Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist

ABOUT THE WORK

In this cubist still-life, Vicente Manansala draws upon the fanciful aesthetics of Dutch pronkstillevens (“ostentatious still lifes”) from the 17th century that he has been situated instead into the simple kitchen of a Philippine household. Instead of lobsters, silverware and bountiful grapes that are coming from the seams, Manansala gives us an animated motion as if the items were brought into being with the bright pastel colors of sharp reds, yellows and ultramarine capturing the attention of the viewer. Prior to their eventual demise in the dark wok by being cooked into a wonderful dish, one who could guess what the artist was having for their supper in his Antipolo. Alice Guillermo writes: “(Manansala’s) still-lifes have a tapestry like quality, the various objects from the domestic context; not fragmented but left integral, occupy the entire visual field…” Manansala experimented on multiple perspective through transparent planes. In the development of his “transparent” cubistic style, Manansala succeeded with extraordinary flair in melding his technique with his visual concepts. There are other recognizable shapes on the table. The artist did not want to take the other objects as mere abstract shapes, so that the main object or leitmotif, which is the kitchen utensils and vegetable set against a gray blue background, will remain the focus of attention. In the words of the late art critic Leonidas V. Benesa: "The transparent effects…. are appreciated with the artist’s avowed aim to create or invent his own kind of cubism. At the start of the 1950's, Manansala went to France as a bousier of the French government. One of his mentors was Fernand Leger. Leger had created his own kind of cubism, apart from that of Picasso and Braque.” Leger's cubism that focuses on in transforming objects in a three-dimensional figuration is what Manansala sought to replicate in this still-life in a Philippine context.