Fontainebleau, August 1937

“Fontainebleau, August 1937”: A Paul Gauguin Influence in the Artistic and Historic Life of Victorio Edades

Dennis Mauricio

The strong Modernist Gauguin influence on Edades is very evident in “Fontainebleau, August 1937”.

The Father of Modern Art in the Philippines and National Artist Victorio Edades (1895-1985) was first exposed to the Modernist painters, particularly Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), at the travelling exhibition of paintings from the New York Armory Hall during his studies in the United States.

Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist and a prominent painter of Symbolism, Cloissonnism and Primitivism.

Symbolism in art is revival of mystical tendencies. The symbolist painters used dream imagery.

In this painting, Edades has shown us the viewers his understanding of what the contemplative fair-skinned woman has in her mind. He painted her dreams of a tropical home giving her shelter in the temperate climate of France. We see those Philippine huts have mystically appeared in the hilly Fontainebleau forest landscape.

Cloissonists painted solid, flat, single colors separated by dark contours and borders.

Edades applied his earth-tone colors so well on the landscape and houses, on the pot, and especially on the woman figure. He was faithful in this modernist technique of separation and discontinuity of colors to convey the sense of depth among the objects in the painting.

In the latter part of the 19th century, Primativism arrived in Europe. The cultural elite discovered the art of Africa and the South Seas. The power and boldness in the art of these far-away places were depicted as exaggerated bodily proportions and shapes.

Just like Gauguin’s Polynesian women, Edades empowered the Philippine woman in this painting with those strong arms holding firm the water jug, and with a serious and willful face. This may also represent how Edades thought of the Filipina of the time: strong, willful.

All of these wonderful points were made to come to life by our National Artist despite its watercolor medium. Edades went to the “Fondation Des Ecoles D’Art Americaines De Fontainebleau” in the summer of 1937 to obtain his degree in watercolor painting under Emile Deschiers, his degree in fresco painting under R. La Montagne Saint Hubert, and his degree in architecture under Jacques Carlu, Jean Labatut and J.P. Tronchard .

Aside from being a beautiful painting, this Edades is a very important historic work of art documenting a period in his life and artistic evolution.

The painting is signed with his full last name at the right lower corner. Under his name are the words “Fontainebleau Aug. 1937″. Scattered in the painting are the three finely penciled numbers “2, 10 and 11”. This numbered coloring scheme was evident in his other watercolor paintings.

Discovered recently on the back of the painting during its conservation and preservation were French to English word translations of colors written in pencil.

The painting came from an American family in California with some Philippine family ties. It had a very simple cedar frame and a faded maroon matting. It was curiously varnished over. It was perhaps an attempt to protect it.

“Fontainebleau, August 1937” is now part of a Filipino family art collection in New York, USA. It was recently presented this summer to the great people of the Edades Projects in the Philippines.