Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

ABOUT THE WORK

A mood of anguish pervades this view of this beggar and dying child in a church entrance. The fragility and impermanence of the human condition cum element, is strengthened by the strong architectural detailing. The subjects are not underplayed by the architectural details given the gruesome countenance of the infant. The viewer simply cannot miss the gruesome, skeletal detailing of the hungry child. Although the geometric compositions at the right side of the painting and the detailing of the beggar figure are severely geometric in their Cubism, they are particularly well suited as a foil to the wrought iron curlicues. Victorio Edades included Manansala into his circle of Thirteen Moderns in 1941. Art critics such as Emilio Aguilar Cruz, also identified Manansala as the key synthesizer of the neo-realists, a movement that that was established in 1948. Its’ the goal of using art and its aesthetics as a vehicle for the artists’ inner vision and emotional concretion, particularly those concerning the postwar condition of Filipinos. Manila’s vibrant and turbulent history has been a profound inspiration to generations of artists. The diversity and quality of their art has been extraordinary and is reflected in works that highlight all the tensions and romance, the beauty and contradictions of the city and its culture. Gone are the idyllic images of rural life that are typical of the academic style popularized by Fernando Amorsolo and Fabian de la Rosa. In their place is the thoroughly modern subject matter of life in an urban setting and all the social issues that it entails. Urban destitution is one of the socio-economic concerns that Manansala deems important and emphasizes in many of his works throughout his artistic career. It is an issue that he had held close to his heart and propelled him to critical distinction with the unveiling of Madonna of the Slums in 1950. Manansala has always subscribed to the social consciousness aesthetic, but not to these depths. With the infant in the painting, Manansala precedes the pitiless faces of the likes of Onib Olmedo. This artist had an abiding sympathy for common folk like beggars and vendors. Ang Pulubi is a defining representative of Manansala’s recurring women in Church Entrances theme yet its composition is more intuitive than cerebral, given the artist’s romantic temperament. This work adds a deeper dimension to why Manansala has been called the most exuberant among neo-realists of the postwar period onwards. Manansala was fascinated by the vendor or beggar in the church entrance because it was here, that the true interaction between peasant and bourgeois took place. The proletariat sympathies of Manansala, as well as his desire to paint subjects form modern life, probably encouraged him to put on canvas this most sympathetic scene. Beneath the pathos can be seen a craftsmanship honed by many years of study of works by Picasso, Braque and Gris, and the mentorship of his famous teacher, Leger. Although Vicente Manansala’s transparent cubism still predominates, this work manifests a distinct style based on the distortion of shapes defined with linear clarity and pure lines that blur into washed out tones. This serene and undulating composition no longer demonstrates the sociological commentaries, which were found in his earlier works. Rather, it is an idealized view of a harmonious rural world. While the precision of forms and lucidity of the details are typical features of Manansala’s mature cubism, here he still relied on classical old school modeling a la Pieta to add to the mood of universal sympathy.