Prismatic Waterscapes

Essay 14. PRISMATIC WATERSCAPES

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Ponciano Zapanta took up Architecture at the National University, but left the school without graduating. His not being able to finish Architecture led him into a career in the graphic arts instead and later on into serious painting. Zapanta's first job (or business I should say) was as silkscreen printer--- which paid well according to him. He related that he was able to buy land from the earnings of his silkscreen business. 

Zapanta later on worked as graphic artist in Jeddah and China. It was in Jeddah where Zapanta rediscovered his love for painting when he joined and garnered third place in the First Saudia Open Competition for Heritage and Culture in 1992. He was a finalist in the second edition of the contest in 1994. In 2015, he joined the GSIS painting competition, where he was again a finalist. 

But it seems that Zapanta's talent isn't limited to the visual arts: he was also a poet who once won a gold medal from the Knights of Rizal for his poetry.

A native of Taytay, Rizal, Ponciano Zapanta is very active in the art scene there. He is a long time member of the Group Artists of Taytay (GAT)---serving as its president in 1996, and director from 1997 to the present. He was also a member of the Pinta Pilipino Artists Group and subsequently of the Kulay Pinoy in Jeddah. 

His influences are varied. He likes the Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist Alphonse Mucha, the classical realist Godofredo Zapanta, and the cubist Vicente Manansala: three artists who espoused three very different art styles. Although Godofredo Zapanta, a cousin, was his mentor once, it was to Manansala's transparent cubism style that he eventually gravitated.

Taytay, like Angono and Binangonan are lakeshore towns. They are situated along the eastern edge of Laguna de Bay. National Artists for the Visual Arts Carlos Francisco and Vicente Manansala hail from Angono and Binangonan respectively. They were the ones who made the artists from both places proud. Who wouldn't be? Those two masters belong to my list of the three greatest Filipino painters of all time, which Botong topped.

Laguna de Bay loomed large in the oeuvre of those two masters. The lake, it's bounty, and the cyclical routines of the people living along it was depicted time and again as main subjects or backdrops in their works. The lakeshore artists are a blessed lot, both in having Botong Francisco and Enteng Manansala as the art trailblazers they could look up to, and also in living in close proximity to the lake which is an endless source of subject matter, of inspiration.

Zapanta is one of those blessed ones. Laguna de Bay inspires him so. His two lovely paintings for the "Krusada sa Kalikasan" exhibit are prime examples of the effect the lake had on him. These paintings "Fishermen's Border Line" and "Tatsulok: Kapitalista ang nasa Tuktok, Mangingisda ang nasa Sulok" are depictions of the lake with its baklads and fishermen's huts. Both showed the unmistakable influence on him of the transparent cubism style pioneered by Manansala. 

I have written before that there was a dissimilarity with Manansala's and Zapanta's brands of Cubism. I said that while Manansala featured many human figures in his works which he segmented into transparent planes of contrasting gradations, Zapanta looks as though he's focused solely on painting waterscapes, on sceneries and views sans human figures. 

I was wrong, because although he exhibited only two waterscapes in the Krusada sa Kalikasan show, Zapanta, unknown to me then, had also done paintings with the human figure as focal point. He showed me, when I requested it, his painting of a woman amidst her plants, and I guess I can gauge from this painting the approximate depth of Manansala's influence on him.

Zapanta belongs to Manansala's school of transparent cubism, all right. His use of prisms or transparent triangular planes juxtaposed all over his pictures would mark him as such. But I noticed a common strain in his works, both in the figurative and in the waterscapes, which is in marked contrast to Maestro Enteng's works. Zapanta's and Manansala's works differ in their coloration or choice of palette. While Manansala was not averse to using his colors in their full intensity, I've observed that Zapanta seems to hold back and prefers to use pastelly tones. Also, Maestro Enteng's human figures are more angular and their triangular segmentations more marked.

Zapanta chose wisely when he picked transparent cubism as his artistic style. He is in august company. Because the cubists, like Ang Kiukok, Mauro Malang Santos, Angelito Antonio, Hugo Yonzon, Manny Baldemor, Romeo Gutierrez, and Franklin Caña Valencia, are among the biggest names in the Philippine art scene, both today and in the recent past.

Zapanta's wife, Janita San Juan, is a public school teacher. They have two sons, twins, who aside from being both computer experts are also into painting. Zapanta still lives in Taytay with his family, where he spends most of his time painting.

---2016