ART DURING THE AMERICAN REGIME UP TO THE JAPANESE ACCUPATION

ARCHITECTURE
In 1920’s, Andres
Luna designed the Perez-
Samanillo Building at the
Escolta along art nouveau
lines marked by simulated
louvres and “pipe”
mouldings capped by
square plates. In the
Regina Building, also on
the Escolta, he combined
the neo-classical form with
art mouveau.

Perez-Samanillo Building designed by Andres Luna

Entertainment buildings
such as the Metropolitan
Theatre (Juan Arellano)
which was built in the thirties
and destroyed in 1945 (now
still only partially
reconstructed) also
exhibited art nouveau
ornamentations based on
stylized forms of Philippine
plants and reliefs of mango
fruits and leaves.
 Metropolitan Theatre designed by Juan Arellano
Others, such as cinema houses which
earlier looked like ugly barns, were
renovated or designed during 1930’s.

Cinema House during 1930’s

Juan Nakpil introduced indirect

lighting at the Ideal Theatre and
replaced the many posts supporting the
balcony with Y-beams, thus eliminating
the obstruction to the line of vision from
the orchestra section.

Ideal Theatre year 1930’s

In residential construction, two-story residences made of concrete were preferred by the

wealthy homeowners to the bungalows and chalets earlier built by the Americans for their own use.
 In such buildings as the
Rizal Memorial Stadium, the
Far Eastern University
Administration Building, and
the Manila Jockey Club,
designed according to simpler
lies and masses or a blending
of massiveness and stability,
Philippine architecture began
to establish its direction toward
modernity.

Far Eastern University Administration Building

 Manila Jockey Club

SCULPTURE
In 1930, just a year after their success in the
Philippine-American War, the Americans ordered the
erection of monuments to Jose Rizal in all the plazas of the
country. It was only in 1913, however, that the prototype of
these monuments was built by a Swiss national, showing
Rizal in topcoat and with a book held in the left hand. As
examples of public sculpture, these Rizal monuments are
“stiff, formal, awkward, mass produces cements figures.”

Monument of Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna

In 1933, Guillermo Tolentino finished his Andres Bonifacio monument. A 45 feet tall, topped by
a winged figure of Victory. Bonifacio, the central figure, holds a bolo in his right hand and a revolver in
his left. Behing him waves the Katipunan flag.
Tolentino’s classicism is marked in this monument by realistic and detailed molding of the
human figures, and by the controlled tension with chich he chractizes the revolutionary figure of
Bonifacio with upright head and body, arms on the sides.
A contrast to Tolentino’s portrayal of Bonifacio was an earlier
sculpture of Bonifacio done by Ramon Martinez in 1905,
which originally stood in the vicinity of the site of the “Cry of
Balintawak” and was later recolated in front of the U.p.
Vinzon’s Hall. "The single figure had upraised arms.The left
hand held the Katipunan flag and the right hand a bolo.
Movement was portrayed in the figure, a defiant attitude in
the act of shouting. Thiswas the 'cry, the call to arms."
 Andres Bonifacio and the Cry of Balintawak

Tolentino was a conservative classicist, and in his prime

expressed his views against modernist tendencies in art. “Who
can fall in love with their abstractions?” he said.

Guillermo Tolentino
In the thirties, the first manifestation of modernism appeared in architectural sculpture.
Francisco Monti, an Italian, introduced economy of line, simplicity of form, and distortion of figures
through elongation in his ornaments at the Metropolitan Theatre.

PAINTING
Immediately after the war in 1902, the Filipino painters "turned to depicting the countryside rather
than to depicting the horrors of turmoil."

The trend toward genre painting, which began in the 1890's, reached full maturity during the first three
decades of American rule. In 1928, however,modern art began formally to threaten the dominance of
conservatism in art. The struggle between modern art and conservative art would end in triumph for
modern art in the post-war years.

Fabian de la Rosa and, later, Fernando Amorsolo dominated and influenced the art scene of the first
three decades with their landscape andgenre paintings. Their recurrent subjects, which found high
commercial favor among American army and business officials were idealized scenes of rice-planting,
plowing, palay harvesting and pounding, river scenes, and street scenes. De la Rosa painted Rice
planters; Amorsolo, Planting Rice.
 Rice Planters by Fabian De La Rosa
Planting Rice by Fernando Amorsolo

Fabian De La Rosa
Fernando Amorsolo