{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":47320,"auction_id":95,"set_id":125,"lot_number":"71","artist":"Cesar Legaspi (1917 - 1994)","title":"Crucifixion","starting_price":4400000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1956 (lower right)","medium":"oil on masonite board","size":"40\" x 48\" (102 cm x 122 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Philippine Art Gallery Christie's, 20th Century Art Day Sale, Hong Kong, December 1, 2022,  Lot 228","exhibited":"Philippine Art Gallery, Annual Christmas Group Show, Manila,<br />  December 20 - December 26, 1958","literature":null,"write_up":"A monumental work from one of the Philippine Art Gallery's \"Big Three\" (the others being H.R. Ocampo and Manansala), Legaspi's Crucifixion would be featured in the PAG's year-end Annual Christmas Group Show from December 20 to 26, 1958, alongside works by Luz, Ang Kiukok, Joya, Magsaysay-Ho, Elizalde Navarro, and Malang.<br /><br />Legaspi's choice of subject matter seemingly clashes yet inherently harmonizes with the time of the exhibition: the joyous Christmas season. At first glance, one may deem the subject of Christ's crucifixion incompatible with Christmas. But delving into Legaspi's neo-realist, expressionist impulses, the artist heralds that right from the start, the birth of Christ had already signaled an imminent sacrifice for the redemption of humanity—that there exists an underlying horror in Christ's nativity. The overall composition is somber and melancholic, a juxtaposition between two \"silent nights\": the infant Jesus cradled in His manger and the \"Messiah\" Jesus dying in harrowing pain from thorns and nails, crucified among thieves while a wailing Mother and grieving disciples forsakenly accept the will of the Divine.<br /><br /> Crucifixion is characterized by a \"rocky\" and jagged texture emphasized by sharp angles and austere, monochromatic, and stratified geometric forms. The piece exemplifies Legaspi's artistic maturation. No longer was he trying to steer towards a Botong-like style, whom he considered a luminary in the earlier phases of his career. Instead, Legaspi weds an expressionist, rugged distortion inspired by a stone quarry adjacent to their house at Horseshoe Drive, Quezon City (to which they had moved in 1947) and a Cubist configuration inspired by Manansala, who, in 1951, had returned from his nine-month study at the University of Paris' Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the mentorship of the 71 Cesar Legaspi (1917 - 1994) Crucifixion signed and dated 1956 (lower right) oil on masonite board 40\" x 48\" (102 cm x 122 cm) P 4,400,000 PROVENANCE Philippine Art Gallery Christie's, 20th Century Art Day Sale, Hong Kong, December 1, 2022, Lot 228 EXHIBITED Philippine Art Gallery, Annual Christmas Group Show, Manila, December 20 - December 26, 1958 Philippine Art Gallery catalogue tag for \"Crucifixion\" French cubist Fernand Leger. Of Manansala's influence on Legaspi, Alfredo Roces writes in the book Legaspi: The Making of a National Artist: \"...on his return to Manila in August 1951, he was brimming with theories on cubism with which he regaled his circle of artist friends. Legaspi was one of those keenly receptive to Manansala's stories about museums, artists, painting techniques, methods, and trends.\" The overall result is a work that exudes sheer intensity in evoking a sorrowful scene.<br /><br />There is also an inherent claustrophobic feel in this particular piece. Does it allude to Legaspi's eight-day harrowing incarceration and interrogation by the Japanese Kempeitai in October 1944 on the grounds of mistaken identity? \"I still shudder at the memory and can hear the almost mellifluous screams of those being treated to the water cure, see the seventy-year man staggering back from the interrogation room…Great fear and horror are, I suppose, part of the maturing and deepening process…I never prayed as hard as that. Every time I am in a tight spot, I pray,\" says Legaspi in the catalog for his 1978 retrospective at the Museum of Philippine Art.<br /><br />After all, the piece exudes the neo-realist propensity for fragmenting a romanticized reality—shattering the tranquil hallowedness of Christmas and harking back to that fateful Christmas season of 1941, in which \"peace\" and \"normalcy\" would never come back again, where everyone would be left scrambling and fending for themselves amid a full-blown crisis and destruction, both in the physical and moral sense.<br /><br />And with that, Cesar Legaspi's sheer maturation as a painter would result from a traumatizing devastation. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"Painting","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":6000000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":6000000,"userBid":7390,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":7209600,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":47012,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/95/125/lot/71.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":70,"next":72,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}