Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Manila stands up as a subject in a way no other city in the metropolis does. This is not to say that the city has been limned by artists as great in the same vein as Rome or Paris has been painted about. Nearby Makati has transformed itself with a relentlessness that has in turns intimidated its denizens and observers. But riverside Manila has been slow to change since the war. Manila as seen from the Pasig is not much different from what a visitor might have seen during the last Mid-Century. The scene Sofronio Y Mendoza chooses is locked in time and image. Sofronio Y Mendoza is one of a handful of artists who have gotten the aspects of the river city of manila remarkably “right”. In “Pasig River Tugboats” the major parts of the picture are taken up by the Pasig river. The buildings at the banks in the distance at the left side and the tugboats repeat each other in dark color values and help to establish the balance of colour against the relatively brighter Post Office building in the picture. In an effort to rid themselves of the tendencies to think in terms of delineating objects with lines, which resulted in the artist’s preemptive interpretation of what he saw, the impressionists needed to select subjects to which a linear approach was clearly inapplicable. The painting offers a vivid visual experience of the extremes of mood in Manila riverside life.