezechilibrul si dizarmonia, ceea ce nu înseamna  ca unii dintre ei nu au ajuns la rezultate artistice cu totul remarcabile sau chiar la chintesente ale sublimului, asa cum demonstreaza Umberto Eco în a sa “Istorie a urâtului”.
Revenind însa dupa aceasta necesara paranteza, trebuie spus ca Nicolae Blei  s-a remarcat înca de la debutul sau prin venerarea explicita si exclusiva a valorilor picturii clasice românesti (Andreescu, Grigorescu, Luchian, Tonitza), fapt ce l-a singularizat oarecum într-un context cultural în care excesul de modernizare a limbajelor artistice (a se vedea, de pilda, “ravagiile” pe care le faceau în epoca textualismul si derivatele sale ce se adresau altor arte decât literatura) devenise o moda de nestavilit. “Cuminte”, prin contrast, atent la detalii, cercetând cu obstinatie fizionomiile ascunse ale realului, pe care le-a transpus însa invariabil prin prisma unei sintaxe robust figurative, punând un accent lipsit de orice echivoc pe primatul culorii în constructia imaginii plastice, dar fara a submina în  vreun fel importanta desenului, Nicolae Blei a lucrat în permanenta, cu temeinicia deprinsa de la stralucitul sau dascal Traian Bradean, la ceea ce am putea numi un demers tenace  de reabilitare si reinstituire a realului genuin ca obiect al adoratiei vizuale si, implicit, al creatiei picturale pline de fast, gratie decorativa si glamour.

Îndragostit fiind de natura si în special de flori, Nicolae Blei nu a încercat însa rescrierea  poeticii impresionismului pentru a se sincroniza cu propria sa contemporaneitate, întrucât o astfel de solutie ar fi necesitat apelul la o serie de artificii stilistice postmoderne, inacceptabile din punctul sau de vedere. Asumându-si, la un moment dat,  riscul de a fi considerat chiar adept al naturalismului descriptiv, artistul a fortat nota, daca se poate spune asa, si a continuat pe linia care l-a consacrat în cele din urma si care consta în reproducerea fidela a unor imagini  decupate din zona întotdeauna surâzatoare si/sau plina de lirism a realitatii. Dar, beneficiind de un instinct artistic cu totul  remarcabil, el a reusit si reuseste  mereu sa evite contaminarea compozitiilor astfel gândite si asumate cu elemente provenite din retorica bucolicului sau a idilicului.

Prin procedee ce tin de secretul ori de inefabilul artei sale, pictorul instituie în majoritatea lucrarilor o atmosfera de o puritate împinsa la extrem, pentru conturarea careia  nu ezita sa recurga la instrumente si proceduri adecvate de “sterilizare” estetica – peneluri ultrafine, “incizii” microscopice în fundaluri cu scopul  de a delimita clar locul imaginii de prim-plan, decantari si clivaje  obsesiv repetate spre a ajunge la esente cromatice unice, aproape neverosimile în anumite cazuri. De altfel, cine va analiza cu atentie compozitiile lui Nicolae Blei, în special pe cele de data mai recenta, va observa nu fara uimire cum în pofida identitatii lor figurative indiscutabile (fapt de care am amintit deja ceva mai sus), ele se departeaza de  modelele  previzibile si capata o stranie autonomie vizuala în raport cu  realitatea din care se presupune ca provin.

Devenite astfel, printr-un subtil joc de iluzii optice, dar nu numai, plasmuiri secunde ale unei lumi recladite dupa rigorile maxime, aproape neomenesti, ale frumusetii si echilibrului, multicolore si elegante, pregnante dar si evanescente, cele mai multe lucrari se adreseaza proiectiilor aspirationale ale modului nostru de a ne apropia armonia deplina sau de a tânji dupa  perfectiunea pe care ea ne-o promite.  Este o strategie comunicationala de mare finete, care prezinta însa mai multe riscuri decât avantaje, având în vedere ca opereaza cu notiuni si registre senzorial-afective aflate într-o continua defensiva ca urmare a pragmatismului cinic de care, în viziunea unora cel putin,  s-ar face vinovat spiritul contemporan. Iar când spun asta ma refer, desigur, la precaritatea pozitiilor pe care se afla astazi sensibilitatea de tip liric, pe de o parte, si fascinatia lucrului (artistic) bine facut, pe de alta parte. Nicolae Blei este, fara doar si poate, constient de locul pe care  pictura sa îl ocupa în   acest climat axiologic si hermeneutic, dar asta nu este de natura sa-l faca sa cada pe gânduri ori sa-l determine sa-si schimbe optiunile initiale. Din acest punct de vedere se poate spune chiar ca el reprezinta un veritabil monument de consecventa, calitate care i-a consolidat încet, dar sigur cariera,  ajutându-l totodata sa-si formeze  un public  fidel, din rândurile caruia au aparut si niste colectionari – nu chiar putini la numar –  care  stau în permanenta cu ochii pe tot  ceea ce iese de pe sevaletul sau. Sunt  semne ca, în ciuda unor voci care se îngrijoreaza  (mai mult sau mai putin sincer) de soarta picturii sale “prea frumoase”, Nicolae Blei a mizat inspirat pe datele esentiale ale propriei vocatii si, prin urmare, a câstigat ce era de câstigat în batalia dura pentru afirmare si identitate artistica.  ( martie 2008).

