Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Bencab creates a mysterious figure swathed in heavy drapery like those in early Gothic art, and in dramatic attitudes expressive of powerful emotions and a yearning for spiritual ecstasy. His experience with Sabel helped him to develop his own style, focusing on the faces and hands of the people in his sculptures and reducing the other parts of the figures to a minimum. The sculpture has a formal resolution and control, the vitality of clothed forms completely in balance with the spatial effect. The aesthetic impression of wholeness conveyed by the sculpture is challenged by the weighty details of the subject’s outfit which exhibits quiet drapery rhythms, and great figural solemnity. This is seen in sweeping lines to define the oversized sleeves and exaggerated shoulders of his abundant overcoat. The lowering of the veil-like sleeves deepens the sense of his subject’s impenetrability.