(b Focsani, Oct 1820; d Bucharest, 24 Oct 1894). Romanian painter. He trained at the Ecclesiastical Painting School, founded in Buzau by his uncle Nicolae Teodorescu (1799-1880), with whom he painted the church of Ratesti Monastery in 1844. With the help of Bishop Chesarie of Buzau he obtained a grant to study in Italy (1845-51). In Rome he was a pupil of Natale Carta (1790-1884), Giovanni Silvagni (1790-1853) and Pietro Gagliardi (1809-90). In 1848 his painting Simon and Levi Rescuing their Sister Dina (Arad, Reg. Mus.) was awarded a prize by the Congregazione Artistica dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. From the same period are figure studies, some landscape sketches, many copies after Old Masters and the composition Renaissance of Romania (c. 1850; Bucharest, Tattarescu Mem. Mus.), an allegory of the transformations that his country was experiencing after the 1848 revolution. During a tour of western Europe he painted in Paris the portrait of the historian Nicolae Balcescu (1851; Bucharest, N. Mus. A.). Tattarescu contributed with Theodor Aman to the founding of the Fine Arts School in Bucharest (1864), and he taught there for many years. He participated in official exhibitions with such paintings as a Peasant Woman from Vlasca (1868; Bacau, Mus. A.) and Agar in the Desert (1870; Bucharest, N. Mus. A.). He also painted landscapes (e.g. D?mbovicioara, c. 1860; Bucharest, N. Mus. A.). Tattarescu dedicated much of his activity, however, to religious art, creating a personal style inspired by Italian academicism and partially following the iconographic prescriptions of Byzantine tradition. Between 1853 and 1892, generally assisted by his pupils, he decorated over 50 churches in Bucharest, Iasi and elsewhere in the country.
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