Nicolae Grigorescu /

Macovei's text and the subject of this book are both odd, although for different reasons. The text makes the absurd claim that "Grigorescu succeeded in placing Romanian art among the great movement of the history of painting." On the other hand, Macovei (Univ. of Bucharest) has nothing at all to say about features of the artist's work that cry out for interpretation, such as his conversion, if that is the right word, from religious to secular art, and his idiosyncratic take on Impressionism. These features of Grigorescu require more explanation than they receive. One wonders what happened to a pious artist, trained in a European backwater, who arrived at Paris in 1861 as a mature religious artist, met the likes of Millet and Courbet, and then devoted himself to secular painting. One also wonders what Impressionist artists and Impressionist works he knew, because as early as the 1870s his loose brush strokes anticipate Expressionism. General readers. J. M. Curtis; emeritus, University of Missouri--Columbia