For Sanso, a world-renowned painter who was born in Spain but made the Philippines his adoptive country, Brittany is more than a magical coast with its pink granite stones, wide shore dotted with seemingly abandoned boats, tile-roofed houses, and the occasional brightly colored lighthouse and uninterrupted horizon. 

It is not just a place to the now 94-year-old artist; it is the friendship, acceptance, and unconditional and constant support that he felt and now expressed in his Brittany series, on exhibit until Feb. 11 at Galerie Joaquin Rockwell, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, in Makati City.  

“My going to Brittany has been the result of several friendships, but principally that of the friendship with the Rouault family,” said Sanso. He named Yves le Dantec, who is married to Georges Rouault’s youngest daughter, Agnes. “Yves became a second father to me in the long run. I owe him and Agnes the long introduction to Brittany and its breathtaking beauty,” he said.

Language of landscape

Sanso narrated that for over 22 years, he would go to the Le Dantecs’ house on the coast, and “they helped me ever so gently but efficiently to feel and understand a world so different from my visual past.”  

For two years, he said, he kept staring at the sea and the changing tides, and the rose granite rocks. 

“I simply could not paint,” he recalled. “I had to digest it first and filter it. If the friendship faltered or ceased, I would have developed an inner path to Brittany. This landscape was so beautiful. I felt I did not deserve it. I had no language to express it yet.” 

And then: “Slowly it came, via the littlest color-ink sketches done very fast. I love them now! Year after year, my friends seconded me in every possible way. We eventually came to a simple program. After breakfast, Yves would take me to the rocks and pick me up at six in the evening, day after day.  Whenever the tricky weather of Brittany came, when showers or storms exploded from nowhere, yes, he would come and fetch me to ensure that my wet acrylic paintings would not be spoiled.”

Scars of war

Brittany is the human experience that nurtured Sanso and allowed him to expunge his war trauma. His profile on his website reads: “The war years left scars on the sensitive artist’s soul. From his idyllic childhood in Manila, he experienced privations and came upon the ruins of his beloved city devastated by bombs.”

Said Sanso: “I had a very traumatic experience as a result of the war. Our fortunes were destroyed, my family had to flee back and forth between Montalban and Sta. Ana, and I myself suffered severe injuries when an artillery shell blasted through our house during the liberation. I’m still deaf in one ear because of that.”

During the artist’s “Black Period,” according to the profile on his website, he painted exclusively in black and white “with gruesome imagery and hideously deformed beggars.” 

“The angst-filled grotesqueries of his Black Period of surreal bouquets of faces and heads were eventually replaced by genuine blooms in the most striking shades of red, green, orange and blue. His catharsis came in the mid-’50s when he spent summers vacationing in the Brittany coast with the Le Dantec family, a lifelong friendship that was a balm to his soul.” 

“Brittany was a long beautiful period of slowly getting away from my early neurosis and the effects of war,” Sanso said. “There was no concept in this case, it was simply the beauty of Brittany, brought about by the human situation of having the friendship of the Le Dantecs…” 

Sanso’s Brittany is thus a gift of gratitude to the Le Dantec family that embraced him as a member for 24 years.  It is not always a faithful copy of the Brittany coast, but is always the inner landscape of his heart.

Multifaceted artist

In his profile, Sanso is described as a multifaceted artist, painting in oils, watercolor, acrylic and ink and dry brush, and producing fine etchings in a very dynamic, strong-lined style. “He has also distinguished himself in textile design, printmaking and photography, as well as designed sets and costumes for several operas in France and in the Philippines,” it said. 

After the war, Sanso’s father enrolled him as a special student at the University of the Philippines’ then School of Fine Arts, where he learned from the masters Fernando Amorsolo, Dominador Castaneda and Ireneo Miranda. He also took special classes at the University of Santo Tomas.

Sanso held his first one-man show in Paris and came back to Manila in 1957 for his first local one-man show at the Philippine Art Gallery. Later, he traveled extensively and held solo exhibitions in Italy, the United States, England and Mexico.

After 50 years of living in Paris, Sanso decided to come home in 2008 and stay permanently in Manila. He still maintains a studio in Spain and in Iran.

Evolution

In the ongoing exhibition of 45 works, Sanso’s Brittany has evolved in the course of over five decades. The poetic juxtaposition of rocks, sea, and sky shows in the changes in color palette, as well as the selection of close- or far-range views. 

We would see plein air sketches in the innermost section, represented by 12 artworks taken from one of his 1960s sketchbooks which he himself classified as “AA” (“really good”)—studies on the effects of light and wind on water and waves crashing or flowing over rocks.  

