1966 / Oil on plywood / 58.5 x 71.1 cm / Artist: Diosdado Lorenzo / National Museum of the Philippines collection

Many appreciate Lorenzo’s work as a refinement of Philippine modernist painting, which evolved from the Edades tradition that initially shocked a conservative art audience. Lorenzo’s heavy brushstrokes and rough textures are built on a much keener adherence to natural proportions and a more sensitive interpretation of realistic form whether of landscape, still life, or human figure. His distortions are always moderate and consistent.

Landscape manifests basic qualities that characterized an earlier direction which he had been pursuing since his first Philippine exhibition at the Philippine Columbian Club in 1934.

Heavy brushstrokes work out a richly impastoed surface of tempered colors. This canvas is an ideal model for students studying the many nuances of color and tonal value. A closer look reveals that the brown is rendered from combined touches of burnt amber, sienna, vermilion, crimson, and purple. All hues are moderated by varying amounts of white to create tints. Otherwise, they are mixed with a dash of the respective complementary color to modulate intensity. Pure color is rendered lush and cool as an effect of the skillful interplay of variations of brown and blue.

Pictorial structure is based on a suggested pointed arch formed by the meeting of branches of two giant trees that frame a forest clearing. Foreground and background would have been equivocal because of the absence of shading. Perspective is suggested by the contrasting scale of the gigantic trunks and the diminished size of the nipa hut.