{"id":1309,"date":"2017-02-27T09:52:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T11:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/?page_id=1309"},"modified":"2017-03-11T09:02:09","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T11:02:09","slug":"reviews-and-publications","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/reviews-and-publications\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews and publications"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"14877068_2047036448656634_439125558_n\"

Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz \u201dMAN AND SILENCE IN THE SPACE OF ROBERT BLUJ\u2019S PAINTING\u201d Vilnius 2010<\/p><\/div>\n

\"549676_3954701794676_1846529562_n\"

Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz \u201dMY VILNIUS\u201d Robert Bluj\u2019s painting Vilnius 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

\"29622_3954768996356_1899419347_n\"

Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz \u201dRobert Bluj SPACE AND FIGURE\u201d Vilnius 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

\"14914584_2047036475323298_972994469_n\"

Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz \u201dCITY OF DREAMS\u201d Robert Bluj\u2019s painting\u00a0 Vilnius 2015 ISBN 978-609-95181-7-6<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prof. Andrzej Banachowicz
\nUniversity of Arts in Pozna\u0144
\nReview of the artistic output and doctoral dissertation of Robert Bluj with regard to the proceedings for the conferment of the academic degree of PhD in the field of visual arts, 12 November 2013.
\nRobert Bluj\u2019s attitude to the concept of realism is verified in the way he explores the painting of old masters and contemporary art. He perceives them from a different perspective of time and place, which gives him an opportunity to examine the visual sign. It is close to the ideas embedded in the works of surrealists, based in nature, realism and the subconscious. It is not without reason that Bluj finds common ground with another painter Lucian Freud. \u2018By creating in a masterly way stunning canvas presenting nudes and portraits depicted in a direct manner, Freud aimed his images to be not just mere representations of models, but to become humans themselves.\u2019 Bluj\u2019s figurative painting is of metaphysical nature. Stretched between the realities of the profane world, it assumes a sacred dimension \u2013 a second life\u2026 a life after\u2026 It becomes a premonition of the world in which \u2018people frozen amidst the fast-paced civilization \u2013 quiet and naked tell the truth about ourselves,\u2019 just like the bodies of people from remote times, which are thoroughly embalmed. This deep and multi-layered\u00a0 truth about life is analogous to Bluj\u2019s painting technique, with its multi-layered method of saturating colour in order to create a specific, and his own unique matter of space and form. The painting quality, clarity and solidity of colour contribute to this mystery of image, man, time and space. Yet, it is everyday life that is still the starting point of painting for Bluj. His existence in the context of the above contemplation is a source of the questions about the sense of life. From the perspective of this world of silence, Bluj explains to Freud that an image should \u201camaze, cause anxiety, lure and convince.\u2019 Due to the fact that Bluj approaches painting with an open, reflexive mind, his works indeed possess all the above qualities.
\n12.11.2013 Prof. Andrzej Banachowicz<\/p>\n

Prof. Ryszard Seku\u0142a
\nAcademy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Faculty of Painting
\nOpinion \/ Review of doctoral dissertation of Robert Bluj MA, prepared in accordance with the Act on the Academic Degrees and Academic Title, as well as the Art Degrees and Title with regard to doctoral proceedings implemented by the Faculty of Painting Council, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw, 15 September 2011.
\n\u201c\u2026 Bluj\u2019s paintings, despite anatomic correctness, are neither boring nor academic. They include some kind of mystery. There is also tension and almost surreal atmosphere to them. The artistic expression of the presented works is highly satisfactory. The artist\u2019s craftsmanship and method of work can be summarized with a quotation from Georgio Vasari\u2019s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects: \u201cFor all artists who want to order their compositions and ideas in the proper way it is inevitable to put it on paper first, in order to see if everything fits. In order to make a good study of a nude figure and give it a final shape, it is necessary to sketch it on paper.\u2019 Prof. P. Trzeciak in volume 5 of his World Art, in the part devoted to Dutch painting, said about R.Van der Weyden: \u201cThe painter moves away from the definitive, realistic representation towards generalization and a degree of idealization. In the images the women are as if absent, focused on their inner life, engrossed in meditation. By saturating their faces with light, the artist almost dematerializes his subjects against the dark background.\u201d I think that the above quotations could be used to perfectly describe Bluj\u2019s methods of work and his artistic output.
\nNovember 2013 Prof. Ryszard Seku\u0142a<\/p>\n

