In 1952, Fernando Amorsolo – who had reached the zenith of his career and more – resigned from his post as the Deam of the UP School of Fine Arts. For the next 20 years, he dedicated himself to his painting full-time, creating collections of work that echo his golden period and his post-war sensibilities.
\nHis 1958 Bathers is a testament to both Amorsolo’s capabilities as a genre painter and his mastery of the human body. During his academic years when he was among the first batch of graduates of the UP School of Fine Arts, Amorsolo proved his talent and innate understanding of the human body when he received medals for the highest excellence in anatomy and drawing from life and oil in the academic year 1909 and 1910. He continued his excellence during his sojourn in Spain, where some of his earliest nudes barring his academic studies were recorded.
\nHowever, the majority of the nudes created by Amorsolo existed outside isolation – that is, they are often part of a larger scenery. Bathers are among them as he depicts a favorite theme of his – the lavanderas and the washers. Throughout his career,
\nAmorsolo hired models to photograph, paint, or sketch and this particular piece seems to echo (though it does not exactly copy) an early black-and-white photo taken by the maestro himself. In the photograph as seen from the collections of Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation, Inc., two women stand in knee-deep water, both under the shade as they gingerly look at the camera. Bathers repositions the women in question but it follows the same composition as both women seem deep in conversation while they take a bath.
\nThe mastery of Amorsolo’s lavandera paintings is that the backgrounds are based on places the artist himself visited. His daughter Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo said, “Papa took his time going to these places for his on-the-spot sketching and painting. I think his lavanderas were mostly painted in the provinces of Laguna and Bulacan and along Pasig River.” As such, the genius of Amorsolo’s sunshine and shadows are in full display, creating a vivid and near-identical replication of the countryside’s blinding beauty.
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