History &

Development of
Philippine Arts
 Art
Philippines

Part of the charm of Philippine Art lies in its

diversity of cultural influences. Out of these
different influences, Filipino artists have distilled
something that we Filipinos could recognize as
truly our own.
 Art for the Many

The Essence of
Form
Art
Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

The Essence of
Form
Art
Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art
Philippines

Sculpture was the main

art form in pre-Hispanic
Philippine culture.
When the voyager
Ferdinand Magellan
introduced Spanish
religious statuary into the
Philippines in 1521, the
queen of the southern
island of Cebu chose the
figure of the Christ as a
boy—the Sto. Niño—for
her baptismal present.
 Art
Philippines

There were indigenous

words both for carving
and for sculpture.
Portraits in wood –
larawan (“picture”) and
likha (“creation”) –
represented specific
ancestors and heroes.
The idols or anitos were
also made from stone,
bone, ivory or crocodile
tooth, clay or gold.
Ancient Filipinos also
drew images on bamboo
or paper.
 Art
Philippines

Chinese trade-ware
pottery and porcelain
containers used for
calligraphy and
brushwork have been
unearthed in pre-Hispanic
tombs along Laguna
Lake. Traders from the
Middle Kingdom must
have displayed samples
of their painting in the
islands.
 Art
Philippines

Filipinos were certainly

familiar with the staple
colors from herbs and
clay, which they also
used for tattooing,
coloring pottery and
dyeing.
 Art
Philippines

The Spanish culture and

religion inspired
portraiture. It took
Filipino artists only two
to three centuries to
absorb – and modify
according to their taste
and temperament –
Western art, which had
taken the Europeans
themselves several
centuries to develop.
 Art
Philippines

In the process, the

classical heritage of the
ikon (the Greek word for
portrait) as distilled in the
Spanish concept of the
imagen was integrated by
Filipino artists with the
Chinese idea of the hua
and the Malay principle of
the larawan.
 Art
Philippines

Like Philippine pre-

Hispanic art, the principal
purpose of Hispanic art
was religious. Art was a
visual aid to propagation
and enhancement of the
Christian faith. The five
major religious orders at
first commissioned
Chinese artists who had
immigrated to the colony.
 Art
Philippines

The colonial art were

characterized with
ubiquitous whorled and
scrolled clouds, flowing
drapery, flattened lions,
almond eyes, soft
brushwork and emphasis
on line rather than light
and shadow.
 Art
Philippines

Indio sculptors too were

summoned to carve icons
for the first churches, as
well as for home altars to
replace the anitos. Thus
was launched the
“popular” style of
religious sculpture,
which thrived in the rural
areas up to the close of
the colonial regime.
 Art
Philippines

The image carvers

needed painters to
animate their works. The
usual method of
extracting tinting
pigments from natural
sources had to be
refined; coconut oil was a
good solvent. Working
with sculptors, early
painters learned the
Spanish estofado
technique, in which the
carved robes of the
figures were embellished
with polychromatic
designs.
 Art
Philippines

In the beginning, painting

was lesser to sculpture.
In fact, some of the
earliest examples of folk
art are “statue–
paintings.” Drawn on
wood were stiff santos
copied from church
retables, with their
niches, pedestals,
flowers and flickering
candles. Till the end of
The 18th century was the formative period of Philippine art. After more the Spanish era,
than 100 years of apprenticeship and improvisation in Christian art Philippine sculpture
under Spanish tutelage, the Filipinos, both indios and mestizos, were remained largely
more than ready not only to erect some churches but also to adorn religious.
them.
 The Formative
Century (1700–1800)

Art
Philippines

The most common

subjects of religious
painting and sculpture
reflected Filipino social
values. The fondness of
children produced a
proliferation of Sto.
Niños, cherubim and
seraphim. Christ in His
Passion and Crucifixion
may have evoked their
difficulties under Spanish
rule. Pre-Hispanic
Between the evolution of sculpture and the flowering of society’s high regard to
colonial painting, the “midway” art of engraving reached its women was affirmed in
height in the 18th century. the countless tributes to
the Virgin Mary.
 Colonial
Engraving

Art
This is not surprising, since it involved both drawing and carving
on woodblocks and copper plates. The quality of their
draftsmanship tells us that the first engravers were also painters.
Until this time, Philippine art was religious. Engraving signaled
the beginnings of secular art, particularly the quest for Filipino Philippines
identity in a plural national community.

The leading engravers, Fransisco Suarez and Nicolas de la Cruz

Bagay, did genre as well as religious works, showing their
countrymen of different racial and social classes—including the
tao, or common man—in various endeavors and settings.

