Local Artist: Fernando Amorsolo

LOCAL ARTIST
FERNANDO AMORSOLO
The Philippine artist Fernando Amorsolo (1892-1972) was a portraitist and painter of rural land scapes.
He is best known for his craftsmanship and mastery in the use of light.
Fernando Amorsolo was born May 30, 1892, in the Paco district of Manila. At 13 he was apprenticed to
the noted Philippine artist Fabian de la Rosa, his mother's first cousin. In 1909 Amorsolo enrolled at the
Liceo de Manila and then attended the fine-arts school at the University of the Philippines, graduating in
1914. After working three years as a commercial artist and part-time instructor at the university, he
studied at the Escuela de San Fernando in Madrid. For seven months he sketched at the museums and on
the streets of Madrid, experimenting with the use of light and color. That winter he went to New York and
discovered the works of the postwar impressionists and cubists, who became the major influence on his
works. On his return to Manila, he set up his own studio.
During this period, Amorsolo developed the use of light—actually, backlight—which is his greatest
contribution to Philippine painting. Characteristically, an Amorsolo painting contains a glow against
which the figures are outlined, and at one point of the canvas there is generally a burst of light that
highlights the smallest detail.
During the 1920s and 1930s Amorsolo's output of paintings was prodigious. In 1939 his oil Afternoon
Meal of the Workers won first prize at the New York World's Fair. During World War II Amorsolo
continued to paint. The Philippine collector Don Alfonso Ongpin commissioned him to execute a portrait
in absentia of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, which he did at great personal risk. He also painted Japanese
occupation soldiers and self-portraits. His wartime paintings were exhibited at the Malacanang
presidential palace in 1948. After the war Amorsolo served as director of the college of fine arts of the
University of the Philippines, retiring in 1950. Married twice, he had 13 children, five of whom became
painters.
Amorsolo was noted for his portraits. He made oils of all the Philippine presidents, including the
revolutionary leader Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, and other noted Philippine figures. He also painted many
wartime scenes, including Bataan, Corner of Hell, and One Casualty.
Amorsolo, who died in 1972, is said to have painted more than 10,000 pieces. He continued to paint even
in his late 70s, despite arthritis in his hands. Even his late works feature the classic Amorsolo tropical
sunlight. He said he hated "sad and gloomy" paintings, and he executed only one painting in which rain
appears.
Labelled the country’s first National Artist in 1972 by then President Marcos, Fernando Amorsolo is
often known as the ‘Grand Old Man of Philippine Art’. The Spanish-trained realist developed a
backlighting technique, where his colorful depictions of local people reflect the radiance of the Philippine
sun. The figures and illuminated landscapes magically glow on the canvas. Despite his deteriorating
health and failing eyesight, he remained prolific until the end, producing up to 10 paintings a month until
his death at the age of 80. Amorsolo’s creativity defines the nation’s culture and heritage to this day.
The Vargas Musuem – found inside the campus of his alma mater, the University of the Philippines,
displays a notable selection of his work
ARTWORK
FERNANDO AMORSOLO
INTERNATIONAL ARTIST
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Da Vinci was one of the great creative minds of the Italian Renaissance, hugely influential as an
artist and sculptor but also immensely talented as an engineer, scientist and inventor.
Leonardo da Vinci was born on 15 April 1452 near the Tuscan town of Vinci, the illegitimate
son of a local lawyer. He was apprenticed to the sculptor and painter Andrea del Verrocchio in
Florence and in 1478 became an independent master. In about 1483, he moved to Milan to work
for the ruling Sforza family as an engineer, sculptor, painter and architect. From 1495 to 1497 he
produced a mural of 'The Last Supper' in the refectory of the Monastery of Santa Maria delle
Grazie, Milan.
Da Vinci was in Milan until the city was invaded by the French in 1499 and the Sforza family
forced to flee. He may have visited Venice before returning to Florence. During his time in
Florence, he painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous 'Mona Lisa'
(1503-1506).
In 1506, da Vinci returned to Milan, remaining there until 1513. This was followed by three
years based in Rome. In 1517, at the invitation of the French king Francis I, Leonardo moved to
the Château of Cloux, near Amboise in France, where he died on 2 May 1519.
The fame of Da Vinci's surviving paintings has meant that he has been regarded primarily as an
artist, but the thousands of surviving pages of his notebooks reveal the most eclectic and brilliant
of minds. He wrote and drew on subjects including geology, anatomy (which he studied in order
to paint the human form more accurately), flight, gravity and optics, often flitting from subject to
subject on a single page, and writing in left-handed mirror script. He 'invented' the bicycle,
airplane, helicopter, and parachute some 500 years ahead of their time.
If all this work had been published in an intelligible form, da Vinci's place as a pioneering
scientist would have been beyond dispute. Yet his true genius was not as a scientist or an artist,
but as a combination of the two: an 'artist-engineer'. His painting was scientific, based on a deep
understanding of the workings of the human body and the physics of light and shade. His science
was expressed through art, and his drawings and diagrams show what he meant, and how he
understood the world to work.
ARTWORK
LEONARDO DA VINCI
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Local Artist: Fernando Amorsolo

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