{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":50234,"auction_id":99,"set_id":131,"lot_number":"145","artist":"Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972)","title":"Evening Meal on a Raft House","starting_price":8000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated Manila 1930 (lower left)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"27\" x 37\" (69 cm x 95 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Don Antonio Roxas de Ayala Ramona Roxas, thence by descent","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"In 1919, the twenty-seven-year-old Fernando Amorsolo traveled to Spain to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando under the auspices of Don Enrique Zobel de Ayala. He had offered the young Amorsolo financial support to learn art developments in Europe. However, as Ramon Villegas notes, \"to Amorsolo's surprise, after evaluating his work, the school informed him that they would accept him, not as a student but as a professor at the school.\"
Amorsolo would instead explore the country and visit its museums. There, he had the felicitous opportunity to witness works by eminent Spanish painters. One was the Baroque master Diego Velázquez, whose work Don Fernando de Austria Amorsolo copied, of course with permission, at the Prado Museum.
Amorsolo would eventually return to the Philippines in1920, after only a year of his Spanish sojourn. Barely a month after his homecoming, Amorsolo would be interviewed for the newspaper Manila Nueva. In that interview, he was asked about his ideal artists whose works were in the Prado. Amorsolo replied: \"Velázquez is indisputably number one: that is how he is universally consecrated.\" Apart from Velázquez, Amorsolo was also influenced by the luminist Joaquin Sorolla, from whom he acquired the technique of \"utilizing the sun to draw out the most dramatic effects,\" according to Villegas.
Vestiges of Velázquez's and Sorolla's technical brilliance would reflect on Amorsolo's works during his Golden Age. Velázquez's 'vision of the moment' technique and Sorolla's character as a 'discerning and active observer of nature' were elements Amorsolo profoundly imbibed into his virtuosity. In a 1969 interview with Nick Joaquin for his article ‘Homage to the Maestro’ and published in 1969 in Free Press, Amorsolo shares: “When I came back from Spain, I did nothing but paint and paint out in the open, studying the light. Maski sa España, kung nagpipinta ako, diyan ako nagpipinta sa liwanag na liwanag. Wala akong ginawa kundi mag-observe.
In a prior interview with Neal Cruz in 1960 for Insurance Line, Amorsolo delves into his creative process when working outdoors. \"You have to work fast outdoors,” Amorsolo remarks. “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 limited himself to \"fifteen minutes… when painting a sunset scene.\"
Such creative propensity for working en plein air to genuinely capture the brilliance of Philippine sunlight is encapsulated in this work titled Evening Meal on a Raft House. The backdrop of a sublime sunset sky sets the overall mood of the composition. We see an intimate scene of a family having supper on a bamboo raft docked on the beach. In the background, three men prepare to embark on a fishing excursion into the high seas. We see Amorsolo's painterly brilliance in illuminating the entire composition amid his depiction of the fast transition between twilight and dusk, which he renders with penetrating accuracy. The bursting pink-orange packet of light on the horizon evokes a breathtaking sunset that burns into the picture. A formidable billow of clouds rolls by in the background, effectively contrasting with the pink sky to depict a sublime passage from sunset to nightfall, capturing the divine ephemerality of time.
The overall picture engages the viewer in an immersive experience; the chance to experience the majestic fading of daylight once again, which we unintentionally dismiss due to life's hustle and bustle. We are thus reminded of the gravitas of that moment to pause and take a rest to recuperate from the vicissitudes of being, living, and existing. It is a poignant yet promising reminder of the necessity of an untroubled and soothing interlude to bounce back and recover to reclaim another day filled with struggles, contradictions, and the ultimate realization of our aspirations and goals. Rest, for tomorrow is ours. (A.M.)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"
Fernando Amorsolo (1892 - 1972) Evening Meal on a Raft House signed and dated Manila 1930 (lower left) oil on canvas 27\" x 37\" (69 cm x 95 cm)