Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Madrid, Spain

ABOUT THE WORK

Lorenzo Guerrero’s ‘At River’s Bend’ is an extremely rare example of the Filipino master’s work. The Philippine National Museum has only two in its collection, one a vista of Mariquina, (where he followed his wife-to-be, Clemencia Ramirez, when she was exiled by her dissatisfied father.) These works are no larger than notepaper-size, or approximately a fourth of the work at hand. Scholar E. Arsenio Manuel, who studied the lives of notable Filipinos, wrote in The Philippine Magazine in June 1936, “Of (Guerrero’s) paintings, only a few have survived. Many were made to order and shipped abroad.” Most of the works that were in Manila, such as those listed in the collection of his son Fernando Ma. Guerrero and other relatives were burnt during the Battle of Manila in February 1945. Felipe Calderon writing in the Manila newspapers (before becoming a lawyerly politician with Emilio Aguinaldo) would say that Guerrero began teaching at the Manila Academia as early as age 16. Astounding as it sounds, that may be entirely so since the second Manila Academy opened in 1850 with 70 enrollees. The following year, Guerrero appears to have been talented enough and sufficiently trained to join its faculty as a bit of a prodigy. According to Luciano P.R. Santiago, the Academy would supposedly practice the racial divide, with indio students being taught by the then-lone indio instructor, Lorenzo Guerrero. Jose Rizal, in an article on Juan Luna for the Barcelona-based “La Ilustracion” of February 1886, would describe Lorenzo Guerrero as “a master virtually self-taught (un maestro que se ha formado casi por sí solo.”) E. Arsenio Manuel notes that Guerrero received some schooling by the first heads of the Academia : Enrique Nieto y Zamora followed by Manuel de la Cortina but “how long he came under them could not be ascertained.” We have possibly Juan Luna’s testimony to Rizal that Guerrero’s formal training by these busy men was uneven at best. Lorenzo Guerrero nevertheless would have the honor of teaching almost all the Filipino artists of note of his time. His most famous student was, of course, Juan Luna y Novicio. Jose Rizal, in the same 1886 feature, would refer to Luna learning about painting nature and his first colorations from Guerrero. (He wrote,“con él estudió el natural y manejó por primera vez los colores.”) Guerrero also taught Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Fabian de la Rosa, Jorge Pineda, and even Simon Flores (who enrolled in 1857.) Also included in his roster were Felix Martinez, Telesforo Sucgang, Manuel Espiritu, and Ramon Peralta. This magnificent view could possibly be of the riverbanks of the Pasig, east of Manila — based on this photograph from the German national archive in the collection of Mr. John Tewell. Again, this view of Marikina and its environs, where Guerrero’s wife-to-be was banished by her family, would have been a familiar sight. (Clemencia’s “maternal uncle was then the parochial priest of Mariquina,” according to E. Arsenio Manuel.) Since Guerrero succeeded in marrying Clemecia Ramirez around 1868, we can also possibly conclude the painting dates from around this time. Two steeply-roofed thatch huts, typical of the 19th century, are in the center of the painting in a lush grove of bamboo and banana trees. Two roosters patrol the yard. There is a newly-cut tree stump and a trio of bamboo poles. Hanging outside an open window are draped blue fabric. Five posts stand in the water, forming a primitive dock where a boat may be moored. A few yards away, in fact, is a banca with a man in a salakot (native straw hat) and wearing the red pants of a magsasaka (farmer), popularized in the Bonifacio statues of the common man. A woman stands in the water, drawing up her skirt to avoid it becoming wet, having come down roughly-hewn steps made of blocks of stone. Guerrero’s attention to detail is simply immense: In the distance, more posts embedded in the water and a green panorama of more fruit trees and coconuts, detailed in their shapes and leaves. The work could very well be a product of ‘plein-air’ painting, created on the spot, so many are the minute details to be found in the work. “It is his local scenes that will be better appreciated and remembered,” said E. Arsenio Manuel. Indeed, works similar to the ones at hand were exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. In ‘At River’s Bend’, the water sparkles clearly while the houses are bathed in the sun’s reflections, celebrating the Philippine light that would inspire Fabian de La Rosa and from thence, his nephew, Fernando Amorsolo. -Lisa Guerrero Nakpil