(Landlord) / 1974 / Oil on canvas / 124.46 x 154.94 cm / Artist: Pablo Baens Santos aka Adi Baens Santos / Anna Dominique Coseteng collection.

A founding member of the Kaisahan group of social realists, Baens Santos makes social comment and protest as he deals with the contemporary issues and conditions of Philippine society. His works, marked by vigor and dynamism, is often mural in concept, showing an entire society in struggle. His most important works convey the idea of class contradiction and show forces in conflict. In Panginoong Maylupa, the landlord, depicted as a formidable-looking bespectacled figure (spectacles here allude to the elite ilustrado or educated class, which is also the landed gentry) in collusion with a blond figure hovering above him, tramples heavily on the backs of the peasants working in the field, with his fist raised as though wielding a whip. The blond figure represents the United States and other foreign powers to which the Philippines exports raw materials and agricultural products but from which it imports costly finished products. The dynamics of this painting basically derives from the artist’s compositional device of showing the landlord from the point of view of the masses as he looms over them at a steep angle and makes threatening gestures, causing the peasants to cower in fright. The peasants are in various attitudes of defeat, suffering, supplication, and initial defiance. There is a strong sense of compositional design in the placement of the figures, which positively contributes to the expressiveness of the work.