SOURCES AND INFLUENCES

The sources and influences of the visual arts in the Philippines may be classified
according to the three principal cultural traditions found in the country; the
indigenous tradition, which is evidenced by the arts of the natives in the long
period before colonization, the arts of the non-hispanized ethnic communities
today, and the lowland folk arts which fuse ethnic and colonial aspects; the
Spanish tradition, which is seen in the religious paintings and prints, academic
paintings, landscapes, portraits, letras y figuras (letters and figures), still-lifes, and
other art works done by unschooled and schooled Filipino artists during the
Spanish period from 1565 to 1898; and the Euro-American tradition which came
in via the Americanized educational system and media and which has been
indigenized in the painting and sculptures done by Filipino artists from the 1930s
to the present.

The Ethnic Tradition

Evidences of the ancient arts are the artifacts unearthed in archaeological

excavations, which include earthenware, body ornaments and jewelry, and textile
fragments. An important body of earthenware consists of burial jars. The ancient
tradition of jar burial was diffused throughout the southern part of the Asian
mainland, the Malay Archipelago, and the Southeast Asian region, including the
Philippines. This practice was related to the tradition of “grave furniture” in
which the dead were buried along with various articles of everyday use such as
eating utensils and weapons, and in the case of the nobility, with servants and
domestic animals. The Manunggul Jar with its lid bearing two rowers in a boat is
related to the Southeast Asian belief that the dead ride “spirit boats” across a
body of water to reach the other world. Likewise, the decorative techniques of our
precolonial pottery, such as incising, impressing with cord or mat, piercing, and
incorporating appliqued elements are found in the ancient pottery of the region.

Among the earliest artifacts were weaponry used not only for tribal warfare but
also for hunting and food gathering. In the Metal Age, spears were produced as
well as bladed weapons, some of them with handles embellished by geometric and
curvilinear designs. These weapons were produced by means of the Malay forge
in the cire perdue or lost wax process wherein clay molds held the molten metal
which took shape as it cooled. The weapons of southern Philippines, particularly
the wavy kris, is part of a long Southeast Asian tradition of Malay metalwork.

Precolonial body ornaments and jewelry, which functioned as charms and amulets
to drive away spirits, also constitute an important collection of artifacts. Many
of these were fashioned in gold from the mines of the Cordilleras in the north and
Camarines in southern Luzon. The tradition of silver filigree is also part of our
Southeast Asian heritage. Indigenous designs in jewelry began in early times and
continued into the Spanish period.
Part of body ornamentation in the precolonial period was the body tattoo. The
ancient art of tattooing was so prevalent that Spanish colonizers did not fail to
notice, at one point calling the Visayas “Islas de los Pintados.” So elaborate were
the designs covering entire bodies that they were mistaken for printed cloth from a
distance. The Boxer Codex, which contained drawings of human types from
different ethnic groups, shows men tattooed on the face and body with spiral
designs and floral motifs. Up to the present, many old men and women of the
Cordilleras bear the tattoo symbols of their group. The practice of tattooing was
widely spread over the seafaring communities of Oceania and the South Pacific,
including New Zealand where the chiefs sported elaborate facial and body marks.

The Philippines’ ethnic tradition of textiles also goes back to early times and
shows its cultural affinity with the rest of Southeast Asia. Decorative weaving
techniques, such as the supplementary weft found in much of Yakan weave, are
shared with many countries of the region. Ikat is a decorative dyeing technique
that is a regional tradition practiced among many Philippine groups, including the
Tboli in their abaca tnalak weave and the Bagobo in their dagmay. In fact, the
earliest example of ikat tie-dye in the region has been documented as having been
found in an archaeological site in Banton Island off Romblon. Ethnic clothing also
shows affinities with the rest of Southeast Asia. The Maranao cylindrical skirt
called malong, the Bontoc rectangular skirt called tapis and the Ilongo checkered or
striped skirt called patadyong are prevalent in the region and so are different kinds
of headgear such as the pis and the tubao.

In precolonial times, a number of regional cultural traditions made their influence

felt. These were the Southeast Asian Malay animist, the Indian Hindu Buddhist,
the Chinese, and the Arabic-Islamic strains which left lasting traces on our culture.
At the same time, there were more ancient cultural sources such as the Oceanic
cultures of the Polynesian South Pacific. In time, these various strains did not
remain separate but intermeshed.

