Like his friend, novelist Duiliu Zamfirescu, he parted with the group and, together with Dimitrie C. Ollănescu-Ascanio, established a new circle around the magazine Literatură și Artă Română ("Romanian Literature and Art").

Born in Tecuci as the son of Costache Petrovici-Rusciucliu and Elena Bița, he had his surname changed to Petrașin—according to literary historian George Călinescu, this was on the initiative of Gheorghe and Nicolae's cousin.

[3][5] At the time, Petrașcu published a series of studies on Romanian writers, including the Romantic Dimitrie Bolintineanu and the Junimist figures Eminescu and Vasile Alecsandri (both of whom successively affiliated with Romanticism and Junimea).

[3][6] Some of his other essays were noted for their polemic tone: among these was his earliest, a piece on short story writer Barbu Ștefănescu-Delavrancea, and an 1888 text on Constantin Mille and his only novel, Dinu Millian.

[6] The essay was also at the center of a polemic with the anti-Junimist figure and Marxist philosopher Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, on topics surrounding the pessimistic nature evident in some of Eminescu's best-known poems.

[3] The speaker, who stated that "the spirit of imitation" was normal and "the strongest [one] on which the world's progress rests", nonetheless took distance from Dobrogeanu-Gherea and the socialist press in arguing against the Naturalist perception of society as a decaying body.

[15] The journal soon enlisted contributions from other adversaries of Junimea, including Zamfirescu, Dimitrie Anghel, Ștefan Octavian Iosif, George Coșbuc, Alexandru Vlahuță, G. Dem.

[3] Petrașcu himself hailed the French theorist Hippolyte Taine for the emphasis he placed on race, milieu, and moment, arguing that its "organic" character could serve to renew art and literature in Romania.

Negulescu pointed out that, in accusing Junimea of having failed to support young writers, Petrașcu had overlooked the encouragements Maiorescu had given to Eminescu, Coșbuc, and Samson Bodnărescu; he also argued that the society had not awarded any form of special treatment to its own affiliates.

[3] Additionally, Negulescu contradicted Petrașcu's historicist views on national specificity, assessing that the idea was not confirmed by science, and that it was itself a new and foreign concept[3][19] (stating that Taine was "hard to take into consideration as an authority on the matter").

[3] Demetriescu and N. Petrașcu were hosts to an intellectual circle which also included the architect Ion Mincu, the physician Constantin Istrati, the writer Barbu Ștefănescu-Delavrancea, and the physicist Ștefan Hepites.

[3] This theme is a characteristic trait in Marin Gelea, where the eponymous hero, an architect, faces the moods of his public and ultimately fails to adjust to local culture.

George Călinescu proposed that the protagonist was actually Petrașcu's good friend Mincu, and noted that the name used in the book may have been based on that of a real-life participant in the 1907 Peasants' Revolt.

[2] The critic also argued that the novel had been heavily influenced by Zamfirescu, and noted that the two authors shared "a moralizing and patriotic attitude", a sympathy for the landowners and peasants, and a distaste for the middle class and people of foreign origin ("the superposed stratum", depicted as corrupting).

[27] Gelea, who completes his studies abroad, returns to Romania "imbued with all talents and all virtues, having his will set on raising the artistic level of his country", and ready to react against all things he perceives as frivolous.

[2] George Călinescu was highly critical of the novel and of Petrașcu's techniques, accusing the writer of lacking in "creative force", and his character of "analytical plainness" which resulted in "interminable speeches".

[27] Călinescu notably proposed that the author had failed to profit from the more interesting circumstances of his novel, and, instead of depicting "the universal snobbery" of his lifetime, resorted to an "excessively idealist criticism".

One showed the character commenting on an "ideal" poem, "filled with the promises of a serene and mighty future [...], alive and powerful, and branding with a hot iron the weaknesses and miseries of this day and of life in these times.