Engraving, like other trades, was a craft whose skills and

techniques were passed down through apprenticeship in a
family enterprise.

Late in the 18th century, as interest in the black-and-white

print waned and its quality declined, colonial painting began
to flower.
 Colonial
Painting

Art
Philippines

Inspired by a royal
purpose (as ordered by
King Charles III) and
captivated by the beauty
of the islands, a Spanish
botanist named Juan de
Cuellar commissioned
Tagalog painters to draw
the range of flora and
fauna of the archipelago.
These were the first still-life paintings in the Philippines. Over the
next century they would appear unobtrusively in the background of
portraits, genre pieces and landscapes. The earliest known painting
of a Philippine historical episode—The Conquest of the Batanes
(1783)—was a mural done by an unnamed Filipino painter in 1790 at
the Palacio Real in Intramuros.
Quiotan, Domingo &
Philippine Academic Art

Art
Philippines

Faustino Quiotan, a
Chinese mestizo master
from Sta. Cruz district in
Manila, may have trained
with the 18th century
engravers and painters.
Like Giotto in Western
art, Quiotan stood at the
threshold of a new
tradition, which rejected
the hieratic and
stereotyped forms of the
official art and gave its
forms naturalness and
solidity.
Quiotan was certainly one of the first Filipino artists to show emotion
in his subjects. His most representative work , Sedes Sapientiae,
shows a Madonna and child exchanging affectionate glances: the
entire composition throbs with warmth and tenderness.
Quiotan, Domingo &
Philippine Academic Art

Art
Philippines

Damian Domingo y Gabor

was the Filipino master in
the early 19th century.
Quiotan, Domingo &
Philippine Academic Art

Art
Philippines

The self-assured
Domingo speeded up the
growth of art in the
Philippines when, in
1821, he set up a private
art school in his spacious
house in Tondo town.
Perhaps because he was
acutely aware of his
catalytic role in
Philippine art, Domingo
was the first known
Filipino artist to do a self-
portrait.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Filipino portraiture came

of age in the 19th century.
By this time the Filipino
had gained some self-
confidence, social
standing and economic
prosperity. Filipino artists
had always been at the
forefront of the search for
identity. Domingo was the
first Filipino artist to
resist the system of racial
classification and racial
prejudice the Spaniards
practiced.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Domingo was primarily a

miniaturist. He had won
his wife Lucia by giving
her a miniature portrait of
herself that he had done
from a respectful
distance. Domingo’s own
autorretrato was painted
on an oval ivory
medallion. The romantic
nature of the Filipino was
probably responsible for
the popularity of the
miniature portraits during
this period.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Domingo’s prize pupil

was Justiniano Asunción
y Molo, scion of a prolific
family, both in an artistic
and in genetic sense, of a
Sta. Cruz, Manila.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Asunción’s flair for detail

soon surpassed that of
his teacher. Yet the
details in his portraits
always complemented
rather than competed
with his sitter’s face.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Rivaling the fame of

Asunción was Antonio
Malantic y Arzeo of
Tondo, Manila.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Though almost as
exuberant and certainly
as competent as
Asunción in rendering
details of embroidery and
jewelry, Malantic was
handicapped by a marked
linearity in his
composition.
Nevertheless, he was a
master of lyricism and
character delineation.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

One government order

which affected painting
was Governor-general
Clavería’s decree calling
for the systematization of
family surnames in 1849.
This decree started an art
form known as letras
figuras. In graphic terms,
it defines the identity of
the subject by illustrating
the letters of his
complete name (including
the maternal surname)
with his figure together
who those of relatives
and friends.
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

Among the home grown

painters, the two most
acclaimed were Lorenzo
Guerrero and Simón
Flores. Simon Flores was
the first Filipino oil native
blood to garner a prize
from an international
exhibition. In 1876,
he was awarded a silver
medal at the Philadelphia
Universal Exposition for
his painting La musica
del pueblo (The Music of
the Town).
Nineteenth Century
Portraiture

Art
Philippines

During this time he might

already have made the
acquaintance of Mons
Ignacio Tambungui who
introduced him to the
wealthy families of
several towns of
Pampanga, for whom he
executed many portraits
and religious paintings.
Flores must have
executed as many as 20
portraits which include
the two versions of the
Familia Quiason.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism
The Loom of Colonial Art
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

Historically, the names of Juan Luna and Felix

Resurrección Hidalgo are inseparable; and their works
are the measure of Filipino artistic excellence
in the 19th century.
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

Both were men of their time; nationalists whose medals

won in the academies of Madrid & Barcelona were blows
struck for the cause of Filipino freedom.
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