Then there are interludes of some larger, more developed, and more-or-less imaginary emerald landscapes that combine rock and sea, as seen from afar. A few works representative of the more popular late ’70s to ’80s olive-and-brown “Brittany Series” which zoom in on waves splashing over rocks are also present. These are followed by works from the ’90s that combine yellow and green rocks with vegetation backgrounded by a sky-blue sea.  

Lastly, there are works from the late ’90s to the 2000s that are predominantly orange canvas works, which carry over the yellowish rocks and light blue sea but foregrounded by a grand orange sky near the entrance of the gallery.

“I had no message to deliver to the world, nor did I have any preconceived ideas.  In Brittany, I was simply living my painting, and painting my life,” Sanso said.

Ricky Francisco is the director of Fundacion Sanso. —Ed.

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The 36-year wait for Argentina is finally over as the most coveted 18-carat gold trophy in the world of football is again in the hands of the Albicelestes after winning a nail-biting 4-2 penalty shootout against reigning champion France on Sunday night (Monday morning in the Philippines) at the Lusail Iconic Stadium in Qatar.

Only two World Cup Final matches were decided on a penalty shootout. Brazil won 4-2 after a scoreless draw with Italy in 1994, and so did Italy, 5-3, after a 1-1 tie with France.

For the Lionel Scaloni-coached Argentinian team, the win gave Argentina its third World Cup title (1978 and 1986) while repaying their captain, Lionel Messi, for everything he has given to the game.

For Messi, playing in his fifth World Cup, this Final match would be remembered as the moment when the stars aligned for the 35-year-old forward for him to clinch the one prize that had eluded him in one of the most storied careers in football history.

Related : World Cup: Argentina in final as Messi’s last-dance dream stays alive

It wasn’t an easy win for Messi and Argentina though, as young French superstar Kylian Mbappe kept on pulling his team back from the brink of defeat three times—converting a penalty shot in the 80th minute to cut Argentina’s lead to one, rifling the ball into the net a minute later to even the score at 2-2, and converting another penalty on the 118th minute to again even the score, 3-3, before the extra time ended.

Hat trick not enough

But Mbappe’s hat trick (the second player to do so in World Cup Final history) wasn’t enough as his French squad faltered in the shootout. Only Mbappe and Randal Kolo Muani were able to pass through Emiliano Martinez, the maverick Argentine goalkeeper and World Cup 2022’s best goalkeeper.

Argentina remained perfect in the penalty shootout as Messi, Paulo Dybala, Leandro Parades, and Gonzalo Montiel blanked French goalkeeper Hugo Loris.

Messi, playing in what could be his last Word Cup, responded to the adulation as he converted Argentina’s first goal, a penalty kick in the 23rd minute and another one in the 108th minute, a close range right-footer, to top France, 3-2.

The French team looked lifeless during the first 79 minutes of the game—the Les Bleus haven’t made any meaningful shot on goal—so French coach Didier Deschamps tried to reignite his team by making substitutions in the 41st minute (pulling out Dembele and Olivier Giroud) and in the 71st minute (inserting Eduardo Camavinga and Kingsley Coman).

With the fresh legs of Randal Kolo Muani, Marcus Thuram, Eduardo Camavinga and Kingsley Roman, the French side had their first sign of life when Muani was fouled in the penalty area in the 80th minute. A minute later, Mbappe, assisted by Thuram, again right-footed a shot that sailed to the bottom right corner of the net to even the game, 2-2.

Messi and Argentina thought they had the game in the 108th minute as they led 3-2, but another foul committed in the 118th minute led to Mbappe’s penalty kick to tie the score for the last time.

Argentina had already experienced the scary prospect of surviving a penalty shootout when they edged the Netherlands in the quarterfinals, 4-3, after finishing the game at 2-2.

Messi, in one of his pre-Final interviews, said: “People have understood that this is something we have to enjoy. We did extraordinary things: the Copa América, the 36 games unbeaten, a World Cup Final. Obviously, we all want to win it but it’s a football match and anything can happen. Hopefully, this will be different to Brazil [in 2014, when Argentina lost against Germany]. I don’t know if this is my best World Cup, but I’ve been enjoying it since we got here.”

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Later, there was also a sampaloc tree. My friend and I decided to plant seeds of the sweet tamarind we were eating one lazy day in May. Mine grew into a tree and from then on, I became my mother’s designated planter because, she said, my hands were “light” (magaan ang kamay mo). 

Today, I’m fortunate to have a small garden. I guess it started to be mine when I moved to France in 2005. But I didn’t fall in love immediately. I’d always loved nature—beaches, trees, flowers—which I thought was simply normal, but I had no deep connection with a perfect garden of the past to make me jump at the opportunity of restoring one. 

Death and resurrection

With no fictional secret garden in mind and certainly no skill, and confronted by many other pressing things that needed my attention in those first few years of my not-yet-French life, the garden was mostly there to put on the show of the four seasons’ death-and-resurrection cycles.

