This piece is accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

Alfredo Roces may have written an article about Amorsolo in 1975 entitled “Fernando Amorsolo: Recurring Themes and Subtle Changes”; yet the growth of scholarship on the master has been astounding. Genre avoided the exotic for the familiar, yet the passion for genre remains strong among all generations of Filipino connoisseurs and collectors in general. Amorsolo had developed his own rustic vision strong enough to hold its own, against even those Philippine art movements which tried to escape from it. It captures the steady, unhurried pace of rural life, removing the viewer from the fast, hectic pace lived outside of the countryside, reminding us of the beauty and simplicity of everyday actions and experiences. Amorsolo’s canvases are sparsely populated, but once everything had been arranged, Amorsolo would make a detailed drawing of every human figure in the pose the composition dictated. Amorsolo’s works are not the result of any studio defined, culturally filtered notion of landscape as such, but reflects instead a very particular kind of visual vocabulary of forms — we see and feel the lighto f the midday sun; we perceive the cool, onrushing river, even the wetness of the clothes being washed. If the composition doesn’t have Amorsolo’s all-encompassing skies, it shows great skill at showing light reflected from the rushing water. The river is a movement of rich shades of green and ochres. Everywhere life is expressed in light.