Spanish Colonial Period

1521 - 1898
Historical Overview
• Though the South have been
resistant, the Spanish Colonizers
gained control in the Central part,
which they classified them as
“Lowland Christians.”;
• Art forms, as they demanded,
are under the strict rule of the
church and the colonial state,and;
• By Religious orders they
dispatched to convert all the
natives to Catholicism
• Art forms are stylistically and
culturally which are classified under:
− Religious art
− Lowland Christian art
− Folk art.
• To carry out their projects like, the
plaza complex, they relocated the
natives and let them build town
centers, municipio(s), and cruches

Historical Overview
Designed according to
prescriptions of the Spanish
crown, establishments must
imposes scale and overall visual
appeal like:

− Cruciform churches with a

shape of the Latin cross, and;
− Hispanic churches, the
baroque style are
predominantly employed to
appeal emotions

Historical Overview
• Baroque are implied with
churches like:
- San Agustin Church in Manila
- Morong Church in Rizal
- Paoay Church in Ilocos NorteS
- Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Church
in Miag-ao, Iloilo.
• European inspired but with
local interventions suits its
native sensibilities and
adjustment to local Historical Overview
environmental conditions
façade of Miag-ao Church surrounded
By reliefs or relleves
-tropical motifs
• - palm fronds and papaya trees
• - adobe, limestone, or brick
• - thick buttresses or wing-like projections
• It is called the Colonial Baroque
or Philippine or Tropical Baroque
Historical Overview
• We will be focusing on Spanish
application in different aspects and new
introduction to new forms of arts in
the following aspect.
Architecture
Sculpture and Ornamentation
Music
Writing System And topic focusing on the development of
Theater statuses in the Spanish Era
Dance
Paintings Rise of Classes and Privilege
Printing System Different Prominent
Painting Styles and their Artists
Architecture
• Saints and interpretations are the
essentials into worship
• As the process of engraving, painting
and sculpting they are highly
supervised in accordance to
imposing scale and overall visual
appeal.
The friars brought the Western
models for our local artists to copy
which are most likely made from
either ivory or wood and portrays
classical and baroque models
• In the 17th century, Chinese artisans
are engaged in making icons or
saints or santos, building churches
and houses, making furniture.
spread which later on spread
throughout Cebu, Batangas,
Manila, and Ilocos
• It drew upon Chinese features
and techniques like in Nuestra
Señora del Rosario in Bohol
which Kuanyin, the deity of
mercy in East Asian Buddhism
Sculpture and Ornamentation
Santos are displayed most on
decorative altar niche, which are
called retablo.
• Town’s patron saint implies
with architecture and sculpture
which embellished with rosettes,
scrolls, pediments and
Solomonic columns and are
color dependently classified
(gilded or polychromed)
Via Crucis (14 paintings or relief
sculptures) is series of reliefs which
shows Christ’s crucifixion and
resurrection
In other churches, Holy Family, the
Virgin Mary, and the four evangelists
proliferate in the ceilings and walls in an
ornate manner of trompe l’oeil.
• In Taal Basilica in Batangas or at the
St. James the Apostle Parish in Betis,
Pampanga it can be seen.
Church altars *carved figurative
protrusions like relieves in organic
designs and in hammered silver or
the plateria (plateria technique)
which can be seen at bodies of the
carroza
Music
Western musical instruments like
the pipe organ, the violin, the guitar,
and the piano gives a very new
European flavor with new rhythms,
melodies and musical forms.
• Catholic liturgical music, in 1742,
where Archbishop of Manila, Juan
Rodriguez Angel started singing
schools in Manila Cathedral which
boomed the industry of choirs.
Other musical forms like pasyon or
pabasa which are biblical narration
of Christ’s passion chanted
• Lowland Christian communities of
Pampanga, Ilocos, Bicol, and Iloilo,
on another hand, has awit and the
corrido which musical forms chanted, based on European
literature
Another one is Balitao which is
sentimental love songs and lullabies
in the latter half of the 19th century
• Sentiments began to develop which
Kundiman is born that spoke about
resignation and fatalism, a vehicle
for resistance with lyrics of
unrequited love.
• The love object pointed to which is
the Philippines is cleverly concealed
as a beautiful woman
Writing System
Mangyans of Mindoro has bamboo
poles which are etched with
Baybayin script, used for courtship
and emotional concerns
• In the town of Ticao, Southern
Leyte, a huge stone contained of
Baybayin invocate a safe journey by
sea.
Spanish colonization brought with it
printing technology in the form of
catechism and prayer books in
Spanish for a lot to read and write
and to evangel.
Theater
There are a lot of theater forms
formed locally and through
colonization with a simultaneously
development of literature and other
art forms.
• One of the earliest forms of theater
is pomp and pageantry
− A religious processions with
embellished carrozas that shows
religious tableaus, saints and scenes
Zarzuela or Sarsuwels in the
19th century is a singing and
dancing - prose dialogue which
the story is carried out in song
• Later on, the locals learned to
write locally language
sarsuwelas in the leadership of
Severino Reyes and Hermogenes
Ilagan and Honorata ‘Atang’
dela Rama as their lead actress.
• Another one is Senakulo
-Christ’s suffering in metaphor to
the suffering of Filipinos under
Spanish colonial rule.

