Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Apart from his iconic cubist oeuvres, Cesar Legaspi also painted dreamlike landscapes. He decided to depict the lots at hand desolated and absent of human presence, evoking in his art that nature is alive and survives. The nature paintings are pleasing to the eye, in spite of the fact that the artist was color blind, interchanging red for green oftentimes. Fortunately, in these pieces, there is no need to resort to the imagination because the landscapes are indeed in the rich colors of a verdant forest. The scenic views on the watercolor canvases are beautiful locations in Baguio and Bicol. In Kennon Road, he portrayed a wellknown route of the same name where one can marvel at a panoramic sight of mountains and lush forests. And, in Landscape inscribed with “Layug, Barcelona, Sorsogon,” Legaspi portrayed the province that houses the centuryold Barcelona Church. He holds the record of five retrospective exhibitions at different venues, one of which was held at the Museum of Philippine Art in 1978. A few years later, he was awarded the most-coveted title of National Artist for Visual Arts in 1990. (P.I.R.)