Constantin Artachino (1870-1954) – Flori

Constantin Artachino (b. November 7, 1870, Giurgiu - d. February 9, 1954, Bucharest) was a Romanian painter, one of the founding members of the Artistic Youth Society.

After graduating from primary school, his parents enrolled him in the School of Commerce, where the teachers discovered his aptitude for drawing. With the material support of an uncle, he began to attend, at the same time as the School of Commerce, the school of Belle Arte under the guidance of painters. Theodor Aman and George Demetrescu Mirea.

After receiving a 4-year scholarship to study abroad from the banker Zerleti, he went to Paris where he enrolled at the Julien Academy and studied with Henri Lucien Doucet, Cormot, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Brantôt working at Fontainebleau and Barbizon. During his studies he visited the cities of Venice and Milan, and later London. Left without a scholarship, he had to return to Romania, where he exhibited, successfully, and managed to sell many works. With the money he earned, he went on a trip to Constantinople.

On May 2, 1896, on the initiative of Stefan Luchian, the "Exhibition of Independent Artists" was opened in Bucharest, whose manifesto was signed by Stefan Luchian, with a group of friends (Constantin Artachino, Al. Bogdan-Pitești and Nicolae Vermont). At the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1896, young artists exhibited, including Constantin Artachino, who had been rejected at the Official Salon, which opened at the same time.

Together with other painters of the time, including Nicolae Vermont and Ștefan Luchian, Artachino organized in July 1897 a society called the Society for the Development of the Arts in Romania - "Ileana".

He was a founding member of the Artistic Youth Society founded on December 3, 1901 by a group of painters, including Stefan Luchian, Nicolae Vermont, Arthur Verona, Frederic Storck, Ștefan Popescu and Gheorghe Petraşcu. The group campaigned for a realistic art, for subjects taken from the lives of peasants, ordinary people.

After an exam, he held the position of professor at the drawing department, by nature and antique, at the School of Fine Arts in Iași. After 1920, he was transferred to the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, where he taught until 1935, when he was retired due to old age. He continued to paint and exhibit.

In 1951, in order to be accepted to the annual exhibition at the Dalles Hall, in the age of socialist realism, the old Artachino had to paint a picture depicting a worker reading the newspaper "Scânteia".

In 1954, on February 9, he died suddenly, at the age of 84.

He approached all the styles of the end of the 19th century, registering influences from academism, impressionism, post-impressionism or symbolism, currents with which he came into contact during his studies or later, in the years of artistic maturity.