Jan Hughbenz Siraj G.

Quizon Art Appreciation| GED0106

FAVC 101 | Section 1 Oct. 9, 2021

An Art Analysis of “Camote Diggers”

The Piece was painted by Francisco Botong during the Post-World War Two era.
Anecdotally, the Philippines was still in an Economic dislocation and financial bankruptcy, as
the result of the war. Farms and industries had to be rehabilitated and it took a toll on the local
farmers (Huddle, 1945). In relation to the painting, wherein poverty was prevalent after the war.
It would appear that the artist tried to capture the impression of the underprivileged Filipinos or
Farmers during the, and the central figure of the artwork illustrates the impoverished people
neglected in our country.
The Painting shows a figure of a destitute mother and her son digging for a camote to be able to
satisfy their hunger for their own survival, the visual depiction of poverty only scratches beneath
the surface of the true intentions of the artist, the unfinished painting adds more weight and
complexity to the message of the piece. Notice how the wooden branch held by the mother start
to fade resembling half of the Philippine flag, dividing the painting vertically, due to the
unfinished parts of the canvas, as it draws more attention to the lap of the central figure.
Moreover, taken from Goethe’s Triangle Color Theory, the piece exhibits elements of Lucidity,
Mighty and Serious, due to the alluring effect of red that signifies empathy and darker shades of
purple that peculiarly creates the mood of the piece. In Addition, the color motifs used
predominantly warm shades of sepia and brown as it invokes strong emotions such as loneliness
and isolation that can be grasped from the body movement and posture of the mother and son.
On top of that, the painting itself being unfinished creates spatial flatness and distorts the visual
perspective of the viewer, However, due to the artist’s sense of composition, it creates an
unobtrusive illusion, the empty portion of the canvas merges as a whole with the other half,
emphasizing the background of the subject and the subject itself that is the mother and son.
From my perspective, there could be many interpretations of the piece, because of the subject
and the overarching theme of poverty and social stigmas depicted in the painting, but one that
seems prevailing for me, is Chronic Ignorance. Why Ignorance? They say we are the by-product
of our own environment, by and large, our country is getting cyclical as it is, people get
predisposed to blaming one another, in a loop of conflicts resulting into political warfare, and
economic struggles that eventually results into causal sequences of conflicts, it’s the people’s
inevitability to change that results into vivid illustrations such as the painting of “Camote
Diggers.”