That time, monasteries hosted not only simple peasant girls dedicated to religion since early childhood, but also women who had lost their husbands or fortunes or who had experienced unlucky love affairs. Most of them were educated persons and the prioress, apparently one of them, valued both the religious and the artistic values of the decorations.

The responsibility was high, the deadlines were strict and, despite his talent, Nicolae Grigorescu had no experience in painting Biblical scenes and his only sources of inspiration were old religious books. As he urgently needed money to continue his studies in Paris, Grigorescu accepted this difficult task and found an elegant solution: he turned to the great Renaissance masters. For the more complex parts he used the works of Raphael Sanzio, Leonardo da Vinci, Tizian or Rembrandt on which he made slight modifications here and there.

While these frescos demonstrate his ability to imitate the mastery of legendary artists, the portraits of the saints bear the marks of his personal artistic touch. Grigorescu was given a list of religious personalities to be portrayed, but he wasn’t told to observe the traditional iconography. He made use of this freedom and the interesting faces (either nuns or simple peasants) he encountered while working at Agapia (1858 – 1861) became the faces of the Biblical figures. Some specialists say that the portrait of Prophet Daniel is the artist’s self-portrait.

The nuns were so interested in the painter’s methods, that they began taking lessons from him and documents reveal there was an increasing request of drawing materials (watercolors, brushes, easels) coming from the monastery, dating from that time. The workshop still functions, although the nuns have abandoned Grigorescu’s realistic style and developed one closer to the Byzantine art.

Mihail Kogalniceanu, an important Romanian statesman, who had an important role in the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859, visited Agapia, while the artist was still working there and he was so impressed that he promised him to allocate money for his studies in Paris.

Even today, one can admire the first proofs of Nicolae Grigorescu’s immense talent on the church’s vault, dome, pendants and arches, although they had to be restored after a fire severely damaged the building in 1903.

Author: Iulian Fira

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