.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
"Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907, three years before Manansala was born. Cubism did not curtail the dimension of Manansala's vision. He enriched the style and gave it a new context. Above all, he gave it a new sense of place."
Rodolfo Paras-Perez, Manansala, Manila, 1980, p. 75
The Bird Seller (Lot 2135) by master modernist Vicente Manansala is an iconic work, contributing significantly towards the visual development of cubism in Asia. Painted in 1976, when Manansala had gained full mastery over his definitive style of "Translucent Cubism", it holds a place amongst some of the finest compositions of Manansala's career along with the other works of its ilk - localised market scenes of duck eggs "balut" vendors, fruit and vegetable sellers, and "sabungeros".
Manansala was twelve years old when Fernando Amorsolo, the acknowledged leading painter of the Spanish school, first developed his idyllic pastoral landscapes bathed in effervescent tropical light. As a young art student, Manansala too adopted the vocabulary of genre scenes, painting rice fields and beautiful peasant girls. However this soon changed as he became fascinated with how geometric shapes could cohere to develop a recognisable image, maintaining more expressionistic integrity than rendered by a purely realistic technique. In 1950, he was awarded a bursary by the French legation and spent a period at Fernand L?ger's atelier, learning from the master himself. Eventually, after developing the artistic confidence which his later works bear witness to, he abandoned their influences and devoted himself to developing his own cubist methodologies which permitted the flexibility and freedom to articulate a truly Filipino context. In his own words, Manansala affirmed: "When I say I am a cubist, I mean that I have taken Cubism's basic elements, reorganized them and added my own, creating my own style."
Manansala also spent a period studying Chinese brush painting during the late 1950s, learning from a Chinese painter based in Manila and visiting Hong Kong artists. Through the effort of painting shrimps floating delicately weightlessly in a pool, swaying bamboos, and also inscribing calligraphy, Manansala discovered the utility of using a few essential lines to capture depth and form. This gave his works from the 1960s onwards a lightness, radiance and the "translucency" for which he was most acclaimed. Eventually Manansala was to rise to the fore as the Philippines' most significant modern painter, focusing on subjects close to home and heart.
The Bird Seller reflects all these unique qualities and influences, depicting a local vendor of tropical birds crouched under the heavy burden of his pole lying across his shoulders. Around him sway a myriad of geometric bird cages, creating layers of textural steppes across the pictorial surface. The birds within remind viewers of Manansala's famous paintings of birds poised in flight: displaying identical body colours, flowing forms and rounded orbs for eyes, whose spherical shapes juxtapose with the gradient block structure of the overall composition. As the birds intersperse and overlap in the cages, their colours shift to produce varying faceted planes. Even within the skin tones of the bird seller, and in the hues of his hat, we observe Manansala's judicious employment of subtly different shades to create transparent textures and contours despite the austere lines of his method. Throughout the entire work, the cubist elements succeed in being simultaneously rigorous yet dynamic. Within this inspiring picture, as viewers we sense the weight of the cages, the toils of the seller, and the vibrant noise, lights and colours of Manansala's beloved marketplace.
Rodolfo Paras-Perez, Manansala, Manila, 1980, p. 75
The Bird Seller (Lot 2135) by master modernist Vicente Manansala is an iconic work, contributing significantly towards the visual development of cubism in Asia. Painted in 1976, when Manansala had gained full mastery over his definitive style of "Translucent Cubism", it holds a place amongst some of the finest compositions of Manansala's career along with the other works of its ilk - localised market scenes of duck eggs "balut" vendors, fruit and vegetable sellers, and "sabungeros".
Manansala was twelve years old when Fernando Amorsolo, the acknowledged leading painter of the Spanish school, first developed his idyllic pastoral landscapes bathed in effervescent tropical light. As a young art student, Manansala too adopted the vocabulary of genre scenes, painting rice fields and beautiful peasant girls. However this soon changed as he became fascinated with how geometric shapes could cohere to develop a recognisable image, maintaining more expressionistic integrity than rendered by a purely realistic technique. In 1950, he was awarded a bursary by the French legation and spent a period at Fernand L?ger's atelier, learning from the master himself. Eventually, after developing the artistic confidence which his later works bear witness to, he abandoned their influences and devoted himself to developing his own cubist methodologies which permitted the flexibility and freedom to articulate a truly Filipino context. In his own words, Manansala affirmed: "When I say I am a cubist, I mean that I have taken Cubism's basic elements, reorganized them and added my own, creating my own style."
Manansala also spent a period studying Chinese brush painting during the late 1950s, learning from a Chinese painter based in Manila and visiting Hong Kong artists. Through the effort of painting shrimps floating delicately weightlessly in a pool, swaying bamboos, and also inscribing calligraphy, Manansala discovered the utility of using a few essential lines to capture depth and form. This gave his works from the 1960s onwards a lightness, radiance and the "translucency" for which he was most acclaimed. Eventually Manansala was to rise to the fore as the Philippines' most significant modern painter, focusing on subjects close to home and heart.
The Bird Seller reflects all these unique qualities and influences, depicting a local vendor of tropical birds crouched under the heavy burden of his pole lying across his shoulders. Around him sway a myriad of geometric bird cages, creating layers of textural steppes across the pictorial surface. The birds within remind viewers of Manansala's famous paintings of birds poised in flight: displaying identical body colours, flowing forms and rounded orbs for eyes, whose spherical shapes juxtapose with the gradient block structure of the overall composition. As the birds intersperse and overlap in the cages, their colours shift to produce varying faceted planes. Even within the skin tones of the bird seller, and in the hues of his hat, we observe Manansala's judicious employment of subtly different shades to create transparent textures and contours despite the austere lines of his method. Throughout the entire work, the cubist elements succeed in being simultaneously rigorous yet dynamic. Within this inspiring picture, as viewers we sense the weight of the cages, the toils of the seller, and the vibrant noise, lights and colours of Manansala's beloved marketplace.