Lot 46: At River’s Bend

At River’s Bend

7”x 11” (18 cm x 28 cm)

oil on board

Ca.1868signed (lower right)

Provenance:Private Collection, Madrid, Spain

Lorenzo Guerrero’s ‘At River’s Bend’ is an extremely rare exampleof the Filipino master’s work. The Philippine National Museum hasonly two in its collection, one a vista of Mariquina, (wherehe followed his wife-to-be, Clemencia Ramirez, when she wasexiled by her dissatisfied father.) These works are no larger thannotepaper-size, or approximately a fourth of the work at hand.Scholar E. Arsenio Manuel, who studied the lives of notableFilipinos, wrote in The Philippine Magazine in June 1936, “Of(Guerrero’s) paintings, only a few have survived. Many were madeto order and shipped abroad.” Most of the works that were inManila, such as those listed in the collection of his son FernandoMa. Guerrero and other relatives were burnt during the Battle ofManila in February 1945.Felipe Calderon writing in the Manila newspapers (beforebecoming a lawyerly politician with Emilio Aguinaldo) would saythat Guerrero began teaching at the Manila Academia as early asage 16. Astounding as it sounds, that may be entirely so since thesecond Manila Academy opened in 1850 with 70 enrollees. Thefollowing year, Guerrero appears to have been talented enoughand sufficiently trained to join its faculty as a bit of a prodigy.According to Luciano P.R. Santiago, the Academy would supposedlypractice the racial divide, with indio students being taught by thethen-lone indio instructor, Lorenzo Guerrero.Jose Rizal, in an article on Juan Luna for the Barcelona-based“La Ilustracion” of February 1886, would describe LorenzoGuerrero as “a master virtually self-taught (un maestro que seha formado casi por sí solo.”) E. Arsenio Manuel notes that Guerrero received some schoolingby the first heads of the Academia : Enrique Nieto y Zamorafollowed by Manuel de la Cortina but “how long he came underthem could not be ascertained.” We have possibly Juan Luna’stestimony to Rizal that Guerrero’s formal training by these busymen was uneven at best.Lorenzo Guerrero nevertheless would have the honor of teachingalmost all the Filipino artists of note of his time. His most famousstudent was, of course, Juan Luna y Novicio. Jose Rizal, in the same1886 feature, would refer to Luna learning about painting natureand his first colorations from Guerrero. (He wrote,“con él estudióel natural y manejó por primera vez los colores.”)Guerrero also taught Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Fabian de la Rosa,Jorge Pineda, and even Simon Flores (who enrolled in 1857.)Also included in his roster were Felix Martinez, Telesforo Sucgang,Manuel Espiritu, and Ramon Peralta.This magnificent view could possibly be of the riverbanks of the Pasig,east of Manila — based on this photograph from the German nationalarchive in the collection of Mr. John Tewell. Again, this view of Marikinaand its environs, where Guerrero’s wife-to-be was banished by her family,would have been a familiar sight. (Clemencia’s “maternal uncle wasthen the parochial priest of Mariquina,” according to E. Arsenio Manuel.) Since Guerrero succeeded in marrying Clemecia Ramirez around 1868,we can also possibly conclude the painting dates from around this time.Two steeply-roofed thatch huts, typical of the 19th century, are in thecenter of the painting in a lush grove of bamboo and banana trees. Tworoosters patrol the yard. There is a newly-cut tree stump and a trio ofbamboo poles. Hanging outside an open window are draped blue fabric.Five posts stand in the water, forming a primitive dock where a boat maybe moored. A few yards away, in fact, is a banca with a man in a salakot(native straw hat) and wearing the red pants of a magsasaka (farmer),popularized in the Bonifacio statues of the common man. A womanstands in the water, drawing up her skirt to avoid it becoming wet,having come down roughly-hewn steps made of blocks of stone.Guerrero’s attention to detail is simply immense: In the distance, moreposts embedded in the water and a green panorama of more fruit treesand coconuts, detailed in their shapes and leaves. The work could verywell be a product of ‘plein-air’ painting, created on the spot, so manyare the minute details to be found in the work.“It is his local scenes that will be better appreciated and remembered,”said E. Arsenio Manuel. Indeed, works similar to the ones at hand wereexhibited at the St. Louis Exposition of 1904.In ‘At River’s Bend’, the water sparkles clearly while the houses arebathed in the sun’s reflections, celebrating the Philippine light thatwould inspire Fabian de La Rosa and from thence, his nephew,Fernando Amorsolo.-Lisa Guerrero Nakpil