Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

De Guzman’s genius with line is immediately apparent in the overall design of the composition: a lyrical antithesis of grace, refinement, and sensitivity to the beautiful. The central figures acquire an awesome expressionist quality. This is further brought out by the graphic approach with its spontaneous swirling, even agitated lines. The bodies are twisted, deformed, and dissipated in the vortex of energies. With the presence of skeletons on the upper left, the artist is more concerned with conveying the spirit of the surreal invisible circumstances rather than the tangible physical circumstances. Yet they are individually whole in the midst of all the surrounding visual violence. Whether or not de Guzman thought of his subjects in exactly these terms, the picture says that human fortitude is the sustaining force in the confusion of malevolence of life. The figures are ‘ugly because they must participate in life, they are worn by it.