March 12 - 23,  2009
Mandarin Oriental Suites
4th Floor, Gateway Mall Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City,  Philippines

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Reflecting on the art of Betsy Westendorp Brias, it is irresistible to allude to her Dutch ancestry (her father’s family migrated from the Netherlands to Spain), and therefore the few women artists from ancient Holland, whose fierce artistic independence allowed them to create their own private visions despite the demands of domesticity. Interestingly, three women Dutch painters, namely Maria von Oosterwyck (1630-1693), Clara Peeters (1594-c.1657) and Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) were excellent flower painters who included their self-portraits in their floral still lifes. How could one interpret such a practice? Was this a form of vanity? Ironically it harps on the Latin word vanitas, another term for still life paintings which, featuring symbolic objects such as skulls, hourglasses, mirrors, butterflies and flowers, suggest the mortal nature of man. 

More interestingly during the last years of her life, Rusych, not content with painting her self-portrait on her works, took to writing her age, 83, on her canvases on the year of her works’ creation. 

While never vain about her age, Westendorp, who at the present age of 81, continues to paint with as much passion and energy as she did decades ago. In the perfection of one’s art, an artist’s allotted time on earth is hardly a fleeting moment in the face of eternity. One recalls the words of the 19^th century artist Katsushika Hokusai, who prefigures such rare humility. 

“I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures which I thought fairly good when I was 50, but really nothing I did before the age of 70 was of any value at all. 

At 73, I have at least caught every aspect of nature – birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, etc. 

When I am 80, I shall have developed still further and will really master the secrets of art at 90. 

When I reach 100, my art will be truly sublime and my final goal will be attained around the age of 110, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life.” 

Like the other masters of Philippine art -- National Artist Arturo Luz, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Malang, Juvenal Sanso -- who are all in the autumn of their long lives, the octogenarian Westendorp, a Filipino by marriage to the late businessman Antonio Brias, continues to challenge her own aesthetic achievements. By her own admission, in one interview, Westendorp confides, “My greatest reward is working.” 

While a great many floral still lifes have been created from the golden age of Dutch flower painting in the 17^th century to the Renaissance in the floral works of the Impressionists in the 19^th century, the most significant distinction lies between those flowers cut from their natural, brought indoors and arranged in abundance, overflowing vases, baskets and bowls, and those flowers blooming in the bounty of nature, nestled by the very landscape that gave existence to them. 

Most of Westendorp’s floral paintings subscribe to this pastoral depiction of nature. Not only are the flowers depicted in the natural cycle of the seasons but also the atmosphere of the environment. In this regard, Westendorp follows the footsteps of the greatest Impressionist Claude Monet. Indeed, the delightful appreciation of Westendorp’s landscapes and floral paintings can be gleaned from the works of Monet himself. “I know only that I do what I think best to express what I experience in front of nature…My only virtue is to have painted directly in front of nature while trying to render the impressions made on me by the most fleeting effects.” 

Whether consciously or not, Westendorp now displays in her “Reflections” show, the canonical trademarks of Impressionism – the flecks of multi-colored pigments transforming into a vibrant and rhythmical surface, itself dissolving into a misty atmosphere. 

In Westendorp’s large body of floral works, the viewer is plunged headlong into the pleasure and ecstasy of flower painting, as though one had been turned into a voluptuary of nature in all her beauty. With what thrilling ebullience does Westendorp transform barks of hydrangeas, plump in their spherical shapes and lush with their multitude of whorled petals, into a lavish feast subtly modulated colors. Called the “milflores” for their thousand blooms, the hydrangeas provide the artist with a subject with which she can animate and elaborate space. In these flower paintings, nature herself has provided the perfect massing of clustered petals. All that these images needed were the discerning eyes of Westendorp, in order to place them in the exact immediacy of viewer’s glance. How insightful then were the words of one French critic, a contemporary of Monet, to have declared, “the hatred of some position is the characteristic sign of Impressionism; it rejects all intellectual and subjective organization, and will accept only the free arrangements of nature.” Certainly, Westendorp knows better than to intrude into nature’s own spatial harmonies, but still, it is the artist’s controlling eye that will isolate or frame her chosen viewpoint.  

