The Danube at the point where it begins to open toward the delta — painted at the specific hour when the water holds the last light of the sky and the banks have already gone to shadow. The light on the water was the reason for making the painting; everything else is context.
Four oil studies were made before this canvas, each resolving a different problem with the colour of the water. The final painting was completed largely in a single session once the preparatory work was done, working quickly to preserve the freshness that the subject demanded.
About the artist
Catalin Vasile works across a wide range of media and scales without feeling that this breadth dilutes any particular practice — he considers the gouache studies on paper and the large oil canvases as part of the same ongoing investigation of light and surface, conducted in different registers. The studies are fast, the canvases slow; both teach him different things about the same problem.
He is based in Galați and has a particular relationship with the light and landscape of the Danube estuary — a quality of luminosity specific to that part of Romania that recurs throughout his work regardless of the subject. He accepts commissions for landscape and interior work.
