Nude

When Gheorghe Tattarescu painted this nude in 1850, the academic study of the naked body was something he had learned far from home. He had trained in Rome, in the world of the Accademia di San Luca, copying Raphael and Guido Reni until the Italian grand manner was second nature. Back in the Romanian lands there was as yet almost no such schooling. A carefully drawn nude like this was less a private picture than a statement that painting here could be done to a European standard. A few years later, in 1864, Tattarescu helped found the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest with his friend Theodor Aman, so that the training he had crossed a continent for could be had at home.