While the hydrangeas provided Westendorp with the richness of foliage, it is the orchid -- with its wild delicacy -- that has become the starting point for a Westendorp trademark style: the cascading motion of a sloping directional movement. These orchidaceous ensemble of crisply applied violet colors merge into a fusion with the open space that renders these hues more luminous. It is as if Westendorp had obeyed Monet’s admonition: “Paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives its own impression of the scene before you.” Thus the orchid paintings depict a descending shower of petals, studded with a stream of white pigments, with a flourish of brushstrokes that seize the delightful tints of greens, oranges, creams, pinks, lilacs and mauves. Seen against a clear, blue sky that filters through the interstices of frail stems, one senses a gentle breeze that tenderly caresses the scene. 

Throughout the centuries, flower painting has obsessed many artists. Westendorp is no exception. As the French artist Renoir told his friend: “Painting flowers is a form of mental relaxation. I do not need this concentration that I need when I am faced with a model. When I am painting flowers I can experiment boldly with tones and values without worrying about destroying the whole painting.” 

On his deathbed, J.M.W. Turner, the greatest artist Britain has produced, was recorded as having said: “The sun is god.” In his canvases, landscapes turned into a sublime experience. For sheer atmospheric breadth, Turner’s works had no equal, inspiring generations of artists who sought inspiration in his miraculous handling of light. Awesome and overwhelming, nature showed its divine reflection on sea and land. A critic described his works as “tours de force that show how nearly the gross materials of the palette can be made to emulate the source of light…”  

In like manner, Westendorp herself captures the sun’s majesty. That the artist has devoted numerous canvases reflecting the Philippine sun through her penthouse studio facing the wide expanse of Manila Bay is inestimable honor. In these so-called solarscapes -- or atmosferigrafias -- the Philippine sun is a pulsating presence, peering gloriously and pervasively through masses of clouds, flooding the sea with an almost blinding brilliance, sweeping the water surface with glaring intensity. In some canvases, the viewer can still see a glimmer of the horizon, linking sea and sky, in a fierce fusion of reflected hues -- bright blues tinged with salmons and a mist of orange brilliance. The shimmering sea seems as if inflamed by heat haze. 

In many canvases, Westendorp gives full vent to an atmospheric interplay of blues, whites and oranges, playing off against each other, reducing the image into sheer abstraction, dissolving the curling cloud forms into a virtual blaze of colors. It is in these canvases of sensitively observed sunlight that Westendorp is most Turner-esque. Contours of forms have given way to a softened passage of colors and tones. Viewed from a distance, these solarscapes nonetheless speak of her intimate relationship with nature. Again, Monet: “My only virtue is to have painted directly in front of nature, while trying to render my impressions in front of the most fugitive effects.”  

Arguably, Westendorp is better known for her portraits of royalty and nobility. Illustrious personages and celebrities from various fields have also found their elegant likeness in her numerous canvases. Family member and friends, of course, have been “captured” for their portraits. In Westendorp’s art of portraiture, not only the verisimilitude of usage but, most importantly, that elusive character, became central to the whole endeavor. Mostly the subject is portrayed against a vast and empty space, where he or she radiates from the center of the void. Westendorp strives to capture the depth of expression – the soul – of the subject. There is psychological communication between artist and sitter. No wonder portraiture has been defined as “visual biography”. 

But of what interest to us are the portraits of other people whom we don’t ever personally known? The British art critic Alistair Smith responds, “When we examine the sitter, we will ourselves to understand his thoughts and experience his emotions, so that we almost ‘feel’ them. In fact, our minds and feelings are altered by the portrayed person – for a moment he seems to dominate us, to be more alive than we.” 

Westendorp creates portraits where the viewer is animated by the sheer existence of the individual portrayed. Beyond preserving the image of a person after death, Westendorp portraits are a reminder of the inevitable passage of life and the imperative need to celebrate the present.