Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

ABOUT THE WORK

The fleeting delights of traditional games in the past are perhaps appreciated best by those who have left that age forever. Rodriguez Sr’s most admired works are his multicolored representations of pastoral life and rustic celebrations. In “Sungka”, much of the whimsicality of his colored works can still be traced in the stylized figuration and the decorative motifs. The concept of embracing the mundane, of celebrating the life of the ordinary person, is a theme of Filipino visual arts going back to at least the Spanish period. The artist also brings out the humanism of the subject I the expressive body languages. Whatever the thematic genesis of the work, “Sungka” is an example of Rodriguez Sr’s experiments in color and form as well as in exuberant expression. Of note are the women’s luxuriantly bouffant hair which add to the voluptuousness of the festive air in an otherwise banal scene of playing sungka. Enough for the late critic Leonidas Benesa to write in 1977: “Some of Rodriguez’ works, especially those built on his whimsical representations of celebrations, like river festivals appear melodramatic with their stylized figurations that are more flamboyant than elegant in posture and gesture, in comparison with the works done in the pastoral or rustic spirit with which he is familiar from his childhood spent in Cebu in the Visayan islands.”