Robert Bluj\u2019s dream about a figure
\n\u201cIn Robert Bluj\u2019s painting there are two important areas. The first one is that of human figure \u2013 which is represented most often by full-figure female and male nudes and portraits \u2013 including lay people and important figures from the Roman-Catholic Church. The second subject, which gets a separate and special treatment from the artist is landscape \u2013 especially of Vilnius. The nude, as the painting subject, is definitely dominant in Bluj\u2019s artistic work. Thus on the canvas of the Vilnius artist one can find full-figure female and male nudes frozen in static poses. They seem to be highly realistic wax figures sculpted with great subtlety, not without individual features and full of emanating vitality and life. What is striking in those commonly large-size canvas is the classic beauty and monumental form. However, the figures of people are neither idealized nor over-conceived. His models are often the inhabitants of Vilnius: actresses, literary and artistic people, and the painter\u2019s wife.\u201d
\n\u201cFemale and male nudes from under Bluj\u2019s brush are devoid of any provocative climate of erotic or homoerotic paintings. However, it often occurs that unconventional poses on flat surfaces, highly contrastive to human body, strengthen the perception of human figure, which is often posed in an unconventional way \u2013 motionless as if from a camera\u2019s snapshot and enclosed in the space directed by the artists. The figure is dominant in the picture.\u201d
\n\u201cWithout doubt, in the figurative and simultaneously minimalist painting of the artist from Vilnius one can discern numerous reminiscences and inspirations derived from both the experience of contemporary trends in European painting, as well as the rich heritage of the great masters from the renaissance, especially Michelangelo, and, moving further, from the artistic output and manner of Caravaggio, De La Tour, Balthus and Lucian Freud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Academic masters
\n\u201cRobert Bluj started his academic education in Marian Czapla\u2019s studio. Next, he gained practical experience and training in the studios of Rajmund Ziemski, Wies\u0142aw Szamborski, Edward Tarkowski. Thanks to those teachers, the young artist was able to master the nuances of colour temperature and learn the skill of building the image with colour. The form of Bluj\u2019s paintings in comparison to the pre-academic period of his career became deeper, clearer, cleaner and more sublime. In the following years, the artist was systematically rejecting unimportant decorativeness and overload of his canvas and cardboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Female model and male model
\nThe poses of human figure used by Bluj, both female and male, are close to the compositions of great European renaissance masters, well known in the history of art. The Polish artist combines in them linearity, delicacy and evanescence of slender nudes, both female and male, by the German master of renaissance painting Lucas Cranach together with the sensual, lively and erotic sculpture-like nudes by Michelangelo, rooted in the ancient Greece and Rome. Bluj focuses his attention on spatial sculpting of the model of human body, often (though not always) of perfect proportions. Still, it is worth emphasizing that female and male nudes by Bluj are closer to the ideal of beauty of slender bodily proportions painted by Cranach, rather than almost baroque, sculpture-like figures created by Michelangelo.<\/p>\n

Vilnius \u2013 the city of my dreams
\nIn Bluj\u2019s paintings Vilnius is primarily presented as mysterious \u2013 but this is due to a different artistic vision, than in the case of other artists. Fragments of Vilnius architecture show the city without people. The urban space is almost sterile, idealized \u2013 to the point of being non-realistic. The silence which pervades in those scenes becomes almost unbearable and disturbing \u2013 it demands an answer to the question \u2013 where is man? Perhaps the man can be found in the figurative paintings by Bluj, where, even though there exists a certain space, it is not specifically connected with Vilnius. This space is symbolic, open, implicit, multi-faceted and disturbing. However, the \u201cdream about Vilnius\u201d includes scenes which are much \u201cwarmer\u201d, realistic, close in their character and climate to the \u201cintimate\u201d landscapes of Stanis\u0142awski. In works such as \u201cMotif with flowers\u201d of 2004, \u201cMy father\u2019s house\u201d of 2003, \u201cLittle Jerusalem. Winter motif with the Church of the Discovery of the Holy Cross\u201d of 2014 or the representations of the Gate of Dawn, entitled \u201cSpring motif with the Gate of Dawn\u201d of 2015 \u2013 we can find Bluj\u2019s Vilnius to be not from his dreams, but from everyday reality. This Vilnius is tangible and concrete \u2013 with a climate steeped in history and beauty of an architectural detail, but also with the simplicity of a modest, wooden, summer house located near Vilnius and built by the artist\u2019s father.
\nQuoted\u00a0 after: Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, Bluj. Przestrze\u0144 i figura [Bluj. Space and figure], Vilnius 2012, pp. 94, il. 80, ISBN 978-609-95181-7-6.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    Prof. Andrzej Banachowicz University of Arts in Pozna\u0144 Review of the artistic output and doctoral dissertation of Robert Bluj with regard to the proceedings for the conferment of the academic degree of PhD in the field of visual arts, 12…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1309"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1309\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluj.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}