Lot 549: VICTORIO EDADES (The Philippines 1895-1985)

Landscape
signed and dated 'Edades, 76' (lower right)
oil on canvas laid down on board
12 x 16 in. (30 x 41 cm.)

Victorio Edades, commonly regarded as the 'Father of Modern Philippines Painting' returned to Manila in 1928 to mount his controversial show at the Philippines Columbian Club. Many now regard the exhibition as the commencement of modern art in the Philippines, as the artist forcefully depicted labourers building the city in a detached and almost cold manner. This is a clear deviation from the idyllic scenes of farmers planting rice and beauties bathing by the river.

Edades verbalised his ideals "To find pleasure in the visible qualities of even the commonest objects of everyday life, to use colours structurally, to investigate every department of our environment which we directly experience; and to blend and integrate all of our impressions with our Oriental heritage and our traditional Christian culture these are profound lessons with which the great Modern Art movement is inspiring our progressive artists." (Victorio Edades, "Liberating Ourselves from Academism, in This Week, September 19, 1948).

The present lot demonstrates the artist's ideals with its bold contours and almost rough surface that discards the fineness and smoothness of the genre works of the Amorsolo school. To further liberate the audience from the glowing, picturesque landscape of Amorsolo, Edades rendered the landscape with thick, heavy and almost rugged strokes that present not only the forms of the landscape but the character.