Alexandru Bellu
- Life and work
Alexandru Bellu (1850-1921) cames from a family of wealthy landowners who came from Macedonia into Romania. He does his studies in Law in Paris and enters the media intellectuals and artists of the period. Alexandru meets Nadar in his studio (35 Boulevard des Capucine) and the Impressionists. But more important it is his friendship with the Romanian painter Nicolae Grigorescu. With this painter will be friends for life.
In Paris and in Italy, Alexander Bellu is initiated in photography by Nadar and near the Alinari brothers from Florence, who lends their lab to make its "tirages". Also in Paris he was friend with the manufacturers of cameras and accessories such as Jules Richard, manufacturer of stereoscopic equipment, easily used with photographic plates by the late nineteenth century.
In Romania, the mansion of Urlaţi (Prahova Departement), his property, which will be for 30 years without issues material to achieve a rural idyllic. Using peasants actually his young peasant or servant, and only two or three men including 'Tata Nita' some Gypsy groups dedicated to paintings he made beautiful young beauties well dressed.
As a photographer behind his machine on stable wooden pedestal, he makes a point of making that we find impeccable album Romania in Pictures published in France in 1919 under the name of Fot. Bellio. In this album are even pictures of young peasants girls by another photographer, named Antoniu. The style is different, cooler, more informed and more distant.
Has often been said that the photographic work of BelLu was built in parallel to that of the painter Nicolae Grigorescu. Grigorescu paints the hard life of Romanian peasants who lived in poverty and injustice, sociallz events that leads to the peasant revolt of 1907. Our photographer, who lost his painter friend that year and his illusions in the change of society he will not touch the photographic plates and handles only collections of paintings, furniture and old coins.
- Photographs
A photograph inspired by the painting by Nicolae Grigorescu.
- Legacy
It is interesting to mention that the images of rural Romania will appear in 1919 in the album made in France, and after his death, by his son in various publishing houses. Postcards of his photographs are rare and sought by collectors today knowing that some of his plates were lost or destroyed. By 1928 some of its heritage is stored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Literature
- Petre Costinescu. Documente in alb-negru. Un fotograf de la sfirsitul veacului trecut. Alexandru Bellu, Editura Sport-Turism, Bucharest, 1987 (in Romanian)
- External links