1st senakulo written in 1704 by Gaspar Aquino de Belen is now

divided into two main types :

Komedya de Santo - life of Christ or of any saint - during church

celebrations - stylized way extravagant costumes – elaborately
choreographed war scene

Secular Komedya commonly known as “Moro-Moro” which is

typical a love story Christian hero and an Islamic heroine, clashes,
and is done with dance
Today several groups are still
performing komedya & senakulo
• Like there are several families who
align themselves to a local parish
church to stage
• Scripts are handed down to children
or apprentices which serves as a
form of panata or devotion to the
Church
In many towns in the provinces
of Pampanga and Tarlac,
senakulo is in Kapampangan or
Ilocano and is a full staging
crucifixion, literally, which
serves also a major tourist and
media attraction
• Senakulo in Nueva Ecija
− araguio or arakyo
Dance
As the galleon trade between
Mexico and the Philippines
brought Mexican influences
Cariñosa, Pandanggo or
Fandango, Polka, Dansa and the
Rigodon and European influence
like Habañera, Jota, and Tango
dances from Spain
Paintings
Paintings are expressed through
visual interpretation through biblical
texts in Catholic devotion.
• Like; Heaven, Earth, and Hell (1850)
is a mural of Jose Dans placed now
in Paete Church, Laguna that shows
the map of the universe and the
terrifying depiction of hell
Image making during the period
are conformed like in Basi
Revolt which is are 14 paintings
by Esteban Villanueva that
shows the defeat of Ilocanos
who rebelled at the Spanish
government’s monopoly of basi
or rice wine in 1821
Printing System
• Reprographic art of printmaking is
brought as early as the 16th century
which is a technique of xylography
or woodcut printing
• Doctrina Christiana (The Teachings
of Christianity)
− printed in 1593 in Spanish and in
Tagalog compiling song lyrics,
commandments, sacraments, and
other catechetical material.
It also engraves the production
of secular or non-religious
works like which scientists and
artists does maps as other
sources of classification
• In 1734, Jesuit priest Fr. Pedro
Murillo Velarde with artists
Francisco Suarez and the
engraver Nicolas de la Cruz
Bagay made Carta Hydrographica y
Chorographicade las Yslas Filipinas is
a scientific map of the Philippines
development of lithography
born the reproduction of
color palates, the mass
printing of newspapers and
periodicals
• Another example is,
Augustinian botanist Fr.
Manuel Blanco made an
extensive compilation of the
Philippine plants in Flora de
Filipinas in 1878
opening of Manila to
international trade in 1834 and
Suez Canal in 1869, economic
benefits raise for the native
elites
• Commercial ventures opens
opportunity to study in Europe
with the class rose the Ilustrado
or “enlightened” ones
• Development of music with the
efforts of Pakil-born Marcelo Adonay
are compositions based on the
Western tradition of Gregorian
chants
• Domestic realm with their altars
comprised of delicate santos in
viriña and urna.
• Manifestation in town organization
is focused when they occupied the
plaza complex
• Which are called “bahay na bato” for
rich and prominent families,
spacious interiors, commissioned
portrait paintings, miniaturist style
which artist use to reveal meticulous
signify the wealth and refinement of
the sitter.
Different Prominent Painting Styles and their Artists
Simon Flores’s painting Portrait
of the Quiazon Family in 1800
is a type of miniature.
• Other miniature painters are
Antonio Malantic, Isidro Arceo,
Dionisio de Castro, and
Justiniano Asuncion
Details in painting, like Letras y
Figuras with combining names
and vignettes of everyday life
became popular. As the Filipino
natives acquired Spanish names
under a decree implemented in
1884
Another Academia-trained Lorenzo
Guerrero painted The Water Carrier
uses of chiaroscuro in the late 19th
century
In 1884, Juan Luna won gold
for Spoliarium and Felix
Resurreccion Hidalgo silver
medal for Virgenes christianas
expuestas al populacho in the
Madrid Exposition which
exhibits Filipino artistic
excellence even in standards set
by the European academy
Hidalgo’s Virgenes christianas
expuestas al populacho
emphasizes on a woman held
captive which counterparts
Philippines’ oppression under
Spanish rule.
Luna’s (Spolarium) depiction of a
lifeless body of a gladiator being
pulled across the coliseum, and;
• Luna with ilustrados’ Propaganda
Movement in España y Filipinas by
1886