The „Decorative Arts" compartment of the Gallery includes a collection of the works of ten artists from the Republic of Moldova that practice in the sphere of ceramics, upholstery, glass and other techniques of the decorative art.
The pottery and the art of the traditional carpet are known in Moldova from the prehistoric times and antiquity. During centuries they were considered to be from the sphere of popular craftsmanship and had a value and function of applied arts. The autonomy of these arts begins to be outlined in Bessarabia only by the end of the XIX century at the same time with the establishment of the professional art in the country. But up to the middle of the XX century the functional aspect or, at least, the aspect "considered" to be functional continues to play a leading role in the sphere of decorative arts. Thus, if we compare the remarkable works of the ceramist Serghei Ciokolov from Chisinau performed in the 40-es or at the beginning of the 50-es with those from the 60-es we observe a radical change of the conception: the element of decorativeness and expressionist abstraction in the works of the later time directly show the initially applied mission of ceramics.
The situation is the same in the case of comparing the professional art of the older generation who worked and performed before World War II (V.Neceaev, I.Postolachi, etc.) with the artists who appeared in the 60 - 70-es of the XX century. Thus, we observe that Valentina Neceaev's works of ceramics or terracotta are deeply connected with the possibilities of expression of the popular art.
Nicolae Cotofan, a representative of the first decades of the post-war generation, successfully fructifies the synthesis between the language of the old archeological culture from the territory of Moldova (Cucuteni-Tripole etc.) and the folk plastic traditional language.
Mihai Gratii practices with priority the chamotte technique combining organically the image with a "narrative subject" (mostly specific to painting, graphics and sculpture) with the "more abstract" language of the decorative art.
Elena Rotaru, Maria Saca-Racila and Silvia Vranceanu are those gobelin tapestry workers that spread the fame of the Moldavian carpet far beyond the frontiers of our Republic. Maybe, due to their talent, their authentic decorative spirit, their born colour feeling, there the syntagm the "Moldavian tapestry school" was introduced there.
Younger Andrei Negura, a painter and graphic worker, seems to be a less talented gobelin tapestry artist. Having graduated from the Academy of the Decorative Art from Budapest (Hungary) and having returned to Chisinau, he managed to overpass greatly the traditional tapestry language and impart to it the language of the European contemporary art.
The works realized by Rita Chiperi offer us a metaphoric, allegoric concept referring to the world of birds, flowers, terrestrial and marine creatures.
The porcelain, faience or ceramics works performed by Irina Filip, a representative of the younger generation of the plastic artists launched at the middle and the end of the 90-es of the XX century are fine under the aspect of texture and ceramics. The glass works of Virgil Tecuci (the graduate of the Academy of Arts from Tallinn) with the intriguing name: What do you say, Mr.Ingres? seems to be inciting and unwonted.
The technique of the artistically worked out felt and the tapestry finely enough orchestrated chromatically constitutes a permanent predilection in Vlad Straticiuc's creation, one of the youngest representatives of the professional decorative arts from the Republic of Moldova.
Finally, it is worth mentioning the fact that the decorative arts actually pass through a period of considerable changes on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
Social changes through which the republic passes, the changes of the partners' categories and tastes, coming onto the arena of the new generations of artists etc. , causes profound modifications both in the language of these arts and in changing sometimes even their final results and destination.
Serghei Ciokolov
