PAINTING YEAR MEDIUM DIMENSIONS INTERPRETATION
The artist, Amorsolo, created
this artwork to show off the true
value of Filipinos. They are hard-
working yet happy of what they
25 1/4 x 37 are doing. It was to also make
1950 Oil on canvas 1/2 inches the world aware about the true
canvas Filipina beauty. Overall, this
painting was intended to show
Filipino’s characteristic glow.
This can be proven by looking at
the characters in the painting.
Picking Mangoes
Amorsolo accents the
voluptuous form of a female
figure sitting alone in her room,
emanating the glow of youth.
Retaining a romantic notion of
painting throughout his life,
14 1/8 x 18 Amorsolo created works
1946 Oil on canvas 1/8 inches achieving spontaneity and
(35.9 x 46 cm) directness. As in most of
Amorsolo’s work, the figure’s
sensuality appears incidental to
the skilled brushwork that
enlivens this composition, an
intimate glimpse into the beauty
of the female form.
Reclining Nude
Amorsolo catches that precise
moment when an otherwise
confident maiden covers over
herself presumably because we
have stolen a glance. But her
movement gives away the
silhouette of her whole body.
86.5 x 60.5
1956 Oil on canvas The center maiden in “Women
cm. (34.1 x
Bathing by the Stream” is not as
23.8 in.)
conscious. She bathes innocently
and confidently with the help of
another woman. Other works
offer the same themes of
intimacy and unreservedness,
modesty and demureness.
Nude Girl in Stream
The Amorsolo paintings in this
exhibition belong to his golden
age, the decades of the 1920s
and 1930s. The first one depicts
a vignette in a very typical
setting in traditional Philippine
life: bathing in the flowing
stream or batis. Villagers usually
flock to the shallows of these
18” x 12 1/2”
streams during sunny days. The
1949 Oil on canvas (46 cm x 32
children frolic in the rushing
cm)
water. The women, clad in
chaste sarongs, bathe leisurely,
soak and wring their laundry. In
this particular version, the young
damsel sits alone in a secluded
spot. The sunlight glints on the
rocks, the cool water sparkles,
the air is still in the shade of
Girl Washing Clothes in Stream bamboos. There is enough
privacy for her to have shed all
her garments. Beside her is an
earthenware jar, symbol of
virginal innocence. The nudity
elicits aesthetic appreciation.
1948 Oil on canvas
The Mango Harvest
Bent over a stove aglow with
radiant fire, Cooking Lady
references Amorsolo’s favored
39.5 x 49.5
1961 Oil on canvas genre scene of the harvest, with
cm. (15.6 x
his quintessential maiden
19.5 in.)
gracefully preparing the day’s
nourishment.
Woman Cooking
1960 Oil on canvas
Igorotes
1960 Oil on canvas
Man Holding a Rooster
1963 Oil on canvas
Cockfighters
It exhibits the happiness across
from the difficulties in planting
rice. The Filipino Villagers in their
26” x 38” (66 bright clothes and straw hats
1943 Oil on canvas
cm x 97 cm) plant together with a fresh and
green landscape of plenty.
Behind the Filipino villagers is
the peaceful flume of steam.
Planting Rice
Oil on canvas
1954 mounted on
board
Transplanting Rice
A pastoral scene of farmers, this
Amorsolo contains all the
49 x 69.5 cm
minutiae of Filipiniana imagery -
1960 Oil on canvas (19 1/4 x 27
the rice field, the salakot of the
1/3 in)
farmhands shielding the sun, and
a carabao plowing the fields.
Planting Rice
1960 Oil on canvas
Harvest
Oil on canvas
1959 mounted on
board
Rice Harvest in Cooking Fires
While Amorsolo was known as
an artist who features bright and
sunny Philippine landscapes, he
was also an artist deeply familiar
with sorrow and suffering. His
Oil on 17” x 25” (43 World War II paintings, dark in
1945
masonite cm x 64 cm) tone, stand as a testament not
only to who he was, but to what
his eyes saw, a world ridden with
grief and the realities of human
frailty. It is thus fitting to
remember him.
The Burning of Rizal Avenue
1961 Oil on canvas
Hong Kong Street Scene
162.5 cm x
1950 Oil on canvas
107 cm
Doña Maria Hao Tay Yuchengco and Don Enrique T. Yuchengco
Amorsolo's Princess Urduja is a
historical fantasy: the beautiful
princess—dressed in a helmet, a
rather revealing vest, and a red
tapis—sits on a raised platform
as she addresses a throng of
warriors brandishing spears.
Behind her is a clump of lush
bamboo and, beyond that, a
1959 Oil on canvas 61x87cm
mountain range in the distance.
Without any strong historical or
archaeological evidence for
Urduja's 14th century kingdom,
the artist would have created all
the costumes and weapons in
painting, as well as the context
of the gathering, from his
Princess Urduja imagination.
1928 Oil on canvas
Conquistador
Oil on canvas
1927 mounted on
board
Mandarin Scholar
1959 Oil on canvas
Sunset and Fishing Boats
Against a luminous sky, a woman
and her children bid farewell to a
boat of fishermen at sunrise.
61 x 76.2 cm
1953 Oil on canvas Figures awash in painterly
(24 x 30 in)
strokes, the genre scene radiates
with the kind of idyllic optimism
that Amorsolo is best known for.
Departing Fishermen
It was Fernando Amorsolo with
his tropical genre who became
27” x 37” (69 the image of the Filipino within a
1950 Oil on canvas
cm x 94 cm) tropical idyll, where youth
reigned supreme, and nature
was infinitely bountiful.
Winnowing Rice
.