Much has been written about the prizes both artists

took in the 1884 Salon exhibition in Madrid. However for
Juan Luna, his best works were still ahead of him. From
a dramatic and allegorical style he learned from Rome
and Madrid, he moved from a more expressive mode
characterized by freer brushwork and a more
liberal use of color.
Art
Philippines

The Other Luna

In October 1884, Luna moved to Paris where his style

became increasingly European. He turned away from the
dark colors of the academic school to the bright palette
of outdoor painting.
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

This post-academic period is said to be the period of

“the other Luna.” Two works of this period are Ensueños
de Amor and Street Flower Vendors.
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

In 1894, Luna returned to the Philippines. During this

period, Manila Period, Luna painted what some consider
being his best work: portraits of his family, particularly
the women and children, Tampuhan (1895) and the
celebrated Una Bulaqueña (1895), a full-figure portrait of
a lady in gala costume.
Art
Philippines

The Other
Luna

Luna died at the age of 42 just three weeks before the

1900s began. He left 1,000 paintings; about half survive.
Luna’s life and works are testimony enough of his
greatness as an artist and patriot.
Art
Philippines

Genre:
Depicting Everyday
Scenes

Even before Luna’s time, Malantic and other painters of

the primitive schools painted everyday scenes: the
planting and harvest of rice, people going to market,
women doing the chores of home, and religious
festivals. These were the start of what the critic-painter
E. Aguilar Cruz calls “autochthonous tradition,” that
started in 1850 and still exists to this day.
 Genre:
Art
Philippines
Depicting Everyday
Scenes
Genre scenes were first depicted by the engravers Francisco Suarez and Nicholas Cruz Bagay
in 1733, whom the Jesuit Pedro Murillo Velarde commissioned to draw maps of the
Philippines. The map were decorated with picture of carabao-drawn plows, cockfights, tropical
fruits and flowers and indios, Chinese and Spaniards of the period in bright costumes.

In 1855, with the establishment of the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura, the painting of genre
scenes became routine. Aside from copying the religious works prescribed by the
Academy, students were painting subjects from their environment.

From 1890s until 1904, possibly as a result of improved

technology in photography, artists began to depict
scenes strong on mood and atmosphere. Artists were
painting scenes that stopped action or scenes suffused
with life. These resolved the tension between the
guiding European aesthetics and their native sensibility.
 Masters of Genre:
Art
Philippines
De la Rosa & Amorsolo
The 19th century genre painters were more truly
representative of an indigenous style with their depiction
of the Philippine landscape, people and their activities.
One example was is Lorenzo Guerrero who painted “with
nature always close at hand, believing God to be the
only true creator.”

One of the most profound influences on Philippine genre

painting in general was Fabian de la Rosa, the brightest
name in Philippine painting after Luna. At the core of his
art were good drawing, balance and an austere palette.
Among his famous genre paintings is Planting Rice, that
combined the immediacy of the everyday sight with the
classicism of the eternal.
Art
Philippines

Masters of
Genre:
De la Rosa &
Amorsolo

De la Rosa excelled in depicting women in the middle of

their daily round activities. His best works depict women
together as a group. De la Rosa was not only a genre
painter but an accomplished portraitist and painter of
landscapes with modulated colors, classical lines and
well-ordered composition.
Art
Philippines

Masters of
Genre:
De la Rosa &
Amorsolo

By the 1930s the most successful and celebrated artist

was Fernando Amorsolo. His works are characterized by
bright splashes of color mixed with grays. He
specialized in painting idyllic rural scenes peopled by
typical heroes, and idealizing country women with
sensuousness. He discovered the painterly brilliance of
the Philippine sun in landscape painting.
Art
Philippines

Masters of
Genre:
De la Rosa &
Amorsolo

The years 1920 to 1945 stand out as Amorsolo’s Golden

Period. One critic cited Amorsolo’s use of “color,
triumphant over realism” as the undoing of Philippine
genre. His works captured the optimistic spirit and grace
of peacetime Philippines, before the Pacific War of 1941
– a time of innocence for the Philippines.
Art
Philippines

Roots of
Modernism

Modernism as a movement in the Philippines opened

formally in 1928 with a bang with an exhibition of works
by another architect and painter, Victorio Edades. The
most controversial painting in this landmark exhibition
was The Builders, a dark and heavily textured work
depicting men working in a quarry.
Art
Philippines

Roots of
Modernism

Edades found inspiration in the modernist idiom of

Cezanne, Picasso and Gauguin. His works departed
entirely from the classicism of de la Rosa and the
pastoral style of Amorsolo. Seven years after Edades’
landmark exhibit, the modernist Diosdado Lorenzo
exhibited works with “moderate distortion” with a well-
ordered kind of turmoil and tension.
Art
Philippines

