(Rice) aka Pitong Gatang / 1974 /Acrylic on canvas / 67.31 x 79.34 cm / Artist: Nestor Leynes / Paulino and Hetty Que Collection

A key painting and one of the first in the magic realist style, Leynes’s Bigas shows the influence of the American realist Andrew Wyeth.

Here a bilao or round, flat basket, filled with rice grains and resting on a wooden floor, occupies the central area of pictorial space, as the main figure. Two female hands, cropped at the upper edge of the canvas, are engaged in the activity of picking palay or unhusked grains and hard grit from the rice in the bilao, with a small gatang or measuring can on one side. The point of view is directly above looking down, in such a way that the subject appears flat, except for the shadows of the finely modeled hands on the rice and of the tin can on the wide floorboards. In the magic realist style, the grains of rice and the other elements are rendered with trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye) realism, grain by grain, with a delicately embossed effect that they seem palpable to the touch.

This painting called the attention of fellow artists of the Saturday Group who encouraged Leynes to do a Bigas series. Responding to the warm public reception of the painting, the artist decided to opt for realism and then develop his personal style, one which would contribute to the sense of Filipino identity.