Fernando Amorsolo (1892-1972)
Novaliches / Landscape
signed and dated 1925 (lower right)
oil on wood
9” x 12” (23 cm x 30 cm)
Starting bid: P 500,000
Literature:
1030 R. HIDALGO Volume 2: LEGACY IN ART Edited by Antonio S. Araneta, MARA Inc., Metro Manila, 1986, p. 72 (illustrated)
Roces, Alfredo R., AMORSOLO, Filipinas Foundation Inc., Manila, 1975, p. 96 (illustrated)
From the J. Antonio Araneta Collection.
Leon Gallery wishes to thank Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo for confirming the authenticity of this lot
The distant horizon of this landscape with grey-blue and ochre skies contain images which emerge with curiously imprecise shapes beyond exact statement or description that is ultimately seen to be marked by folk-memory and by legend. They belong to the area of suggestion and imagination which cannot be identified outside the realm of his own idiom. Amorsolo might as well have been the proverbial painter who stepped out of the studio, witnessing the tropic verdure looking lusher, the clouds more luminous, and the trees so much richer green, bluish purple, anything but neutral grays. The maestro’s archetypal coconut tree will always be in close affinity with their countryside context and atmosphere.
The silhouette of a sentinel palm tree cuts across the variegated clouds — is it dawn or is it dusk? The palm tree is softly textured with a subtle palette of shadow green and brown, thereby creating a sense of lightness against a cloud-filled sky.
Actual sunlight doesn’t often have such a mellow tone, but the cool colors accord perfectly with the image many of us hold of what daylight ideally should be. Almost everything about the painting has an elusive Arcadian quality.
Starting from his landscapes in the 1920s, Amorsolo’s subtle, tell-tale evolution in expression can be seen with the transition from the plein-air paintings of his youth, shot through with warm natural light, to the calming landscapes of his late maturity, enveloped in mellow tones.
According to Leo Benesa’s newspaper article “An Amorsolo Festival”, originally from Philippine Sunday Express, November 16, 1975, included in the book “What is Philippine about Philippine Art? and Other Essays”, Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2000, pp. 24-27. Amorsolo’s small landscapes, especially those of his early career, have been judged as his best works, "hold[ing] well together plastic-ally." Amorsolo may "be considered a master of the Philippine landscape as landscape, even outranking Luna and Hidalgo who also did some Philippine landscapes of the same measurements."
Lot 22 of the Leon Gallery auction on 11 June 2016. For more details, please see leon-gallery.com/v2/gallery/AuctionData-23-Spectacular-Mi…
Image acknowledgement to Leo Cloma on 2016-06-04 09:18:13
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