{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":9617,"auction_id":10,"set_id":17,"lot_number":"941","artist":"Edsel Moscoso (1952 - 2008)","title":"Untitled","starting_price":35000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1996 (lower right)","medium":"watercolor and graphite on paper","size":"29” x 42” (74 cm x 107 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"THE SECULAR IS SACRED EDSEL MOSCOSO’S “MANSCAPES” AND “GODSCAPES”.)
\nA prolific name within the circle of art collectors here and abroad, Edsel Moscoso was humbly raised on a family farm in Bugasong, Antique. During his formative years, he would observe the everyday activities of his fellow Antiqueños. As such, the common folks, whose faces bear the burdens of life’s misery, became the nucleus of his art.
In the late 1970s, Nick Joaquin referred to Moscoso’s paintings in his Manila Standard column as “manscapes.” Moscoso’s works are distinct for their washed sepia images of Filipino rural life, where the faces of the ordinary Antiqueños are the main subjects—a detail he disclosed during his penultimate exhibit in 2008 in Makati.
After earning his BFA from UP in 1975 and taking a residency at the UP Visayas in Iloilo from 1977 to 1978, Moscoso traveled to Europe in the early 1980s to pursue higher art studies: first at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (1980 – 1982); and at the Centre International in Rome to study fresco restoration (1983).
In 1986, the Italian government granted Moscoso a scholarship to study at the Center for the Study of Medieval Art and Culture in Spoleto. He also studied at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, where he joined archaeological excavations at the Roman Forum and attended an international forum on Christian archaeology in Lyons, France. Influenced by his exposure to Classical studies and the history of early Christianity, Moscoso turned to “godscapes.”
This particular piece evokes Bernhard Plockhorst’s 1886 painting The Guardian Angel. A Christian angel and three other mystical figures whose stances are inspired by classical mythology appear prominently in the background. In a conscious synthesis of Greco-Roman and Christian beliefs, Moscoso alludes to religious inclusivism. The divine beings, regardless of the faith they are associated with, seemingly act as custodians of mortals, joining and guarding them in their daily activities. Some of the human figures are crowned with halos. Here, Moscoso masterfully weaves his “manscapes” and “godscapes,” producing an obra instilling the idea of the inviolability of the dignity of humans, especially of ordinary people. For Moscoso, there is sacredness in the secular. (A.M.)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Edsel Moscoso (1952 - 2008) Untitled signed and dated 1996 (lower right) watercolor and graphite on paper 29” x 42” (74 cm x 107 cm)