A master of the game: Alcuaz The Magnificent
A master of the game:
Alcuaz The Magnificent
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, March 06, 1988
LONG before I had ever heard of Vitalis, long before Zobel and Medalla, there was Alcuaz - junior only to Juan Luna, and then only in years. I grew up rejecting art but hearing his name nonetheless in tizzied, rapturous prose. Alcuaz, master of the brush. Alcuaz, master of the game.
The late Leonidas V. Benesa had only praise for this painter of mythical proportions, this Federico Aguilar Alcuaz. Always reverential, always in self-effacing awe, Leo liked to tell again and again that oft-repeated tale of how the young Alcuaz and his work had spurred him into a lifetime of serious critical writing. Undisputed "Dean of Filipino Art Critics," the gritty Benesa was so moved by Alcuaz's early canvases that he wrote his first critical essay on the budding master. It was a story that had impressed me greatly. And ironically, I caught my first glimpse of Alcuaz himself at Leo's funeral in 1984.
There, a small brown man with a wispy beard and impeccable continental bearing, was this annointed "son" of Luna, inheritor of the great pioneering spirit that was Los Indios Bravos, bidding an old friend farewell. It was a striking gesture of magnanimity that I was later to learn was the hallmark of this enigmatic character behind the bravado and the almost excessive fanfare.
In a local artistic hierarchy immersed in petty politicking and one-upmanship, our best artists are often swallowed whole by the academe, or are dispersed in intramurals for administrative posts and positions of influence. Alcuaz has been the painter, pure and simple, and his unique and substantial gains both here and abroad have been paved by his brush and his suave demeanor. No "closet" politician this one, no aspiring Minister of Culture. The maestro would be almost aloof, almost beyond reach but for his timely gestures of godliness, of benevolence and a willingness to share.
The great have a responsibility to their roots, and Alcuaz has more than measured up to expectations. Donating over 50 works of art for a 1982 fund-raiser of the Ateneo de Manila University - in gratitude to the Jesuits who had secured his further studies in Spain many years before - he topped this unprecedented gesture a year later by donating another 50 paintings and 12 sizeable tapestries to the University of the Philippines where he had received his earliest training in the arts. And now, Alcuaz has donated 40 recent works to the Martin P. Bonoan Endowment Fund for the benefit of the Ateneo Scholarship Foundation, yet another landmark display of generosity that cannot but win our hearts.
Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, "El Gran Pintor Filipino," has once again proved his mettle and the stuff of which beloved historical personages are made. Alcuaz, undisputed master of the brush. Alcuaz, undisputed master of the game.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “A master of the game: Alcuaz The Magnificent” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, March 06, 1988
