Stan Ioan Pătraș (1908–1977) was a

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

n wood sculptor, the creator of the tombstones in the Merry Cemetery in

Săpânța Săpânța (; , Hungarian pronunciation: ; ; or ''Spinka''; Rusyn: ''Сопунка'', Rusyn Latin: ''Sopunka'';) is a commune of 3,365 inhabitants situated in Maramureș County, Romania, northwest of Sighetu Marmației at the northern footh ...

Maramureș County Maramureș County () is a county (județ) in Romania, in the Maramureș region. The county seat is Baia Mare. Name In Hungarian language, Hungarian it is known as ''Máramaros megye'', in Ukrainian language, Ukrainian as Мараморо́щ ...

. His creations fit harmoniously within the local popular arts and in the old Romanian tradition.

Biography

Stan Ioan Pătraș was born in 1908 in

commune,

(then in

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

) in a family that had a long tradition in wood sculpting. Even from his youth he was attracted to sculpture, painting and poetry and at the age of 14 he started to sculpt oak crosses. In 1935, Pătraș, then an anonymous sculptor, started to carve onto the tombstones small poems written in the first person: ironic poems, with grammatical errors very close to the archaic language the locals spoke. At the beginning he carved only 10 tombstones a year using oak as the base wood. By 1936 he had already perfected his style: the tombstones became narrower, he started to paint

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

figures on them using bright colours obtained from natural

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

s. The main colour he used was blue, a special blue named by experts Săpânța blue. The other colours were also symbolic in their unique way:

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

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life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

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fertility Fertility in colloquial terms refers the ability to have offspring. In demographic contexts, fertility refers to the actual production of offspring, rather than the physical capability to reproduce, which is termed fecundity. The fertility rate ...

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

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passion Passion, the Passion or the Passions may refer to: Emotion * Passion (emotion), a very strong feeling about a person or thing * Passions (philosophy), emotional states as used in philosophical discussions * Stoic passions, various forms of emotio ...

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

–

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

. Until 1977, Pătraș made almost 700 tombstones in the two graveyards in

, later known as the Merry Cemetery. He was a versatile folk craftsman, making a series of artistically crafted objects: coat hangers, corner pieces, chairs, cabinets, bowls, spoons, and monumental works, such as crosses and gates. He also decorated his own home with brightly colored wooden sculptures. He died in 1977, leaving his house to a disciple, , who chose to live in his master's house, and later turned it into a workshop and a museum.

References

1908 births 1977 deaths People from Maramureș County Romanian modern sculptors 20th-century Romanian sculptors {{Romania-sculptor-stub