Petru Comarnescu was a Romanian literary and art critic and translator.

Born in Iași into a family that was related to the metropolitan bishop

Metropolitan bishop

In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

 Veniamin Costache, he studied at the University of Bucharest

University of Bucharest

The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...

 law (degree in 1928), philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 (degree in 1929) before going in 1931 on a two-year scholarship to the United States of America, where he received a PhD in aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

 from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, with a thesis entitled The Nature of Beauty and Its Relation to Goodness (published later in Romanian in 1946 as Kalokagathon).

Together with Mircea Vulcănescu

Mircea Vulcanescu

Mircea Vulcănescu was a prominent Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher and sociologist.-Biography:He studied philosophy and law at the University of Bucharest, graduating in 1925...

 and Alexandru Christian Tell, he started the Criterion association and magazine in 1934.

Before the Second World War he published in several Romanian newspapers, for example Adevărul, Adevărul literar și artistic, Azi, Stânga, Arta, Excelsior, Da și nu, Ulisse and was an editor at Vremea (1931–1936), Rampa (1933–1934), Revista Fundațiilor Regale (from its foundation to 1943). Between 1944 and 1949 he published in Bis, Agora, Timpul, Arcades, Națiunea, Universul.

Between 1949 and 1960 he was not allowed to publish under his own name, due to political reasons. The only exceptions were monographies about painters or sculptors: Octav Băncilă

Octav Bancila

Octav Băncilă was a Romanian realist painter and left-wing activist. He was the brother of Sofia Nădejde, a feminist journalist, and the brother-in-law of Ion Nădejde .-Biography:...

 (1954), Abgar Baltazar (1956), Viaţa şi opera lui Rembrandt van Rijn ("The Life And Work of Rembrandt")(1957), Nicolae Grigorescu (1959), Ştefan Luchian

Stefan Luchian

Ștefan Luchian or Lukian was a Romanian painter, famous for his landscapes and still life works.-Early life:He was born in Ștefănești, a village of Botoșani County, as the son of Major Dumitru Luchian and of Elena Chiriacescu. The Luchian family moved to Bucharest in 1873 and his mother desired...

 (1960).

Later, he would also write about other well-known Romanian visual artists, such as Gheorghe Petraşcu

Gheorghe Petrascu

Gheorghe Petraşcu was a Romanian painter. He won numerous prizes throughout his lifetime and had his paintings exhibited posthumously at the Paris International Exhibition and the Venice Biennale. He was the brother of N. Petraşcu, a literary critic and novelist.-External links:**...

, Theodor Pallady

Theodor Pallady

Theodor Pallady was a Romanian painter.-Biography:Pallady was born in Iaşi, but at a young age, his family moved to Dresden, where he studied engineering at the Dresden University of Technology between 1887 and 1889. At the same time, he studied art with Erwin Oehme, who, recognising his artistic...

, Nicolae Tonitza

Nicolae Tonitza

Nicolae Tonitza was a Romanian painter, engraver, lithographer, journalist and art critic. Drawing inspiration from Post-impressionism and Expressionism, he had a major role in introducing modernist guidelines to local art.-Biography:...

, Francisc Şirato

Francisc Sirato

Francisc Şirato was a Romanian painter, graphic artist, art critic, and designer.-External links:*...

, Ion Ţuculescu

Ion Tuculescu

Ion Ţuculescu was a Romanian expressionist and abstract oil painter, although professionally he worked as a biologist and physician. His artwork became well-known posthumously, when, in the spring of 1965, a major retrospective exhibition revealed him as one of the important post-World War II...

, sometimes even in English The Romanian and the Universal in Brâncuşi

Constantin Brancusi

Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...

's Work (1970).

Trying to avoid being marginalized, he sometimes compromised with the Communist authorities, such as by joining the Partidul Muncitoresc Român (Romanian Workers' Party, later called Partidul Comunist Român- Romanian Communist Party

Romanian Communist Party

The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...

).

Alone or in cooperation with others he translated from English or Russian: D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

, Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...

, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

, Eugene O’Neill, J. B. Priestley

J. B. Priestley

John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...

, Howard Fast

Howard Fast

Howard Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E. V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson.-Early life:Fast was born in New York City...

, Leo Tolstoi, Alexander Herzen

Alexander Herzen

Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism...

, Alexander Gorchakov, Gleb Uspensky

Gleb Uspensky

- Early life :Uspensky was born in the city of Tula, where his father was a government official. He attended the gymnasiums at Tula and Chernihiv, devoting much of his time to the reading of the Russian classics. He studied at the university of St. Petersburg for a short time in 1861, until it was...

, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Sasha Chorny, Ilya Ehrenburg

Ilya Ehrenburg

Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...

).

He was critically acclaimed by his contemporaries, Camil Petrescu

Camil Petrescu

Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...

 calling him "the leader" of their generation, Barbu Brezianu its "herald", Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...

 its "magus".

Comarnescu was married to Gina Manolescu-Strunga, the daughter of a liberal politician, but she had been in love with N. D. Cocea

N. D. Cocea

N. D. Cocea was a Romanian journalist, novelist, critic and left-wing political activist, known as a major but controversial figure in the field of political satire...

, a well-known writer and journalist, from the age of 17 (and by whom she would become pregnant after her marriage)
and as a result they divorced two years later. Also some historians consider him homosexual.

He is buried at the Voroneţ Monastery

Voronet Monastery

Voroneț is a monastery in Romania, located in the town of Gura Humorului, Moldavia. It is one of the famous painted monasteries from southern Bukovina, in Suceava County...

 cemetery.

Memberships

• Member of the Romanian Writers' Association (Societatea Scriitorilor Români)(1945), and later of The Romanian Writers' Union (Uniunea Scriitorilor din R.S.R).
• Member of the Fine Arts Association of Romania (U.A.P.), Critics section. After facing opposition by some of the members he was finally accepted, being supported by Alexandru Rosetti, Tudor Vianu
  Tudor Vianu
  Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
  
  , Ion Frunzetti and Vlaicu Bârna.

Awards and prizes

• Meritul Cultural clasa I (1946)
• Meritul Cultural în rang de Cavaler, clasa a II-a (1947)
• Ordinul Cultural în rang de Cavaler, clasa a II-a (1968)
• The Fine Arts Association of Romania's Criticism Prize (1965)
• Gold Medal of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), on the occasion of the 16th congress held in Rimini
  Rimini
  Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...
  
  , Italy.

Selected works

• Homo Americanus (1933)
• Zgârie-norii New York-ului (1933)
• America văzută de un tânăr de azi (1934)
• Răspântii- forme de viaţă culturală (1936)
• Artă şi imagine (1939)
• Soluţiile artei în cultura modernă (1943)
• Giordano Bruno (1947)
• Chipurile şi priveliştile Americii (1940)
• America. Lume nouă, viaţă nouă (1947)
• Chipurile și priveliștile Europei (posthumoulsy) (1980)
• Pagini de Jurnal, Editura Noul Orfeu, Bucharest, 2003

Books about him

• Monica Ştefan (Grosu), Petru Comarnescu – un neliniştit în secolul său (PhD thesis, published as a monography).

Footnotes