Wood carving in the Cordilleras features stylized human figures such as the male
and female bulul and tattagu, and numerous animal figures of ritual and the hunt,
including the dog, the pig, and the boar. Its subject and style show affinities with
the arts of Oceania and Polynesia, as well as New Guinea and Celebes.

Indigenous wood carving in the Philippines is a local expression of the larger

Southeast Asian Malay wood carving tradition. This is evident especially in the
okir art of the Muslim Maranao and the Tausug of Mindanao and Sulu. The
Maranao designs of the sarimanok, naga, and pako rabong— with their repertoire
of motifs—are related to the designs and motifs of the region. The sarimanok
which is a kingfisherlike bird, usually with a fish in its beak or base, belongs to the
region’s rich bird imagery derived from epics, myths, and legends. It is akin to the
Indonesian garuda and the Bornean hornbill which grace house facades and boat
prows. In Asian mythologies, birds are symbols of the human spirit and the
transcendence of that spirit over matter, and symbols too of the liberation of the
individual spirit as it merges with the universal soul.

The origins of the naga, the serpent design, is Indian Hindu-Buddhist, and the
word itself is from Sanskrit. This is one of the traces of Indian influence in the
country. In Agusan and other parts of Mindanao, figures of Hindu-Buddhist
origin such as the Shivaite Golden Image and the clay medallion of Avalokitesvara
Padmapani—a lotus-bearing Hindu female deity, have been excavated (J.
Francisco). Furthermore, a number of Indian words have been assimilated into our
native languages. Often, these words are spiritual concepts or have to do with
spiritual activities, such as diwa, diwata, budhi, guro, and even bathala.
Moreover, a Philippine version of the Ramayana has been found by Dr. Juan
Francisco in the Lanao area of Mindanao and transcribed as Maharadia Lawana,
Lawana being the local version of the original Ravana. In Tausug dance, there is an
emphasis on hand gestures as in the Indian mudras, further enhanced by the use of
the janggay or silver fingernail extenders.

Early Chinese influence was seen in matters pertaining to trade and commerce.
During the centuries of precolonial trade with China, large quantities of porcelain
were brought into the country. These were highly valued and their shapes and
designs soon influenced indigenous pottery. It was, however, with Spanish
colonization that the Chinese influence on the arts became manifested. Chinese
artisans were in great demand in the making of santos or holy images in wood and
ivory. For xylography, the Chinese system of engraving was adopted for the first
books printed in the country. Chinese artisans were also in demand in the building
of churches and houses, particularly for their supply of building materials such as
tiles for roofing and lime for bonding stone.

Preceding Spanish colonization by a century, Islam penetrated the islands from

the Malay Archipelago. A Muslim sultanate was first established in Sulu,
effectively introducing Islam as a way of life to a large area of the South. In art,
Islamic manifestations were the mosques with their minarets and bulblike domes
and their calligraphic inscriptions from the Koran. Brassware in the making of
ritual vessels, such as the kendi and the gadur shows the influence of Middle
Eastern forms and motifs. An example of three-dimensional Islamic sculpture is
the burak, the half-woman and half-horse figure which Mohammad rode on his
way to heaven. Arabic calligraphy embellished brass vessels, jewelry, and various
articles.

The Spanish Colonial Influence

The Spanish colonizers in the 16th century sought to efface indigenous culture and
to replace it with the image and likeness of the West. The native populations
were relocated “under the bells” and their energies harnessed in the building of
churches. For three centuries, the Church and State were the sole patrons of the
arts. Sculptors and painters fell under the supervision of the friars who provided
them with European models for iconography and style. These artists were made
to work on Christian saints and holy figures. To facilitate the work of conversion,
the friars introduced the native artists to figurative art which gave the Christian
icons three dimensional and more realistic human forms.

The first visual art form popularized in the country was printmaking, particularly
xylography, which was the Chinese printing process using woodblocks. The first
book printed in the Philippines, Doctrina christiana en lengua española y tagala
(Christian Doctrine in the Spanish and Tagalog Languages), 1593, featured a
xylographic engraving of Santo Domingo Engraving as an art developed in the
18th century with artists like Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay, Francisco Suarez and
Lorenzo Atlas (previously identified as Laureano but with recent evidence seems
to be Laurentsius in Latin or Lorenzo in Spanish). A nascent Filipino identity
emerged with their recognition as artists. They often affixed the epithets “Indio
Tagalo,” “Indus Manil,” and “Indio Filipino” to their signatures. The engravers
were kept busy making illustrations for prayer books and literature on the lives
of saints, but they were also engaged in cartography, producing the map
commissioned by the Jesuit Father Murillo Velarde in 1734, which featured
a border of 17th-century genre scenes: a woman vendor, cockfighters, and
promenaders, some of whom were priests and officials. These scenes were
probably the first examples of secular genre.