The Virginia creeper, especially its gorgeous fall foliage, has always been the star. As the leaves fall on their beautiful deaths, its deep-blue, berry-like fruits also develop and ripen, already hinting at rebirth. Then, winter darkness. Not so soon enough, delicate snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis, literally meaning “milk flower of the snow”) will poke their heads through the leaves announcing the end of winter. Bright-yellow primroses grow under the winter debris, too. And then the sweetly scented lily of the valley comes back year after year in spring, like a nodding reward for my patience in the winter months.

There were “lessons” to be had and the garden was slowly deepening its power on me for sure. But from the start I had miniscule knowledge about gardening. I just knew I had a garden now and I wanted to take care of it. My husband Claude and I sought help and, together with a gardener, decided which plants to get and where to plant them. I remember I wanted Mexican orange blossoms because the pure, white scented flowers reminded me of the sampaguita. 

After the gardener’s foundational work, we did light gardening—weeding, watering, deadheading. In spring, we’d buy annuals that caught our attention—impatiens, pansies, petunias, snapdragons, begonias, cosmos, marigolds. These annuals have become regulars in our garden along with the profusion of pinks and reds and violets of geraniums and hydrangeas from late spring to early autumn. 

Related: How to survive… (II): Setting up an urban kitchen garden

Hardy, generous, inexplicable-beautiful

I have much love to give and my hands may be light, but I’ve no illusions when it comes to gardening. I plant what does well in my garden. I’ve had to deal with tricky, damp, shady parts. I don’t think I have any plant that needs serious looking after. My plants are hardy and generous and, in some cases, impossible to kill. My Mexican orange blossom (choisya ternate) is a fabulously fragrant, dense shrub that looks good all year round. It needs just a little pruning and is virtually disease-free. Tough heathers are also low-maintenance and not afraid of cold weather. 

I wish I had known sooner about the inexplicable-beautiful astilbes (also known as false goat’s beard) because they were exactly what I needed in that shady part of my garden. Their elegant plumes of feathery, fluffy flowers last for weeks. Hosta plantaginea is another shade-tolerant plant. When it rains a lot, it produces lush, fat leaves and towering, fragrant lilies. Hosta la vista! 

In late summer or early autumn, just when other plants are dying down, Japanese anemones will seem as though they’re floating delicately. They’re easy and can survive minimal care once they’re established. Eye-catching nasturtium thrives on poor soil, is fast-climbing and, best of all, edible. 

Classic and timeless

I couldn’t resist the most classic and timeless of garden plants, the roses, and I’ve had climbing ones and in different colors and intensity of fragrance. The most recent variety (rosier fox trot) stuns admirers with its strong fragrance and ornate blooms in clusters. 

In 2020, while everyone was gripped in anxiety during the bleak and frightening pandemic times, my garden was flourishing. There was no secret. The garden thrived because I was there and I gave it full attention. Claude and I planted, not just flowers but also herbs, some vegetables and fruits. There were tomatoes (there are no sweeter tomatoes than the ones you grow in your own garden), cucumbers, bell peppers, chili peppers, melons (epic fail, this one, though) and strawberries. There were basil (four kinds!), rosemary, chervil, thyme, mint, parsley, dill and coriander. We didn’t have the space for all that so we bought planters. My garden did its best; the plants gave their all. 

I was learning from the garden, from reading up and from Instagram posts of fellow gardeners sharing stories of their own paradises. (Marigolds are good company for tomatoes, hashtag companionplanting) There was something moving about seeing plants sprout, forging their way through. They always seemed to find their way! When I started feeling weary, thinking that life just didn’t make sense (usually after the morning news!), I’d go out to the garden and just be there. I was welcomed to the spectacle of optimism and audacity of plants, as opposed to the relentlessness of our life in those days.

Absorbed and engaged 

Writer and gardener Olivia Laing says she’s never found an activity as soothing or as wholly absorbing as gardening. It’s the same for me. I’m fully engaged and in the moment in my garden. I can very easily just let it flow. Right now, I’m watering the cosmos in vivid bloom. Right now, a lizard is eating a strawberry. Right now, a white butterfly is hovering about the summer lilac; now, the lavender. I’m getting some mulch for the planter. I’m replenishing the bird feeder. 

Just this scene. Just this task. I’m the right plant in the right place.

I still think about my mother, who insisted on having plants and trees in a space she couldn’t even call her garden. I often think about how real my own little garden is, how real its companionship is. I step into my garden in my pajamas or in a two-piece, and I am not judged. I take a deep bow of gratitude—“Santé!”—to my garden, late-blooming joy and ongoing cheer.  

Patricia Corre taught subjects in English, literature and communication arts in several institutions in Manila before moving to France in 2005. She lives in a small village in Val d’Oise, in the Paris region. —Ed.

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