Roots of
Modernism

In 1935 Edades was commissioned to paint a mural for

the lobby of a fashionable Manila theater. He executed it
together with his students Carlos Francisco and Galo
Ocampo. Together, they became known as the
“Triumvirate of Modern Art”.
Art
Philippines

Roots of
Modernism

In 1913 Juan Arellano returned from studies in Europe a

licensed architect and a full-fledged Impressionist.
Although he studied in Europe, he did not attend any
European art school. He “made the world his finishing
school and nature his teacher”. He was also a dazzling
colorist. He is the first true impressionist painter the
Philippines has produced.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism
The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

Modern painting, is the kind the public often describes as abstract,
began belatedly soon after World War II with the rise of neo-Realism
in the 1950s. The original members of this movement were Hernando

Art
R. Ocampo Ramon Estella, Vicente Manansala, Victor Oteyza, Cesar
Legaspi and Romeo V. Tabuena.

Philippines

The neo-Realists
“shattered Manila’s calm
artistic atmosphere” by
taking modernism much
further than Victorio C.
Edades did before the
war. Viewed from the
perspective of the 1950s,
the work of Edades, the
solitary, much vilified
vanguard of prewar days
now widely regarded as
the “Father of Philippine
Modern Art,” was
beginning to pall.
 Art
Philippines

One reason a post war

generation turned to
modernism was the need
to break with the genteel
tradition of Fernando
Amorsolo that had long
dominated the art scene
who had reduced post-
Liberation painting to
little more than pretty
illustration.

Another reason was Life Magazine and the spate of art books brought
into the country at war’s end. As Arguilla recounts, “The end of the war
released pent-up creativity. Enthusiastic groups of painters met
frequently in coffee shops and in each other’s homes to talk art and to
criticize each others work.”
 Art
Philippines

The Neo-realists
represented 2 directions
in abstract painting. One
(1) is non-naturalistic, in
which subject matter is
transformed by
innovative or radical
simplification,
“distortion,”
fragmentation and
deconstruction. The other
(2) direction deletes
subject matter altogether
as abstraction.
 Art
Philippines

What rocked the academic

establishment of the time even
more was the Neo-Realist
assumption that art didn’t have to
soothe nerves or bring relaxation,
but rather to open their eyes to
new ways of seeing, to shake
people up from complacency and
presupposition, to make them
think.

The criteria for judging art then

emphasized not only technical
excellence but also originality or
freshness of creative ideas.
 Art
Philippines

Modernism meant
internationalism and had
little to do, if it all, with
native subject matter.
Most artists espousing
this were convinced that
“Filipinism” not only
distracted from
producing a good work of
art; it was also parochial,
narrow-minded,
irrelevant.
 In the comparative quiet of Angono, Rizal, meanwhile,
lived the greatest muralist the country has produced – the
legendary Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco. Although

Art
regarded as one of the moderns, he upheld the importance
of subject matter – nationalist ideals –which the more
vocal Neo-Realists chose to eliminate from their paintings.

Philippines

Francisco’s most
impressive feats are
mural commissions he
did for a number of
Manila’s public buildings
and residences. In these
oils canvas murals, he
depicted Filipino legends,
customs and traditions
as well as important
historical events from
pre-Magellan to
contemporary times with
authenticity and panache.
Botong’s contribution to Philippine art is considerable. He showed
the way toward the evolution of a distinct representational idiom
based not on subject matter alone but on those formal qualities
reflecting an artist’s particular response to things conditioned by
environment and tradition.
 Art
Philippines

Manansala’s own type of

abstraction which he
called “Transparent
Cubism” held on to whole
images, distorting them
to produce curves and
angles in delicate
balance, rarely breaking
them up into jigsaw
puzzle pieces, in order to
fully exploit their sensate
aspects of shape, color
and texture.
 Art
Philippines

The baroque sensibility

showed up early on in the
works of Fernando Zobel.
An inveterate draftsman,
filling up sketchbook
after sketchbook
wherever he went, Zobel
delighted in drawing the
Spanish elements in
Philippine culture with
unabashed enthusiasm
and with an eye for the
piquant and ludicrous.
 Art
Philippines

Another painter who

stuck to pure abstraction
was Constancio
Bernardo. Fresh out of
Yale University, where he
studied with one of the
country’s renowned
masters of modern art,
Josef Albers, he
displayed a geometric
type of abstraction
wedded to a highly
sophisticated colors
sense.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic
The Transition to
Expressions Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

