From the collection of:
Berea College || VAM Home

Edinburgh, Scotland is the setting for this street scene by Dimitrie Berea. The energy of the brushstrokes and the richness of texture and color imbue the painting with a liveliness common to latter-day Impressionism. Landscapes dominate Berea’s early work, and Edinburgh exemplifies his deliberate choice to paint the beautiful rather than the abstract or ugly.

Appropriately enough, Berea College possesses the largest number of images by Berea in the world and is the repository of his papers and records—though there was no direct connection between the artist and the Madison County, Kentucky, school except the coincidence of name. The city and college were named, long before Dimitrie was born, for a New Testament town.

About the Artist

Born to an upper-middle-class family in Bacau, Romania, Dimitrie Berea became an artist who would later be known as painter to the aristocratic and royal families of Europe and the art world of France and America. His formal education began at the Academy of Architecture in Bucharest, where he studied for five years. While enrolled there, he joined a group of progressive artists in a non-conformist school known as ILEANA.

In 1937, Berea enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Rome, where he eventually earned diplomas in painting, decoration, sculpture, scene painting, and engraving. In 1939 he spent time in Paris and met the painters Bonnard, Vuillard, and Matisse. Later he would note his particular sympathy with Bonnard’s painting style, paint application, and color choices.

Through the years, Berea exhibited his art and lectured across Europe, from Great Britain to Romania, as well as in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Landscapes dominated his early work, but the output of his productive years in America consists largely of portraits—including many commissioned portraits of Hollywood stars.

Classroom Ideas

Discussion: Artists are often influenced by the work of artistic predecessors and contemporaries. Berea was personally acquainted with Bonnard, a latter-day Impressionist, and Matisse, a Fauvist artist. Find examples of their work online. Compare landscapes by Bonnard and Matisse with Edinburgh. Based on your analysis of the three artists, what effect do you think Bonnard and Matisse had on Berea’s own art? Provide detailed examples to support your opinion.

Compare this landscape to another Impressionist work, Claude Monet’s The Church at Varengeville, Grey Weather, painted some 70 years earlier, from the Speed Art Museum gallery.

Activity: Take your art supplies outdoors for an afternoon. Using chalk or oil pastels, heavy-gauge paper, and an easel (a masonite board and large paper clips will work as a substitute), draw an outdoor scene or landscape. Begin with several quick sketches to loosen up. Work quickly to keep your marks fresh.

Links

Berea College’s Dimitrie Berea Gallery includes a biography, a timeline, and other images of Berea’s work.
[www.berea.edu/art/gallery/dimitrieberea/]

Learn about Henri Matisse and see images of his work at the WebMuseum, Paris.
[www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/matisse/]

Read an article about Pierre Bonnard and see images of his work in the back pages of Smithsonian magazine.
[www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/jul98/bonnard.html]