Rice Planting

{ March 11, 2008 @ 6:13 pm } · { Painting }

By Joyce Placino

True Philippine culture, this is the theme that composes most of Fernando Amorsolo’s artworks. Rice planting
is among those that depicts the real Filipino tradition that is still applicable until the present time.

The painting is set on a rice field wherein farmers, regardless of their gender, are on with their usual work under
a bright sunny day. It’s visual weight is light because the colors used were mostly pastel in nature. No dark
colors were used to produce a feeling of calm and peace. Even though rice planting is definitely hard work, the
painting made it look like a simple work and fine day to be out.

It was an ideal picture of provincial life like most of his paintings. The particular genre that was used is realism.
He painted the details as to how it might look like in real life. However, faces of the farmers were not vividly
detailed because their Buri hats covered them. Supposing that the sun was on its peak in that picture.

Amorsolo’s trademark were the backlighting technique and the Filipino tradition themes. In rice planting, the
backlighting technique manifested wherein figures are outlined against a characteristic glow, and intense light
on one part of the canvas highlights nearby details. Sunlight is a consistent element in Amorsolo’s works. Brush
strokes were smooth which emphasizes the serene feel intended by the artist.

Fernando Cuerto Amorsolo is the very first painter to be given the recognition as the country’s national artist.
His work titled “Rice PLanting” which was made in 1922 was one of his most famous works. This was when
the Philippines was under the American colonial rule and it is impressive that Amorsolo consistently painted
pictures reflecting the true Filipino soul despite the colonization. Although, critics have been claiming that
Amorsolo did these to serve as souvenirs to the Americans not withstanding the fact that “Rice planting”
became so popular that time that it was used in calendars, brochures etc.

Critics were also claiming that Amorsolo’s works have no deep meanings. There is nothing to appreciate aside
from how it was made. But, still Amorsolo was the proponent artist to promote the impression of the Filipino
identity on canvass.

Saturday Volcano Art: Fernando Amorsolo, ‘Planting Rice with

Mayon Volcano’ (1949)
The painter Fernando Amorsolo (1892-1972) was a dominant figure in the visual arts of the Philippines during
the decades before the Second World War and into the post-war period. His oeuvre is characterized by scenes of
the Filipino countryside, harmoniously composed and richly coloured, saturated with bright sunlight and
populated by beautiful, happy people: it is an art of beauty, contentment, peace and plenty – which perhaps
explains its enduring popularity in the Philippines to this day.

Amorsolo was committed to two fundamental ideas in his art: first, a classical notion of idealism, in which
artistic truth was found through harmony, balance and beauty, and second a conservative concept of Filipino
national character as rooted in rural communities and the cycles of village life. The two come together in
pastoral scenes such as ‘Planting Rice with Mayon Volcano’, painted in 1949. Here, happy Filipino villagers in
their bright clothes and straw hats work together amid a green and sunlit landscape of plenty. Behind them,
releasing a peaceful plume of steam, rises the beautifully symmetrical cone of Mayon stratovolcano. It is the ash
erupted by the volcano over its highly-active history that has made the surrounding landscape fertile, and the
tranquil cone appears here to be a beneficial spirit of the earth standing guardian over the villagers and their
crops. Mayon’s eruptions can be very destructive (as in the violent eruption of 1947, not long before this picture
was painted, when pyroclastic flows and lahars brought widespread destruction and fatalities) but here the
relationship between the volcano and the surrounding landscape is depicted as a positive, fruitful and
harmonious one. Mayon is a celebrated symbol of the Philippines, and its presence in Amorsolo’s painting
emphasizes his wish to represent the spirit of the nation on canvas.

‘Planting Rice with Mayon Volcano’ is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.

For all ‘Saturday volcano art’ articles: Saturday volcano art « The Volcanism Blog.
Further reading

Fernando C. Amorsolo Art Foundation

Fernando Amorsolo works at Frazer Fine Arts
The National Artists of the Philippines: Fernando C. Amorsolo
Alice G. Guillermo, Image to Meaning: Essays on Philippine Art (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2001)
Paul A. Rodell, Culture and Customs of the Philippines (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002)

The Mona Lisa - by Leonardo Da Vinci

Mona Lisa, also known as La Gioconda, is the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. This painting is painted as oil
on wood. The original painting size is 77 x 53 cm (30 x 20 7/8 in) and is owned by by the Government of
France and is on the wall in the Louvre in Paris, France.

This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous
landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The
Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame.

The Mona Lisa's famous smile represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches represent Ginevra
Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Washington and Krakow respectively. It
is a visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word "gioconda" in Italian. Leonardo made
this notion of happiness the central motif of the portrait: it is this notion which makes the work such an ideal.
The nature of the landscape also plays a role. The middle distance, on the same level as the sitter's chest, is in
warm colors. Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a bridge. This space represents the transition
between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where the landscape becomes a wild and uninhabited space
of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, which Leonardo has cleverly drawn at the level of the sitter's
eyes.