Art
Philippines

The decade of the 1960s was significant not only

because it linked the representational painters of the
immediate past with the expressionists and
nonfigurative painters of the succeeding generation. It
also provided the nurturing environment for the
encounter of different artistic traditions.
Art
Philippines
Unless an artist is carried away
by his emotions, it is technique
which moderates his art, which
give it order and clarity.
Technique provides the
balance. It reigns in the artist’s
emotions during the process of
painting.
In its hospitable environment, artists of at least
three generations were challenged to develop
their talents and set their own directions. Thus
the decade was a freeing and prolific period for
national art. Through the 60s, the by-then
legendary neo-realists moved from strength to
strength such as Carlos Francisco, Vicente
Manansala, Hernando Ocampo, and Cesar
Legaspi.
Art
Philippines

The basis of Manansala’s technical proficiency was his

ability to draw. Draftmanship was a discipline to which
the artist subjected himself. Colors are integral to
Ocampo’s forms. His bold, solid and often highly intense
colors – red, blue, yellow, green, orange with touches of
black – clash in contrast even as they complement each
other in uneasy harmony.
Art
Philippines

Dominant during the fifties and sixties was abstract

expressionism or action painting, and the country’s
leading avant-garde painter of that period was Lee
Aguinaldo, whose works eloquently spoke the
nonfigurative idiom of the international art style. The
period was Aguinaldo’s “gold period”, because his
paintings were monochromes in gold.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

The 70s were marked by political unrest in many parts of

Art
the world. In the Philippines authoritarian rule was
sharpening poverty and oppression. Amid all this
tension, an art boom was strangely forming in Metro
Manila. A busting commercial market was cashing in on
the business of art-making.
Philippines

The decade was the

redoubtable “Golden Age
of Philippine Art”. The
politicized atmosphere at
the beginning of the
seventies influenced
shifts in perception and
value in national art. By
the middle of the decade,
anti-Establishment
sentiment had turned into
outright protest. Not only
was art politicized; it was
helping shape the
national consciousness.
 Art
Philippines

In the late1960s the CCP

had gained stature as the
place in which the arts
were rooted. Under
young and assertive
directors, its museum
assimilated Western
avant-garde and
conceptual philosophies.
This interest widened to
include pop art,
“happenings”,
environmental
assemblages, new
realism, performance and
sound works.
 Figurative
Expressionism
Art
Philippines

Ang Kiukok, a cubist of

the sixties, moved into a
more intense
expressionism. His
earlier works, although
geometrically distorted,
had a quiet lyricism
vanished from his works
Figurative Expressionism had first appeared in the sixties. By the
of the seventies. He
seventies the style had reached maturity. The term is an
painted ferocious dogs
expression of defiance against the norms of what is considered
and fighting cocks.
traditionally “beautiful”. Strange faces and forms, oddly familiar,
Kiukok also painted men
reveal hidden truths from some subconscious source.
on fire; Christ writhing on
His cross; empty bottles
Local figurative expressionist art conveys images of sickness, framed by the window;
fear, death and anguish. The paintings are characterized by fish bones.
emotional intensity and the use of bold colors to suit mood and
temperament.
 Figurative
Expressionism

Art
Philippines

Onib Olmedo uses street

children, vendors,
prostitutes and other
denizens of the big city
as his subjects. His
portraits probe the
deepest feelings of his
subjects. He distorts their
faces to the extreme. The
monstrous personalities
that emerge have no
identifying marks to
denote their social rank,
occupation, or even
identity.
 Figurative
Expressionism
Art
Philippines

Danilo Dalena started out

by painting an
unsanitized view of life
and times at subsistence
level. Dalena uses strong
contrasts to add a
surrealistic drama to his
paintings. Earth colors
that are distinctly urban
become even more
intense because they are
set off by light and dark:
a chaotic composition of
moving, breathing,
vibrating humanity seen
only through highlighted
Painters became engrossed in finding distinct images or limbs and featureless
symbols to portray the Filipino and his distinct culture. faces.
 The Search for
National Identity
Other artists who refused to conform to the urban
aesthetic of Manila – some as a form of protest –
were Angelito Antonio, Antonio Austria, Norma
Belleza and Mario Parial.
Art
Philippines
A painter of strength and
psychological penetration is
Benedicto Cabrera, who signs his
works “Bencab”. His works are
characterized by stylized figures
and their surrounding space, often
enriched by graphic compositional
devices.
These paintings portrayed specific
Filipinos in different stages of exile.
Traces of homesickness, clinging to
memories of traditions, and friends
on foreign soil are the themes
around which his figures existed.
 The Search for
National Identity

Art
Philippines

Jose V. Blanco’s themes

rendered in murals and
large paintings presents
the human figures as
large as life. He uses the
town and people of
Angono to represent the
quintessential Filipino.
His works stand out in
their stubborn refusal to
be documents of passing
events.
The DIMASALANG GROUP got its name form the Old Manila street
on which some of its members began to eke out a living. They used
the Impressionist language which had revolutionized European art
in the 1870s. The acknowledged leader of the Dimasalang Group
was Emilio Aguilar Cruz, a journalist, diplomat and painter.
Neo-impressionism &
Magic Realism

Art
Philippines

The seventies also saw

emerge a branch of
Philippine realism which
looked up to the New
England master, Andrew
Wyeth. Their style came
to be known as “Magic
Realism”. Wyeth’s
rendering of nature
produced paintings
almost as lifelike as
photographs.