Nicolae Blei: The most beautiful free expression

Without a doubt, the simplest and most correct thing that could be said about Nicolae Blei (born August 14, 1949 in Hotarele commune, Giurgiu county) is that he reintroduced into Romanian painting of the last two and a half decades the unconditional respect for the aesthetic category called, literally, “beautiful”.

It seems a pleonastic statement, since aesthetics is defined as the “science of beauty”, but let’s not forget that since Baudelaire and – in the case of the local culture – since Arghezi, people have started to talk more and more insistently about the “aesthetics of ugliness”. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that by mechanically invoking “the beautiful”, authors from all areas of expression and from all horizons have often made a pact with destructuring, incongruity, imbalance and disharmony, which does not mean that some of them have not reached completely remarkable artistic results or even quintessences of the sublime, as Umberto Eco demonstrates in his “History of the Ugly”.

However, returning after this necessary parenthesis, it must be said that Nicolae Blei stood out from his debut through his explicit and exclusive veneration of the values ​​of classical Romanian painting (Andreescu, Grigorescu, Luchian, Tonitza), a fact that somewhat singled him out in a cultural context in which the excess of modernization of artistic languages ​​(see, for example, the “ravages” that textualism and its derivatives that addressed arts other than literature were wreaking in the era) had become an unstoppable fashion. "Cuminet", by contrast, attentive to details, obstinately researching the hidden physiognomies of reality, which he invariably transposed through the prism of a robust figurative syntax, placing an unequivocal emphasis on the primacy of color in the construction of the plastic image, but without undermining in any way the importance of drawing, Nicolae Blei worked permanently, with the thoroughness learned from his brilliant teacher Traian Bradean, on what we could call a tenacious approach to rehabilitating and reinstating genuine reality as an object of visual adoration and, implicitly, of pictorial creation full of pomp, decorative grace and glamour.

Being in love with nature and especially with flowers, Nicolae Blei did not try to rewrite the poetics of impressionism in order to synchronize with his own contemporaneity, since such a solution would have required the appeal to a series of postmodern stylistic artifices, unacceptable from his point of view. Taking on, at one point, the risk of being considered even an adept of descriptive naturalism, the artist forced the note, if one may say so, and continued on the line that finally consecrated him and which consists in the faithful reproduction of images cut from the always smiling and/or lyrical area of ​​reality. But, benefiting from an entirely remarkable artistic instinct, he succeeded and always succeeds in avoiding contaminating the compositions thus conceived and assumed with elements originating from the rhetoric of the bucolic or the idyllic.

Through procedures related to the secret or ineffable of his art, the painter establishes in most of his works an atmosphere of extreme purity, for the outline of which he does not hesitate to resort to appropriate instruments and procedures of aesthetic “sterilization” – ultrafine brushes, microscopic “incisions” in the backgrounds in order to clearly delimit the place of the foreground image, obsessively repeated decantations and cleavages in order to reach unique chromatic essences, almost implausible in certain cases. Moreover, whoever will carefully analyze Nicolae Blei’s compositions, especially the more recent ones, will observe, not without amazement, how despite their indisputable figurative identity (a fact that I have already mentioned a little above), they move away from predictable models and acquire a strange visual autonomy in relation to the reality from which they are supposed to come.

Thus, through a subtle play of optical illusions, but not only, they have become second renditions of a world rebuilt according to the maximum, almost inhuman, rigors of beauty and balance, multi-colored and elegant, pregnant but also evanescent, most of the works address the aspirational projections of our way of approaching complete harmony or of yearning for the perfection that it promises us. It is a communication strategy of great finesse, which, however, presents more risks than advantages, considering that it operates with notions and sensory-affective registers that are in a continuous defensive state as a result of the cynical pragmatism of which, in the vision of some at least, the contemporary spirit would be guilty. And when I say this, I refer, of course, to the precariousness of the positions in which lyrical sensibility finds itself today, on the one hand, and the fascination of a well-made (artistic) work, on the other. Nicolae Blei is undoubtedly aware of the place his painting occupies in this axiological and hermeneutic climate, but this is not likely to make him think or to determine him to change his initial options. From this point of view, one can even say that he represents a true monument of consistency, a quality that has slowly but surely consolidated his career, helping him at the same time to form a loyal audience, from whose ranks some collectors have also emerged – not a few in number – who constantly keep an eye on everything that comes out of his easel. There are signs that, despite some voices that worry (more or less sincerely) about the fate of his “too beautiful” painting, Nicolae Blei has inspiredly relied on the essential data of his own vocation and, consequently, has won what was to be won in the tough battle for affirmation and artistic identity (March 2008).

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