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Lot Essay
"I believe that everything I am gets spattered on to the canvas. As in all things, one has to choose, to edit, to highlight or to tone down. As in life itself. Life itself jolts. Life itself lilts, enchants, enhancesWhy not make use of all things that other people have gone through, agonized over, exulted about? Make use of the loneliness, the bleakness, the opulence, the pain, the pleasure. That is why I put so much emphasis on life. The beauty of it is that, like it or not, life has to be lived, life imposes, so that automatically, we are filled up with things to express, to polish, to highlight and to lovingly recall."
Cesar Legaspi
Cesar Torrente Legaspi was born in 1917, in Tondo. In 1931, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines' School of Fine Arts, which was then under the directorship of Fabian de la Rosa. In his third and fourth year, Legaspi studied under the maestro Fernando Amorsolo, but more influential upon Legaspi's aesthetic development was his exposure to new art theories espoused by his seniors, Galo Ocampo and Carlos Botong Francisco, who together with Seattle-trained Victorio Edades, would lead Philippine art into the modern era. After graduation, Legaspi initially worked in advertising and gained a strong foundation in graphic illustration. He gravitated towards a group of artists who also dabbled in literature and formed strong bonds with other young writers of their generation. Among this group was abstract artist Hernando Ruiz Ocampo and Franz Arcellana, the eventual recipient of the National Artist Award in Literature. The post-war years were traumatic for these youthful visionaries, and it is within this period that Legaspi and Ocampo produced some of their most scintillating compositions, focusing on social-realist themes rendered in a modernist mode. Painted in 1949, Tree Planting (Fig. 1), is an outstanding example of Legaspi's predominant concerns, illustrating the despair and deprivation of the late 1940s, even as the central figures lay down seeds of hope for the future.
Throughout the ensuing three decades, Legaspi continued to draw inspiration from life, society, and existential circumstances, creating masterly large-scale works displaying a strong cubist inclination; prefacing geometric shapes, a shallow pictorial plane and rich, jewel-toned colours. He became highly acclaimed for his figurative compositions in particular, displaying human studies interlocked within a cubist configuration. Like the 'analytic' cubism developed by Picasso and Braque, Legaspi was skilled in breaking down a scene into various components and reinterpreting these within objective, fragmented facets. Combined with bold, strong lines and steady brushwork, Legaspi's works from the 1980s were mature offerings that defined his growth and development as a career artist. The Wall (Lot 599) reveals a boldly engaging composition, with a bravura figure as the central focus. Arms outstretched either in triumph or crucifixion, the figure is partially effaced by swathes of scarlet pigment and text blocks, reflecting elements from Legaspi's training as an illustrator. This artwork concentrates Legaspi's key motifs and stylistic tendencies within a single, powerful frame. Ubiquitous Moon (Lot 600) showcases a less geometric aesthetic, which has been replaced by a dynamic and fluid painting technique that acutely demonstrates Cesar Legapi's diversity as an artist. Swirling with powerful energy, the darkly haunting overtones of the work evoke a sense of meditative unrest within the viewer, drawing from life and nature the emotions that Legaspi intended to convey and represent upon his canvas.
Cesar Legaspi
Cesar Torrente Legaspi was born in 1917, in Tondo. In 1931, he enrolled at the University of the Philippines' School of Fine Arts, which was then under the directorship of Fabian de la Rosa. In his third and fourth year, Legaspi studied under the maestro Fernando Amorsolo, but more influential upon Legaspi's aesthetic development was his exposure to new art theories espoused by his seniors, Galo Ocampo and Carlos Botong Francisco, who together with Seattle-trained Victorio Edades, would lead Philippine art into the modern era. After graduation, Legaspi initially worked in advertising and gained a strong foundation in graphic illustration. He gravitated towards a group of artists who also dabbled in literature and formed strong bonds with other young writers of their generation. Among this group was abstract artist Hernando Ruiz Ocampo and Franz Arcellana, the eventual recipient of the National Artist Award in Literature. The post-war years were traumatic for these youthful visionaries, and it is within this period that Legaspi and Ocampo produced some of their most scintillating compositions, focusing on social-realist themes rendered in a modernist mode. Painted in 1949, Tree Planting (Fig. 1), is an outstanding example of Legaspi's predominant concerns, illustrating the despair and deprivation of the late 1940s, even as the central figures lay down seeds of hope for the future.
Throughout the ensuing three decades, Legaspi continued to draw inspiration from life, society, and existential circumstances, creating masterly large-scale works displaying a strong cubist inclination; prefacing geometric shapes, a shallow pictorial plane and rich, jewel-toned colours. He became highly acclaimed for his figurative compositions in particular, displaying human studies interlocked within a cubist configuration. Like the 'analytic' cubism developed by Picasso and Braque, Legaspi was skilled in breaking down a scene into various components and reinterpreting these within objective, fragmented facets. Combined with bold, strong lines and steady brushwork, Legaspi's works from the 1980s were mature offerings that defined his growth and development as a career artist. The Wall (Lot 599) reveals a boldly engaging composition, with a bravura figure as the central focus. Arms outstretched either in triumph or crucifixion, the figure is partially effaced by swathes of scarlet pigment and text blocks, reflecting elements from Legaspi's training as an illustrator. This artwork concentrates Legaspi's key motifs and stylistic tendencies within a single, powerful frame. Ubiquitous Moon (Lot 600) showcases a less geometric aesthetic, which has been replaced by a dynamic and fluid painting technique that acutely demonstrates Cesar Legapi's diversity as an artist. Swirling with powerful energy, the darkly haunting overtones of the work evoke a sense of meditative unrest within the viewer, drawing from life and nature the emotions that Legaspi intended to convey and represent upon his canvas.