Among the artists whose styles bordered on Magic Realism were

Lito Barcelona, Jose Burgos, Tom Burgos, Cee Cadid, Criz Cruz,
Andi Cubi, El Gajo, Agustin Goy, Amado Joson, Nestor Leynes,
Efren Lopez, Ulpiano Morada, Cesar Poseca, Vincent Ramos,
Rudy Roa, Jaime Roque, Ephraim Samson and Steve Santos.
Neo-impressionism &
Magic Realism

Art
Philippines

Lino Severino reworks

the legacy of colonial
house architecture in his
Visayan province of
Negros Occidental.
 The Rise of
Social Realism

Art
Severe economic and social inequality in society and the class
struggles that arose from this condition are powerful subject of
Philippine art after the imposition of martial law in 1972.
Dissident artists began to consider alternatives to traditional
subjects and media. Artists in the city shifted from oil painting Philippines
to more urgent propagandist forms: posters, illustrations,
cartoons and comics.

Social Realism sought to depict the situations

and concerns of the poor and the voiceless
majority under the authoritarian regime. It
addressed itself to the comfortable middle
class – to awaken its social and political
consciousness – as well as to workers and
peasants, to inspire them to take part in the
national struggle.

Social Realism would continue in the next

decade. It has guided artists who believe
that art crystallizes the experiences and
aspirations of a people. The movement
therefore is a vital part of the Filipino’s
historical struggle for social equality and
economic emancipation.
 2nd Generation
Abstractionists

Art
Philippines

The impact on the

cultural scene in the
1960s of the
abstractionist Jose Joya
signaled the critical and
commercial triumph of
abstractionism in the
Philippines. Joya
stormed the citadels of
figurative painting of
which the cubist-inspired
Minimalist Movement’s painting liberated the Filipino artist from
Vicente Manansala was
ornamental excesses of his essentially baroque sensibility. The
patriarch.
pictorial inventiveness of the Filipino artist is evident in his
joyous fragmentation of space through patterning and festive
colors. Minimalism – with its eloquence of silence and its basic,
non-emotive geometry –freed the Filipino artist from visual
parodies.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines
Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

Art
The turbulent eighties saw dynamic movements in
national politics. The assassination of the opposition
leader Benigno Aquino, Jr., resulted barely two years
later in a peaceful. Popular rebellion under Aquino’s
Philippines brave and stubborn widow.

The cultural center started a move to bring art to the

regions. But art lost its official patronage under Imelda
Marcos, as the successor to the regime sought to keep
the country afloat amid financial bankruptcy and debt,
natural disasters, and coup d’etat attempts. In this turbid
atmosphere, social comment increased in art, writing
and even popular music.

The 80’s were ushered in by the lifting of martial law

and the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II in 1981. Both
events renewed interest in religious subjects and in
works with strong social comment. The social realists
continued their crusade. New hope was
their primary message.
 Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art
Edgar Talusan Fernandez painted Kahapon,
Ngayon at Pangarap (“Yesterday, Today and
Hope”), which shows a brown Filipina standing in
the center of a picture of the Philippine Flag in the
manner of the Crucified Christ.

The woman is clearly the allegorical Motherland,

surrounded by enemies, as symbolized by the ropes tied
to her wrists. But the painting is hopeful that the country
will survive poverty and oppression as shown by the
vertical display of the flag: the red field is on the
viewer’s right, which is the way the Philippine colors are
displayed in times of peace.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Renato Habulan moved from themes contrasting classes

on society to themes incorporating the importance of
traditional beliefs – particularly the role of religion in the
struggle for social justice.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

