MONDAY in HOLY WEEK

Ioana Corujan

Mihaela Bercea

Today's images are by Romanian artists who have "resurrected" the old art of reverse glass painting in which the image is painted behind a glass panel, making the usual methods of composition reversed. The outlines, the lettering, and finishing details have to be brushed onto the glass first before background coloring and sections of gold leaf can be applied, a process allowing for no mistakes! The image is then sealed with a coating of varnish, covered with a sheet of paper, and fixed in a wood frame with a protective backing.

  The colors in the pieces depicted here are vibrant and their primitive style evokes the sufferings of Jesus in a way some more classical work does not.

Throughout the 19th century painting on glass was very popular as folk art in Austria, Bavaria, Moravia, Bohemia and Slovakia. Unfortunately, during the inter-war period (1914-45) this traditional "naive" technique fell nearly to a complete oblivion and its methods of paint composition and structural layout had to be re-invented by combining acrylic and oil paints. Also the style of painting and especially the themes had to be varied and adjusted to new perceptions of the world in modern times.

Georgeta Maria Iuga

Painting on glass started to become popular again during the 1990s. However, many painters of this genre affirm that abandoning that unique tradition of naivist approach to painting on glass is rather difficult. Mihaela, Ioana and Georgeta are several of the artists of note today in their native Romania.