1. The Accordionist - Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba, born in 1906, lived through both World Wars, the establishment and entire oppressive communist system, and the Revolution of 1989. All these tragic events influenced the artist throughout his life, which is reflected in his art — often contemplative, through the intense emotions of his subjects. He died in Bucharest on December 28, 1997. He remains in history as an artist renowned for his portraits and as one of the most important Romanian painters of the 20th century.
He painted numerous figures: peasants, clowns, mad kings, but also musicians. For him, music was the expression of pure emotion — a way to capture what cannot be said in words. Baba also created portraits of George Enescu, as well as of other musicians, all charged with gravity and introspection. It is said that at one point he was so impressed by a concert given by George Enescu that he wished to study the violin himself.
The Accordionist is an oil-on-canvas painting, dated 1949, a period in which the artist focused his subjects on social themes, depicting the lives of the many and the poor.
The painting depicts the figure of a musician captured while playing a melodeon, an instrument similar to the accordion. The figure is shown facing the viewer, up to the waist, seated in a posture of concentration, the musician’s gaze directed toward the lower left corner. The background of the painting is empty, without objects or décor, and has a matte texture.
The musician has a beard and wears his hair combed back, represented by fine lines meant to imitate a natural texture. The skin of the face and hands is rendered with a smooth texture. The eyes and lips are drawn with thick lines, in relief, giving the face a slightly neutral, contemplative expression, focused on the act of performance.
The musician is dressed in a simple, white, loose shirt, like that worn by peasants, represented with a rough texture. He holds the melodeon with both hands, depicted with a fine texture and multiple detailed elements in relief. The melodeon, an instrument invented in Germany in the first half of the 19th century, is a type of button accordion — a member of the free-reed musical instrument family. It is considered a sibling of the accordion, but smaller in size and without keys. The melodeon consists of a central bellows and two side boxes with buttons. The musical sounds are produced when the performer pulls or pushes the bellows while pressing various combinations of buttons. It is popular in traditional music from Great Britain, Ireland, and across Europe. Due to its compact design, it can be easily carried wherever needed. Its popularity also comes from the fact that it is easy to learn, especially for those who play by ear. For this reason, it became widely used in dance music, especially folk dances.
The melodeon in this painting seems to have 16 melodic buttons on the right hand, arranged in two rows, and 8 buttons on the left hand for bass notes and chords, also arranged in two rows. They are partially covered by the musician’s hands, as the scene in the painting is a snapshot of a movement. The entire work seems to freeze time in place, in a fraction of a moment, as the musician is captured in the act of playing a melody.
In the lower right corner, you can feel the artist’s signature, “Baba”, and the painting’s date, the year ’49, handwritten in a fine line.
Baba often said that in his painting he wanted to play at being himself, at being Baba: “I always wanted to paint like myself.”