Iulian Copăcel’s works illustrate the need to free form from its constraints by moving from figurative to abstract construction. What surprises is the achievement of a balance at the level of the composition precisely through a certain dynamic of the asymmetries of the repeated plastic language elements. The tendency to decompose the form is immediately compensated by a re-composition of it under the sign of organicity. Where the elements begin to lose their figurative nature through their overlaps, re-configurations, the polyvalence of the vibrated lines intervenes. Thus, the composition is dynamic, the harmonious alternation of forms conferring a special expressiveness to the whole and highlighting the intense pleasure of drawing. In fact, this harmony is even witnessed plastically through symbols from the field of music: the musical instruments, the portative with the musical notation, the brush and the palette, but counterbalanced by the suggestions of the technical instruments.
There is a constant need to organize the space, to order the forms that tend to break out of the figurative pattern: the lampposts represented in series, the trees lined up, the books placed on the asymmetrical shelves, the lines/forms tending towards parallelism in the horizontal plane (suggestions of the limit /barrier) or vertically (suggestions of ladder/ascent). However, the imbalance produced by the “liberation” of the forms does not destroy the coherence of the structures: on the one hand, the suspended arches, detached windows, elongated doors create tension in the image, betraying the intention of abstraction, and on the other hand, all these are reintegrated into a coherent whole, they are re-placed.
The light of the lampposts/lamps (elements that can still be intuited) is not diffused, not scattered, but fills clearly defined triangular surfaces, as if it does not want to lose its essence. However, the composition does not stand under the sign of darkness, but rather under that of twilight or clearness. On the contrary, it is black that breaks down under the pressure of light, loses its consistency; black fills/dominates especially the access ways of the buildings, developing the meaning of an inaccessible, mysterious space, hidden from view. Some elongated doors, going beyond the frame of the building, invite the viewer to enter the unknown.
The wavy lines, thin or thickened, function, in certain contexts, as suggestions of the aquatic, axes of the image in a complementary relationship with terrestrial elements: flow means both cyclicity, ephemerality and vitality (see the five aspects of the temporal horizon in Blaga’s conception : pool-time, waterfall-time, river-time, circular-time and spiral-time). In addition, it can be observed that blue becomes the color of the roofs (domes) and windows, creating the impression of a reflection of the cosmic plane on the telluric one: significant in this sense is even the blue dome of the church, a sign of the sacralization of the telluric.
Moreover, the irreversible passage of time is captured by the symbol of the clock/clock, repeated under various representations (from the classic image of the clock with tongues to that of the circle with a point or that of the simple circle) or by that of the hourglass.
The fact that the human being has a limited condition is also emphasised by the suggestions of circular arcs, which develop multiple connotations: the limit of the horizon (in the mirror), for the being follows his destiny in a cultural horizon (see the symbol of the book touched by the circular arc), trying to decipher the mysteries of the universe; the suggestion of the rainbow or the portal that ensures the transition from the figurative to the abstract.
