Portrait of a Girl 1974

Corneliu Baba's 'Portrait of a Girl' is a heavily worked painting, full of earthy browns and creams. I imagine he was circling around this image, adding layer upon layer until it came into being. I sympathize with Baba, imagining him in the studio, trying to catch the light on the girl's face, the fold of the fabric. The paint is laid on thick, like frosting, creating real texture. The brushstrokes around her eyes, in particular, suggest a searching, probing, kind of looking. It’s like he’s feeling his way through the painting, each stroke a question. Maybe Baba saw something of himself in this girl, a shared sense of introspection. It reminds me a little of Rembrandt, that same attention to the human, maybe even flawed, face. That's what painters do, we borrow, steal, and pay homage all the time. We are all in conversation with each other across time.