The Neo Realists
The Neo-Realists
The "creation of a new reality"—this was the battle cry of the original group of painters that called themselves "Neo-Realists" —Hernando R. Ocampo (1911-1978), Ramon Estella (1911-1991), Vicente Manansala (1913-1981), Victor Oteyza (1913-1979), Cesar Legaspi (1917-1994) and Romeo Tabuena (born 1926). The Neo-Realists (who were also called "modernists" or Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) artists because they exhibited in Lyd Arguilla's "biggest little room" on Arquiza St.) desired to look at reality "with new eyes."
They soon expanded into a bigger group which included Manuel Rodriguez Sr., Nena Saguil, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Fernando Zóbel, Arturo Rogerio Luz, J. Elizalde Navarro, Jose Joya, Lee Aguinaldo and David Cortez Medalla.
To be called a "modern" or "Neo-Realist" painter then is not to re-present, depict or illustrate scenes of modern life. It is to present reality in a new way, to create it anew in such a way that the lived presence of the artist is felt in the painting itself. There is no other access to the painter except through his painting which is his expression or text.
Paradoxically again, this vivid presence is more strongly felt in modern nonfigurative or abstract painting. Nowhere are the traces of the artist more palpable than in the gestures with which he applies paint on the canvas-with a brush, a knife, a syringe, even with his bare hands. One can follow with the eye the movement and the rhythm of the artist's hands and body. It is not then surprising that H. R. Ocampo should speak of his paintings as "visual melodies" or that Lee Aguinaldo's Purple Zing on Green (1962) and Explosion No. 141 (1957) can be enjoyed as visual improvisations of jazz, perhaps even intimate the "music of the spheres."
Indeed, all modern paintings (both figurative and nonfigurative, representational and nonrepresentational) are abstract in the sense that they do not depict real objects in the world. In a more positive sense, they are abstract in that they draw out what is essential in a modern painting—the lived relationship or link of the painting to the painter's subjectivity which is expressed in painterly gestures and expressions. They present and pardon the pun—gift—us, with the "presence of an absence" of the artist, to speak like Gabriel Marcel.
The "creation of a new reality"—this was the battle cry of the original group of painters that called themselves "Neo-Realists" —Hernando R. Ocampo (1911-1978), Ramon Estella (1911-1991), Vicente Manansala (1913-1981), Victor Oteyza (1913-1979), Cesar Legaspi (1917-1994) and Romeo Tabuena (born 1926). The Neo-Realists (who were also called "modernists" or Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) artists because they exhibited in Lyd Arguilla's "biggest little room" on Arquiza St.) desired to look at reality "with new eyes."
They soon expanded into a bigger group which included Manuel Rodriguez Sr., Nena Saguil, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Fernando Zóbel, Arturo Rogerio Luz, J. Elizalde Navarro, Jose Joya, Lee Aguinaldo and David Cortez Medalla.
To be called a "modern" or "Neo-Realist" painter then is not to re-present, depict or illustrate scenes of modern life. It is to present reality in a new way, to create it anew in such a way that the lived presence of the artist is felt in the painting itself. There is no other access to the painter except through his painting which is his expression or text.
Paradoxically again, this vivid presence is more strongly felt in modern nonfigurative or abstract painting. Nowhere are the traces of the artist more palpable than in the gestures with which he applies paint on the canvas-with a brush, a knife, a syringe, even with his bare hands. One can follow with the eye the movement and the rhythm of the artist's hands and body. It is not then surprising that H. R. Ocampo should speak of his paintings as "visual melodies" or that Lee Aguinaldo's Purple Zing on Green (1962) and Explosion No. 141 (1957) can be enjoyed as visual improvisations of jazz, perhaps even intimate the "music of the spheres."
Indeed, all modern paintings (both figurative and nonfigurative, representational and nonrepresentational) are abstract in the sense that they do not depict real objects in the world. In a more positive sense, they are abstract in that they draw out what is essential in a modern painting—the lived relationship or link of the painting to the painter's subjectivity which is expressed in painterly gestures and expressions. They present and pardon the pun—gift—us, with the "presence of an absence" of the artist, to speak like Gabriel Marcel.
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