Genteel portraits of the modern Filipino
If Fernando Amorsolo were alive today, how would he portray Filipino culture as it is now? The new society? The music? The festivities? More importantly, the fashion?
In all of his paintings, Amorsolo’s nationalistic fervor came through — as much in his detailed imaging of traditional Filipino wear as in his vivid portrayal of the Philippine landscape. He depicted the dalagang Filipina as the comely, dusky lass, clad in the traditional baro’t saya, a figure both gentle and engaging. In his commissioned portraits of the genteel Filipino, he obsesses over the details and texture of the stiffer panuelo and the intricate embroidery of the barong Tagalog. Through his works, Amorsolo became an unlikely chronicler of Filipiniana, from the late 1800s up until his last works created in the 1960s.
If Amorsolo were alive to see how Philippine wear has changed, how would he put onto canvas the startling bursts of color, the new geometric silhouettes, the ingenious use of natural native materials? And if he did approve, would he still portray Filipino men and women with the same riveting play of light and shadow, the same technique that caused him to be called the “Artist of Light”?
One thing’s for sure: not even the most advanced camera today can render Filipiniana wear with the same grace and poignancy that Amorsolo’s artistry did. And in the gala benefit for the “Amorsolo Retrospective: His Art, Our Heart,” a seven-museum exhibition wherein each museum features a particular theme-centered collection by the artist, admirers paid tribute and their respect to the first Filipino National Artist, partly by turning out in the most enchanting formal Filipiniana wear: the ladies in a varied mix of traditional and modernized terno pieces and saya ensembles, the men in the finest silk barongs. While most of the women wore Patis Tesoro, the queen of Filipiniana, the younger set ventured into wearing new designers, while some unearthed vintage hand-me-downs. A few stuck to neutrals but most courageously donned bright color such as canary yellow, teal, pink, red, rust — fitting complements to the vivid art of Fernando Amorsolo.
Profits from the Fernando Amorsolo Seven-Musuem Gala Benefit will go to the C.R.I.B.S. Foundation and Fernando Amorsolo Art Foundation Inc. For more information on “The Amorsolo Retrospective: His Art, Our Heart,” log on to www.amorsoloretro.com.
