Erotic art frequently occupies the fragile borderland between revelation and restraint, between the human body’s direct physical truth and the imaginative worlds that artists construct around it. In the case of the Filipino modernist Cesar Legaspi (1917–1994), this borderland becomes not only a site of desire but a site of structure, rhythm, and psychological resonance. Legaspi’s bodies; hard-edged, segmented, luminous, move in a world where eroticism is expressed not through overt sexual display, but through the tension of surfaces, the vibration of forms, and the spiritual pulse of the colour. Though he emerged in a radically different cultural environment, one can trace a line of unexpected kinship between Legaspi and Amedeo Modigliani, whose nudes from the early twentieth century are among the most iconic in modern art. Both artists, each in his own way, cultivated a vision of sensuality that exceeded the literal and reached into archetype, rhythm, and myth.
Fig.1 Cesar Legaspi, Untitled (Nude), 1984
Fig.2 Cesar Legaspi, Untitled (Female nude), dated '82
Fig.3 Cesar Legaspi, Untitled (Reclining Nude), 1979
Fig.4 Cesar Legaspi, Nude, 1985
Luminous and Splendid
What strikes me the most about Legaspi’s nude paintings is the way he paints the skin. It is always so luminous and splendid. In the pastel seen in Fig.1. the woman’s skin is just stunning and we can see that Legaspi was a master of shading; the darker parts are orange toned while the parts where the light hits her body, such as her bosom or shoulder, is accentuated in white. In Fig.2. the skin tone is build up from richer orange and even touches of purple. Even when the entire painting is monochrome, in pink as is the case in Fig.4. or grey in Fig.5. the bodies still look so palpable, tactile and sensuous. While Degas obviously comes to mind as the master of the pastels and indeed he has many lush erotic pastel drawings, Degas did not love and adore women and their sensuality the way Modigliani did and so when I gaze at Legaspi’s paintings I feel this same love for the female form that painters such as Modigliani, Renoir and even Rubens had. This is why I am bringing the comparison.
Fig.5 Cesar Legaspi, Untitled (Female Nude), 1981
Fig.6 Cesar Legaspi, Nude, 1987, pastel
Fig.7 Cesar Legaspi, Nude, 1984
Hot Pink Nude
Still, whereas Modigliani uses the palette of flesh, earthy pinks, terracotta, creams, and occasional deep blacks, Legaspi’s colour is vibrational, often electric. Modigliani would never paint a hot pink nude as Legaspi did in Fig.4., to illustrate the point. Legaspi’s bodies are glowing from within, their surfaces fractured into planes of amber, bronze, rose, and verdigris.
You can check out the complete article in Premium with a continuation of the comparison between Legaspi's rendering of nudes and that of Modigliani.
Click HERE for an article on the depiction of courtesans in art history.
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