Amorsolo’s poetics of light
By all indications, the art world should have already turned away from the figurations of Fernando Amorsolo. His classical realism was, as early as the 1930s, already being challenged by the modernists. He was the father figure to slay. Not once pandering to the fashion of the times, he remained true to his style and vision until his death: a deft balancing act of the visual elements, a compositional unity between ground and figure. His every painting was a thing of beauty—a counterpoint, even a chastisement, to the rabid, furious forms of the expressionists and the abstractionists, who would eventually dominate the art scene. While his followers, who comprised the so-called Amorsolo school, fell by the wayside, the master’s reputation did not suffer a bruising one bit.
Well into the third decade of the 21st century, Amorsolo—the man and his works—still continues to be relevant. People still find it worthwhile to look at his idyllic works, tapping #amorsolo on cellphone keyboards and posting their favorite paintings by the first National Artist on their social media accounts. An Amorsolo still takes pride of place and remains as the ultimate conversation piece in a house that is fortunate enough to have one. In international auctions, his lots still generate the highest bids for works by a 20th century Filipino master; no local auction, in its quarterly run, will be complete without at least one of his pieces.
Where does Amorsolo’s sustaining power come from? In a world aswarm with competing images from billboards, magazines, cinemas, high-definition television sets, and computer screens, not to mention from other works of art displayed in galleries and museums now dotting the metropolis, why would anyone still find time to look at an Amorsolo scenery? What charm does a rice field, a rolling hill, or a laughing brook have for someone who resides in the urban jungle bristling with high-rise buildings? Why are the figurations of Amorsolo so enduring?
Light has been one of the constant features that anyone pondering Amorsolo’s work returns to, and perhaps it’s a good place to start. Almost a century after he first painted his iconic landscapes—those dappled, bucolic worlds where men and women gather together in congenial spirit, celebrating the countryside that always proffers ripe, exultant gifts—we still keep coming back to the his generous gift of light. His light was—is—legendary, not merely illuminating the scene but defining and, in some works, sculpting the space. What registers to us is not merely a snapshot, but pockets of dimensionality, a deepening realm where our eyes are drawn and stretched into the shadowy depths of the background.
Take for instance the embarrassment of Amorsolos on offer at León Gallery’s The Magnificent September Auction, taking place Saturday, Sept. 14 at its Eurovilla 1 headquarters in Makati City. (A preview of the 146 lots is currently available both online and onsite.) Two works from the Edward Joseph Nell collection, Under the Mango Tree and Lady with Basket, particularly demonstrate the master’s handling of his fabled illumination: the careful sculpting of flesh by light, in which the women holding baskets become the central characters of the compositions, their faces deftly balancing a triangle of soft shadow, their butterfly sleeves—diaphanous—picking up the noonday day sun which ignites the bounties on their perfectly circular bilao. While Amorsolo would revisit the themes of the mentioned works in succeeding paintings, these two stand out for their near-pristine condition, evincing the meticulous attention with which the collectors and his heirs preserved them.
In light of the technological wonders we have today (some of which we carry conveniently in our pockets), we appreciate all the more the kind of pictorial vividness and intensity with which Amorsolo inflected his paintings, one brushstroke at a time. For his works were created and displayed when photography was a still clunky technology, when movies were silent, and when television was still a distant invention. What a delight it would have been to own an Amorsolo during those times. In a house whose walls were made of wood panels, his painting would invariably provide a shot of color, a flurry of activity. His painting would be yesterday’s version of a veritable high-definition screen.
The light, of course, was not a product of mere trickery, but was based on a firm knowledge on and deployment of color. Amorsolo, if anything, was a master colorist, and his choice of palette was always bright and lyrical. The Italians have a term for it: colori cangianti. Color that sings. This usually becomes evident when people start looking past the painting’s verisimilitude and onto passages of paint rendered on canvas.
For it is a disservice to look at an Amorsolo painting as a mere transcription of reality, as some kind of postcard from the past, a throwback. He was not simply translating the world as he saw it but heightening and refining its forms to construct his visual philosophy on what it meant to be a Filipino during the fraught period of the American occupation. He defined a vision of a national identity not for what it was, but what it might be. It was picturesque and idealizing: a belief on the rationality of classicism, a persistence of beauty, a perfect alignment of man and nature.