Landscape from Saint Tropez 1913

Nicolae Darascu made this watercolour painting, called "Landscape from Saint Tropez," sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Darascu was Romanian, but here he depicts a scene from the south of France, the destination of many artists at this time. The loose brushstrokes and bright colours reflect an interest in French modernism. Darascu had studied in Paris with artists influenced by Impressionism. The scene includes a peasant on a donkey, and a figure standing beside him on a path that recedes through a landscape with a vineyard and buildings. Such paintings reflect the importance of rural life for ideas about national identity. In Romania, as in France, the development of modernism was connected with debates about the nature of national culture. Scholars of modernism, and of the history of nations, have much to teach us about how to interpret such images.