The painting was among the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape and Leonardo was
one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to
be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains.
Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. The sensuous curves
of the woman's hair and clothing, created through sfumato, are echoed in the undulating imaginary valleys and
rivers behind her. The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling
of calm are characteristic of da Vinci's style. Due to the expressive synthesis that da Vinci achieved between
sitter and landscape it is arguable whether Mona Lisa should be considered as a traditional portrait, for it
represents an ideal rather than a real woman. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting especially
apparent in the sitter's faint smile reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature.

In the Renaissance which brought together all human activities, art meant science, art meant truth to life:
Leonardo da Vinci was a great figure because he embodied the epic endeavour of Italian art to conquer
universal values: he who combined within himself the fluctuating sensitivity of the artist and the deep wisdom
of the scientist, he, the poet and the master.

In his Mona Lisa, the individual, a sort of miraculous creation of nature, represents at the same time the
species: the portrait goes beyond its social limitations and acquires a universal meaning. Although Leonardo
worked on this picture as a scholar and thinker, not only as a painter and poet, the scientific and philosophical
aspects of his research inspired no following. But the formal aspect - the new presentation, the nobler attitude
and the increased dignity of the model - had a decisive influence over Florentine portraits of the next twenty
years, over the classical portrait. With his Mona Lisa, Leonardo created a new formula, at the same time more
monumental and more lively, more concrete and yet more poetic than that of his predecessors. Before him,
portraits had lacked mystery; artists only represented outward appearances without any soul, or, if they showed
the soul, they tried to express it through gestures, symbolic objects or inscriptions. The Mona Lisa alone is a
living enigma: the soul is there, but inaccessible.

10 Facts You Might not Know about the Masterpiece

1. She lived with Francois I, Louis XIV and Napoleon
Although da Vinci began work on his masterpiece while living in his native Italy, he did not finish it until he
moved to France at King Francois I's request. The French king displayed the painting in his Fontainebleau
palace where it remained for a century. Louis XIV removed it to the grand Palace of Versailles. At the outset of
the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte kept the painting in his boudoir.

2. It is a painting but not a canvas.

Da Vinci's famous masterpiece is painted on a poplar plank. Considering he was accustomed to painting larger
works on wet plaster, a wood plank does not seem that outlandish. Canvas was available to artists since the 14th
century, but many Renaissance masters preferred wood as a basis for their small artworks.

3. She has her own room in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

After the Louvre launched a four-year, $6.3 million renovation in 2003, the painting now has its own room. A
glass ceiling lets in natural light, a shatter-proof glass display case maintains a controlled temperature of 43
degrees F. and a little spotlight brings out the true colors of da Vinci's original paints.

4. The eyes have it.

People have come up with all sorts of theories about the painting, some educated and some downright silly. In
2010, members of the Italian National Committee for Cultural Heritage announced that microscopic scrutiny of
the work had revealed new discoveries. In the madonna's right eye, the artist's initials L.V. appear.

5. Jackie Kennedy invited her to visit.

Over the centuries, French officials have only rarely let the painting out of their sight. However, when first lady
Jackie Kennedy asked if the painting could visit the U.S., French President de Gaulle agreed. "Mona Lisa" went
on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and then at the Metropolitan Museum of the Arts
in New York City.

6. A thief made her famous.

Although in the art world, the painting had always been an acknowledged masterpiece, it wasn't until it was
stolen in the summer of 1911 that it would capture the attention of the general public. Newspapers spread the
story of the crime worldwide. When the painting finally returned to the Louvre two years later, practically the
whole world was cheering.

7. Picasso was under suspicion for the theft. During the investigation, the gendarmes went so far as to
question known art dissidents such as Pablo Picasso about the theft. They briefly arrested poet Guillaume
Apollinaire, who had once said the painting should be burned. Their suspicions proved to be unfounded.

8. She receives fan mail.

Since the painting first arrived at the Louvre in 1815, "Mona Lisa" has received plenty of love letters and
flowers from admirers. She even has her own mailbox.

9. Not everyone is a fan.

Various vandals have tried to harm da Vinci's famed masterpiece, and 1956 was a particularly bad year. In two
separate attacks, one person threw acid at the painting, and another individual pelted it with a rock. The damage
is faint but still noticeable. The addition of bulletproof glass repelled subsequent attacks with spray paint in
1974 and a coffee cup in 2009.

10. She cannot be bought or sold.

Truly priceless, the painting cannot be bought or sold according to French heritage law. As part of the Louvre
collection, "Mona Lisa" belongs to the public, and by popular agreement, their hearts belong to her.