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Lot Essay
Fernando Amorsolo is widely recognized as the foremost artist of 20th Century painting within the Philippines. Recognised as a National Artist, he studied under lauded painter, Fabian de la Rosa, from whom he acquired the rudiments of Spanish style painting. He also spent time in Madrid in 1919, financed by by art connoisseur and patron, Don Enrique Zobel, where he was exposed to the works of masters such as Velasquez, Goya, El Greco and Sorolla in the Prado museum. In this time, Amorsolo developed a mastery of portraying light and shade within his realist compositions.
Like de la Rosa, Amorsolo was proficient in portraiture and genre scenes, and critically, displayed a rare ability to capture quintessentially Filipino elements with great skill and sophistication: a provincial vista of lush foliage, rippling rivers under rich tropical sunlight, robust workers in the field, and women in traditional native outfits or elaborate Maria Clara gowns. His repeated skilful depictions of the mainstays of Filipino rural life - where he grew up as a child - applied with a realist technique, glorified the beauty of the Filipino rural countryside and the virtue of its workers and inhabitants, which has come to be known as the classic Amorsolo genre scene.
These current lots celebrate both the geography and spirit of life in the countryside: the gentle, golden sunlight that caresses the swaying sheathes of rice in the fields that nourish every dinner table, the quiet strength of the noble beast of burden, the carabao, (water buffalo), farmers hard at work tilling the land, and most iconically, the beautiful Filipino maiden as his muse. It is no surprise to note then how successfully these genre scenes have situated Amorsolo and his work within the national consciousness of his country.
Like de la Rosa, Amorsolo was proficient in portraiture and genre scenes, and critically, displayed a rare ability to capture quintessentially Filipino elements with great skill and sophistication: a provincial vista of lush foliage, rippling rivers under rich tropical sunlight, robust workers in the field, and women in traditional native outfits or elaborate Maria Clara gowns. His repeated skilful depictions of the mainstays of Filipino rural life - where he grew up as a child - applied with a realist technique, glorified the beauty of the Filipino rural countryside and the virtue of its workers and inhabitants, which has come to be known as the classic Amorsolo genre scene.
These current lots celebrate both the geography and spirit of life in the countryside: the gentle, golden sunlight that caresses the swaying sheathes of rice in the fields that nourish every dinner table, the quiet strength of the noble beast of burden, the carabao, (water buffalo), farmers hard at work tilling the land, and most iconically, the beautiful Filipino maiden as his muse. It is no surprise to note then how successfully these genre scenes have situated Amorsolo and his work within the national consciousness of his country.