CONSTANTIN SEVERIN

ARCHETYPAL EXPRESSIONISM

Archetypal Expressionism lies between the two major paradigms of contemporary art, the figurative and the abstract. It represents the spiritual quest for common cultural roots beyond the tragic accidents of history. It is a fascinating approach to rediscovering that Tahiti of our collective memory through the shapes and the exotic figures of our inner lives. It is art suspended between the real and the imaginary, and it needs rigor and mystery, arithmetic and lyricism, simplicity and paradox.

My work concept as a visual artist, archetypal expressionism, though could be considered a new one, it describes an immemorial artistic reality. Archetypal expressionism is indeed a new concept and yet it echoes an ancient tradition in making art, also specific to cultures of a remote past.
Strong colors, deformities and a special sensitivity to imagine the world are not exclusively the prerogatives of modern expressionists.

The archetype is a universal symbol, just as untranslatable as music. The archetypal fields are real, a mystery of the universe. The archetypal cosmos is atemporal; it only contains a virtual germ of time. A well-known specialist in Mircea Eliade's work, Prof. dr. Sabina Finaru, asserts
that the famous Romanian historian of religions and writer imagined the sacred archetype as an archetype of origin but also as a transcendental "chronotope," manifesting a bi-unitary, mobile, self-generative and reversible character. The Eliadian archetype is repeatable in the absolute, and it re-innovates ontological meaning.

The best Romanian artists of all times, Constantin Brancusi, George Apostu, Ion Tuculescu, Paul Neagu and Ovidiu Maitec belong to archetypal expressionism, in my opinion. I intend with my own concept to tell to the art community that from remote times we have THE THIRD PARADIGM(better to say, the first!) , the archetypal art, because most of the contemporary art experts in the world assert there are only two major paradigms, the figurative and the abstract. The archetypes have a secret power, because they have been used during thousands of years by a large amount of populations and they are now a part of our hidden inner life.That's why they have a special emotional impact on every human being.

Every major work of art begins with an archetype and ends in music, the most ineffable manifestation of time.

Constantin Severin, Romania