{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47372,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"124","artist":"Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972)","title":"Sunset in Manila Bay","starting_price":1400000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1943 (lower right)","medium":"oil on panel","size":"8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 30 cm)","property":null,"coa":"León Gallery wishes to thank Mrs. Sylvia Amorsolo-Lazo for confirming the authenticity of this lot.","provenance":"Private Collection, France","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"During the Second World War, Amorsolo documented the atrocities of the Japanese imperial forces and painted them on his canvas “with no interest in pleasing his customers. He did many oils right on the spot as the emotion moved him. He must have reacted to the need to record the chaos around him,” as Alfredo Roces puts it in his monograph Amorsolo.<br /><br />However, Amorsolo remained adamant and strived to steer towards his own artistic endeavors of periodically going outside to paint the majestic sunlight of his motherland. This he had done amid a violent period in our country’s history. (Amorsolo and his family were not exempted from succumbing to the pits of financial throes. He had lost his post as Director of the UP School of Fine Arts, which had closed down due to the university being transformed into a Japanese garrison.)<br /><br />Amorsolo’s Sunset in Manila Bay exemplifies this unswerving pursuit. Painted in 1943, the height of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the work is noticeably painted en plein air, as evidenced by Amorsolo’s quick, loose brushstrokes and thick impastos, which shows Amorsolo’s creative exhilaration as he strived to capture the majestic transience of Manila’s famed sunset and its final outburst of light before dusk settles in.<br /><br />Amorsolo says in an interview published in Neal Cruz’s 1960 article on The Insurance Line titled “Sketches and the Man”: “Light changes very rapidly, and you have to be fast in order to catch the mood with which you started out. This is particularly true with sunsets. A sunset sky will turn from red to orange to yellow in a matter of minutes.” Amorsolo would add that he limited himself to “fifteen minutes…when painting a sunset scene.”<br /><br />The composition is spontaneous and fresh, with bold strokes showing a preference for the continuous search for a refreshing activity amid the intensifying trauma of the ongoing war. Sunset at Manila Bay exhibits a master in dynamic action, translating his veritable impressions of the moment and painting as a balsam for the wounded soul. Perhaps, like the brevity of sunlight and the imminence of another dawn comes Amorsolo’s enshrouded hopes to see his motherland be set free from foreign oppressors—an intense yearning struggling to free itself, at least onto the master’s canvas. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":1800000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":1800000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":2162880,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":47062,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/124.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":123,"next":125,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}