The themes of works of Bessarabian painters between 1888-1917

The themes and subjects approached by the plastic artists, in a certain period of time, in a certain geographical space, including the names of the works, indirectly reflect the existing tendencies in the respective epoch. These moments are indisputable, regardless of the evolutions of art in various cultural environments, in the centers of international art or on its peripheries, objectively reflecting the styles and priorities of the time. Thus, realism operates with certain terms that define the options of the current, different from those of impressionism, expressionism, etc. The Bessarabian visual arts are no exception in this case. More refractory and more specific, the evolution of local culture was due to the historical situation of the land, ruled by the Tsarist Empire for a century, with the late emergence of professional art and the direct influences of Russian and Ukrainian itinerants’ realism characterized by special themes. But these trends were also marked by the emergence of non-conformist representatives of Russian art, such as Vladimir Falileev, Alexander Shevchenko, Nathan Altman, participants in Bessarabian salons in the early twentieth century. More eloquently, these renewals of local art occur after the internship of Eugenia Maleshevsci in Europe, the sporadic return to the homeland of Pavel Shilingovschi, but also the appearance in Bessarabia of a true representative of the new currents, such as Auguste Baillayre.