Art’s truth is: by the time the artist is 20, his vision is formed. There, these tendencies rule: to be apodictic, to be autarkic, to have autarchy—translated, for his vision to be necessarily true, self-sufficient, he must have absolute power over his vision!

This truth truthfully revealed itself in the early telling canvasses of Pablo Baens-Santos. In 1979, I wrote about their being “Sty In The Eye Of Society,” captivated by the sly shy sensitive slashes of the greenhorn artist at the whole social fabric. The intellectual baptized it “social realism,” not realizing that art by itself is already socially relevant and realistic (tiresome shibboleths). The artist’s act of creation is by itself a criticism of society. Which has nothing like “the social stench of the barungbarong”, popular petty “booboisie” jingoism of our time. Quite a number of artists painted this jingoism that only showed lack of vision and no imagination. Not Baens-Santos. He already showcased then the first glimmerings of his vision: an original, personal idiom all his own.

Now today, his vision matured.  He paints  outstanding paintings like “Baboons”, “Babae2”, “Kalinga3”, “Pork Cong2”, “Kahubdan”, “Queen Kong” from his latest work. In his early years, the deftness of touch was provocative enough to make you see the substance and essence of his vision. The sure hand of skill was getting formed. Now today, the sureness of confident skill and mastery of form manifest themselves in clear-cut terms.

Baens-Santos inhabits his work—his art has its own unique character, its depth, sensitivity, and style apparent. The artistic vision has remained the same, only the years have expanded and enlarged it. It’s now more defined and refined, his skills as artist, craftsman, painter have sharpened, honing distinctively his artistic statements.

In maturity, his work has become a seamless coming together of vision, technique, and craft. The artistic rendition has become skillful aims at virtuosity, enabling the artist to show what he wants seen.

He decodes his own vision, impacts his impressions of debased life—it’s what compels him most to paint—making it pictorial. His triumphal success with his wrestling with form and image hints of the sign of the successful artist—who knows—a great one.

What separates him from the other artists of the same genre is his Colors so that despite the grimness, morbidity, and baseness of life he paints, something in his wise use of colors, like red and blue, uplifts.

Take “Baboons.” What you see is not what you get. Something pricks your conscience. The picture resembles Congress’s Session hall, with our flag and the House Speaker in the background; in front cavorting wildly the monkeys! Are you angered by it?  Baens-Santos satirizes, mocks, and disdains these pitiable slices-of-life; but a smile hides behind them all and you don’t condemn, you’re amused and the question pops up; where’s the Almighty in all this? He doesn’t sentimentalize and ask for your pity. He wants you to feel! Don’t weep. He gives you food for thought. In fact that’s what his work does.

Always the personage painted, like the one in “Pork Cong2,” holds your attention. So you unravel why. Or like "Kahubdan," naked mother and child. Thinking about it transcends their nudity. His choice of colors uplifts. It just doesn’t stop there  even in the most painful sight of life.

Life after all is not just made up of negative or positive, the horizontal or vertical existence but balanced; and they are both there in his paintings. He uses "red” and “blue” indicative of “lifefulness” and nobility so that even dire poverty painted asks the question, 'Is life just that?'

There’s something sacred and religious about his paintings underlining the artist’s heretical faith, not in any one religion’s sense, but in the sense that the artist has seen and was smitten by the hidden ugly and beautiful faces of real life. His paintings indeed are iconic like Byzantine sacred and religious paintings; only his are profane but uplifting and spiritual. There is, in his work, dignity in every human situation. His vision is his very own. They are trustfully, truthfully “Filipino,” you deem them that.  In theme, essence, purity of purpose—well, life and living in this shameless existence we call “social realism.”

What if the social conditions of the Filipinos now change, so that grimness, desolation, and depravity disappear, and instead happiness and contentment surface, will Baens-Santos still continue to paint and just as successfully!