His paintings showed Christian religious scenes and

rituals celebrated by the tillers of the earth. Christ’s
struggle is highlighted strongly in strongly religious
thematic paintings. Although dressed in classical robes,
both the Christ and His mother have native features.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Social realism now gained adherents among regional

artists, particularly in the province of Davao, Negros
Occidental and Cebu, which all have severe agrarian
conflicts. Regional artists painted large scale works and
murals on local issues and in styles open to technical
innovation and the use of nontraditional materials.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Two artists from Negros Occidental gave voice to social

themes in an expressionistic manner. Charlie Co
chooses the surreal landscape as backdrops for freely
distorted figures. His flamboyant paintings have a wry
humor. Nunelucio Alvarado paints the migrant workers
and the settled people of the sugarcane plantations.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Bencab continued his effort to portray the Filipino as an

iconic image in the country’s changing history. His
current images reflect the turbulence brought about by
recent earthquake and volcanic eruptions.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Also working in a combination of the expressionist and

realist manners on socioeconomic statements are artist
who call themselves the “Salingpusa” (Junior Players)
Group. Elmer Borlongan focuses on one or two figures,
often those of street children. His works rise to the level
of drama because of his expressionistic distortions of
the figure and the strong contrast of light and shadow.
Art
Philippines

Figurative
Art

Other members of the group – Marc Justinian , Neil

Manalo, Tony Leano, Ferdie Montemayor and Karen
Flores – work in varying manners of realist-
expressionist handling of paint, while making social
commentary. Other artist working in the neo-figurative
expressionist mold include Isabel Limpe-Chungunco,
Stella Roxas, Karise Villa, Marcel Antonio, and Ramil
Segovia.
 Art
Philippines

Abstract
Painting
Veneracion’s intentional shabbiness of texture and his
exaltation of trashy and scratched surfaces force the
viewer a recognition of the painting as an object
controlled by the artist. Linear drawing, oscillating
color areas, select figurative forms, energetic and
rhythmic interlacing of undetermined puzzle parts
combine in an elegance like the improvisation of jazz
musicians.
The patchwork configurations in the paintings of Roy
Veneracion signaled an exciting direction in Philippine
abstraction. His works, with their tattered and clumsy
patterns, are an aesthetic criticism of the cosmetic
refinement that soon characterized the smooth and
immaculately crafted minimalist Philippine paintings.
Art
Philippines

Abstract
Painting
Sid Gomez Hildawa combines an adventurous temperament with intellectual restraint. His
works are animated by dissonant compositions. Shape as a descriptive device in
abstraction was the format elaborated on by Romeo Gutierrez. Sharply defined curvilinear
blocks of space emerge from the rhythmic interlacing of his planar forms.

The late 60s into the 1980s were filled with activity of
centered on the CCP. Filipino experimentalists were
fired by both the counterculture of new “smart art” and
the decline of formalism and old values. Many of these
iconoclasts derived as much joy from trying new
territory as they did from shocking polite audiences. A
kind of “neo-Dadaist” mentality pervaded many works.
Art
Philippines

Abstract
Painting

The late 60s into the 1980s were filled with activity of
centered on the CCP. Filipino experimentalists were
fired by both the counterculture of new “smart art” and
the decline of formalism and old values. Many of these
iconoclasts derived as much joy from trying new
territory as they did from shocking polite audiences. A
kind of “neo-Dadaist” mentality pervaded many works.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence
of Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

Spanish Period
from 1879

Art
Philippines

For centuries painting

and sculpture were
devoted to religious
subjects, under the
exclusive patronage of
the Catholic Church.
Spanish Period
from 1879

Art
Philippines

Like the early painting, early secular sculpture

consisted of portraits, three-dimensional tipos
del pais, local animals, symbolic dramatic
subjects, genre works and tableau reliefs. The
genre figures strived toward realism, while
staying within conventional norms. In the late
19th century, the first nudes where then done in
the classical style.

In 1879 the Academia de Pintura, Esultura y

Grabado de Manila began to offer courses in
sculpture and the first sculptors were Bonifacio
Arevalo, Marcelo Nepumoceno and Graciano
Nepumoceno.
The American
Period

Art
Philippines

Classical Philippine
sculpture reached its
peak in the work of
Guillermo Tolentino. His
works were mostly made
of marble and cast
bronze. He is best known
for three sculptures,
which are the Oblation,
Venus and the Bonifacio
Monument. Tolentino
used classical and
romanticism ideals with
his Bonifacio monument.
The American
Period

Art
Philippines

Tolentino was also an

excellent portraitist
having Anastacio Caedo
and his son Florante as
his students. Both
students were known for
being master portraitists
and for making relief
sculptures of Filipino
Heroes.
 Contemporary
Sculpture

Art
Modernist Sculpture took so long to make its mark. Only
in the 1850s was Guillermo Tolentino’s dominance
challenged by his student Napoleon Abueva. Abueva was
a pioneering modernist in sculpture using both eccentric
and common materials. Modernism in Philippine sculpture Philippines
began by stylizing natural shapes, showing the influence
of Cubism, Brancusi and Henry Moore.

