Florin Șuțu

Ion Șinca withdrew into the History of Art long before his time, dressed in his white shirt, impeccably starched (I never understood how he managed to wear it without creasing it), leaving behind for some of us, on the clean walls of friendship, a few still lifes with bloodied carnations, or a few landscapes with willows heavy with dew. For others, more fortunate, he left longing!

I still believe, at times, that he has gone out to paint a landscape — either at Brebu, on the traces of Luchian, or at Pietriceaua, on the traces of his childhood, or at Cornu, on the traces of Grigorescu — forgetting each time that he took with him neither his field easel nor his box of colours, leaving them silent and faithful, in endless waiting.

For a while, a handful of friends, like a bunch of brushes, will still speak of Ion and his human kindness; then, forever, the History of Art will speak of the painter Ion Șinca and his work. What a beautiful late-autumn sky, just right to cut into passe-partouts for framing memories of an artist with a gentle face, on whose back, one November morning, wings grew.