ABOUT THE WORK

This work belongs to what is known as Jorge Pineda’s most colorful series of works: “Philippine Lanterns”, and features an old man who is busy at work creating a ’parol.’ The subtle, golden light from the Christmas lantern hanging from outside his nipa hut window brightens his kayumanggi skin; at the lower left, a festival of colors is created out of the papel de japon lying on the floor. It is a discreetly affectionate study of old age. The Pineda touch had a delightful comeliness. This may be attributed to a refusal on his part to make his work resemble the ponderous, sculpture-esque types exalted by the academicians with a European Salon bias. Instead, Pineda chose to recreate vivid impressions of daily life with a disarming casualness, even if Emmanuel Torres wrote: “Beauty in dry, little things kindled his resourceful imagination in a special way. Colors are seldom sweet, frequently acrid. There is none of the glamorous sensuousness Amorsolo pursued all his life with a young man’s heart: the gloss of things luscious, earth and women full of sweetness… …The key to Pineda’s art is the near lack of excitement over exuberant subject matter.”