Abueva did numerous pieces which were

made to draw out the basic plastic form of the
figure. He then broadened his style on the
abstract. Much of his works were made of
narra, molave and bronze. In bronze he
approaches realism, but for a slight distortion
or elongation of the figures.
 Contemporary
Sculpture
Other contemporary sculptors include Francisco
Verano, Ildefonso Marcelo, Renato Rocha, Ramon
Orlina, Imelda Pilapil, Pablo Mahinay, Conrado
Mercado, Honrado Fernandez, and Charlie Co.
Art
Philippines
Abueva rarely idealizes the human
figure. He maintained an earthly at
times erotic, quality with it. So rich
and diverse is Abueva’s imagination
that his work draws from every
source, and ranges from the
representational to the most
abstract.
In the 1960s, sculpture was both
fruitful and innovative having great
contributors such as J. Elizalde
Navarro, Lamberto Hechanova and
Edgar Doctor.
Contemporary
Sculpture

Art
Philippines

A Bacolod artist, Charlie Co, uses terra-

cotta as his medium in depicting his
figures of the oppressed migrant
workers of the sugarcane plantations.
Particular merit of the hand molded clay
medium lies in its personal quality, the
soft clay responds to the every
movement of the creative impulse and
bears the impression of the artist hands.

Philippine Sculpture has been marked by rich diversities of concepts, forms, and media.
From its roots in the ancestor- figure and rice god, through its classical definitions in the
academy, it has come to achieve a contemporary breadth of form and expression,
reflecting both technological developments and conceptual revelations.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 During period of American rule (1898-1946), the

Art
Philippines had no graphic art to speak of.

Philippines

1900 to
1950
In 1957, a Graphic Art
Exhibition was held in the
Philippine Art Gallery by
Juvenal Sanso whose
etchings were done in Paris.
Sanso exerted no direct
influence to the development
of Philippine graphic art
since he lived in France since In 1959-1960, Boyd Compton, a representative of the
1953. He was named Print Rockefeller foundation visited Manila to see if he could
Artist of the Year by the interest a Filipino artist or two in print making in the
Cleveland Museum of Art Untied States.
Print Club in 1964.
 Art
Philippines

The
1960’s
The Rockefeller Foundation chose Manuel Rodriguez,
Sr. Their grant enabled him to work with the South
American printmaker Mario Lasansky in Iowa. He
studied at the Pratt Graphic Institute in New York to
further sharpen his skills. Rodriguez set up an art
gallery in Malate where he began to acquaint the public
with original fine prints in cooperation with the art
broker Enrique Velasco.
 Art
Philippines

The 1960’s
Arturo Luz, who studied art in Oakland, New York and Paris, also brought back print
making as part of his artistic repertoire when he came to Manila in 1950. Luz also set up
an art gallery in Ermita, exhibiting works by Picasso, Matisse, Chagal, Bernard Childs,
Antonio Clavel, together with Japanese masters of the traditional woodcut like
Munakata and Saito, and Eskimo prints.

The following are some of the

Filipino print artists: Hilario
Francia, Vergilio Aviado,
Manuel Rodriguez, Jr., Marcelino
Rodriguez, and Ray Rodriguez,
Mario Parial, Rodolfo Samonte,
Romulo Olazo, Ileana Lee, Lito
Mayo, Benedicto Cabrera, Ofelia
Gelvezon Tequi, Manuel Soriano.
In the early years of the 80s, the Philippine Association
of Printmakers (PAP) underwent a leadership and
organizational crisis. The association suffered a
setback in the absence of printmaking activities, graphic
arts competitions and workshops. The PAP was revived
after the EDSA revolution through the efforts of Adiel
Arevalo who gathered printmakers to talk about the
situation.
 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence of
Form

Philippines

Exploring
Alternative Ways

Pluralistic The Transition to

Expressions
Maturity

The Rise of
Neo-Realism

The Leap to
Modernism

The Loom of Colonial Art

 Art for the Many

Art
The Essence
of Form

Philippines
Exploring
Alternative Ways

The Transition to
Pluralistic
Maturity
Expressions

The Rise of
Neo-Realism
The Leap to
Modernism
The Loom of Colonial Art
Shannon Alvior
Michael Andan
CJ Ballon
Jade Leuterio
Giselle Sabolbora
Paolo Sanchez
Chino Tan
Kristoffer Uytiepo
Dedric Yulo
Art
Philippines

Philippine art defines and captures the Filipino identity. It

has become a tangible representation of the most
important facets of our people, while giving form to the
ideals and aspirations innate in every Filipino. Identity,
culture and dreams are breathed life by the arts.

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