Fernando Amorsolo: Rediscovering the Filipina

In art, in literature and painting most especially, the feminine ideal is something that is rationally arrived at rather than something existent and accepted. Too frequently, the artistic and social female falls slave to fad and other fleeting notions that do not really define her. Fernando Amorsolo, in portraying the Filipina in works such as Princess Urduja and Dalagang Bukid does justice to the woman by granting only forms that are inevitable or those that are really chosen by real women.

If the argument is to be backed simply by the use of colors then it would fail. True, Amorsolo does the Filipina proud by bringing out the real texture and sheen of the evenly tanned woman. But more than this, his paintings always place them in a position that dominates the canvas in their own way. Amorsolo is best known for his idealized paintings of women in the countryside and his illuminated landscapes, which often portrayed traditional Filipino customs, culture, fiestas, and occupations. His pastoral works presented and imagined sense of nationhood in counterpoint to American colonial rule and were important to the formation of Filipino national identity.

Amorsolo was educated in the classical tradition and aimed to achieve his Philippine version of teh Greek ideal for the human form. In his paintings of Filipina women, Amorsolo rejected Western ideals of beauty in favour of Filipino ideals and was fond of basing the faces of his subjects on members of his family. The typical “Amorsolo women” were brown, fair-complexioned, young, beautiful, and slender-figured.

Amorsolo’s swift handling of light so that the woman, from any given angle, often seems to get lighting from above unlike the more Western counterparts who mostly get it from under them to somehow give an embattled look. But in Amorsolo, even in a painting where the woman is indeed embattled, such as in his Defense of a Filipino Woman’s Honour, he does not let her succumb to the dark background but instead lets her shine equally as the bolo-wielding man in front of her. The technique goes even further with the use of bright colors that hint more of the rave of the ‘60s rather than classicism’s foreboding tones.

For Amorsolo, the woman is the striking half of the creative process and that her role as such should not hinder her from exploring things other than household chores. His painting philosophy emphasizes the realization that man, in his part in the creative process, brings in the destructive element while the women bring in the womb of chaos. This is seen when Amorsolo places male figures side by side with women and he does not put the men is such striking postures. Again, the man may be wielding a weapon, but near the woman it is kept low not only for pragmatic reasons but because the woman can show a strength that requires no tools at all.