![]() ![]() These were also the hues and moods that he tried to pass on to younger artists and through which he sought to perpetuate a tradition that is “alive with action and Philippinism”, a tradition long forgotten by the art circle. These were the colors that earned him recognition from contests here and abroad. His colors reflected a relaxed and subdued attitude - earthly brown, green moss and sepia or kulay tansong kinakalawang”. ![]() Moreover, his canvasses depicted themes closest to his heart- “rural landscapes, lonely old people, young love and life in the country. A silent chronicler, Saulog painted “what he saw and what he believed it is.” His works, the fruits of more than 50 years of struggle, reveal a “sincere grasp of happy, unassuming farm life” and sensitivity to the various aspects of human nature in general. Contented with nature, the once acclaimed Filipino painter of the Madonnas remained conservative since it was the best means through which he could communicate. “With the influence of modern and commercial art which is easy to learn and does not even require schooling," rare are artists who can do strokes like Saulog. A survey of his works, however, "provides one a sense of gentleness, of subtlety, of simplicity and of intense national pride" - aspects that are no longer felt. It was also a time when modernists felt that a conventional painter like Saulog had no place in Philippine Art. He decided to go back to his hometown Imus at an era when modern art was gaining prominence. "Some of them had the brazen impunity of attacking Amorsolo, de la Rosa, Tolentino and other luminaries of the old school to hasten the public's acceptance of the new ‘isms’ and whose proponents and guards find it easier to wallow in the course of less resistance.” Saulog faded into oblivion after he bid the asphalt jungle farewell. In the case of Saulog, a staunch conservative, he was perceived as a victim of the so-called avant-garde greats believed to have controlled the publicity and build-up of the modernists. Those who refused to accept the new “isms” became the orthodox conservatives. With their love for distortion and abstraction, the modernists gradually pushed aside the conservatives. For a time, the modernists lord it over the conservative artists like Saulog.
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