Moldova went through an extensive process of modernization and integration into European civilization in the first half of the 19th century. From a cultural point of view and, in particular, from the point of view of painting this meant using Western artistic styles and aligning and synchronizing with Western Europe. In the 19th century, Romanian painting took the decisive step of breaking away from what had been house and icon painting. So, it is only natural that the first modern artists had been first house or icon painters. The so-called easel painting in oil appeared in Moldova in the late 18th century. Widespread in Western Europe since the 15th-16th centuries and with a goal different from that of traditional religious painting, the easel painting gave rise to a more secular art and to a more attentive observation of reality. Portrait painting was the most popular genre of secular art.