Paintings invariably had religious subjects since they were, for the most part,
commissioned to decorate altars and interiors of churches. In the 18th and 19th
centuries, many religious paintings or icons were done on wood panels with a
coating of gesso in the same way santos and relieves (reliefs) were made. Centers
of religious art were Manila and Bohol. In the latter, local artists trained by
Jesuits developed a distinctive style. Each friar order propagated the devotion of
its patron saints through holy images.

Most religious art, whether for public or private devotions, came in the form of
santos in wood and ivory. As in painting and engraving, the models for the santos
iconography and style came from Europe. European influence was evident
particularly in classical and baroque sculpture and in church architecture. The
classical canons of art prescribed proportion, balance, and harmony in figurative
representation marked by serenity and restraint. Classical santos observed the
conventional proportion of seven and a half to eight heads, regular and
symmetrical form, and serene expression. Baroque santos carved in wood and
ivory were marked by dynamic, asymmetrical form and emotionalism in
expression, with a predominance of spirals and curved lines to suggest movement,
as in the highly expressive and polychrome figures of the Spanish sculptors Pedro
de Mena and Alonso Cano. But aside from these, there were folk santos whose
forms and expressions showed more affinity to indigenous sculptural forms,
especially the fearsome apotropaic or demon-repelling figures of the Cordilleras.
The rococo style heightened the decorative tendency in church ornaments: silver
ramilletes (floral wreaths) for altars and carrozas or floats that showed the skill of
the silversmith’s hand.

With the secularization of art in the late 18th century, and the opening of the
country to world trade in the mid-19th century, the Church ceded its control on
the arts to the emergent merchant class which was drawing its new-found power
from its participation in the international market of cash crops. The secularization
of art paved the way for the first art schools, mostly in artists’ ateliers. One such
school was the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura founded by Damian Domingo in
Tondo in the first quarter of the 19th century. Domingo became known for his
costume albums of the different inhabitants of the country, albums which became
the prototype for the costume documentation of artists like Justiniano Asuncion.
These spurred interest in the tipos del pais, painted vignettes of the different
types of inhabitants in the colony exploited for their local color.

After the death of Domingo, the Academia was taken over by the Junta de Comercio
which brought over to the country Spanish art professors Lorenzo Rocha and Agustin
Saez. Through them, the influence of the European Academy made itself felt in the
art scene. The Spanish professors introduced classical norms in representation and
the academic conventions of rendering and modelling while accommodating their
subjects to the local environment. Lorenzo Guerrero, who opened his own private
art school, was an assistant in the Academia. Some of its well-known students were
Juan Luna who had a brief stint there before pursuing his studies in Europe upon
Guerrero’s advice and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo who painted somber landscapes
before he travelled to Europe.

In Madrid, the expatriate artists Luna and Hidalgo produced masterpieces that
showed the tutelage of the European Academy and were approved as entries in
academic expositions. They followed contest prescriptions to deal with large-scale
works in oil on canvas, their subjects drawn from Greek or Roman antiquity or
mythology, following a basically classical style with room for baroque and
romantic strains. In 1884, Luna’s Spoliarium won the first gold medal in the
Madrid Exposition which also saw Hidalgo garnering a silver medal for his
Las virgenes cristianas expuestas al populacho (Christian Virgins Exposed to the
Populace). Inspired by Desobry’s novel on Roman times, Luna’s Spoliarium had
as subject the cruel gladiatorial combats in which Christians and captives from the
colonies were pitted with one another or with animals for sport in the arena of the
Colosseum. The spolarium itself was the basement of the Roman Colosseum to
which the dying and dead gladiators were dragged after the combat, there to be
despoiled and stripped of their last worldly effects by human vultures before their
bodies were claimed by loved ones. In Hidalgo’s Virgenes cristianas, Christian
women were sold as slaves in the market place where they were scrutinized by
leering men.

While the earliest portraits were those of bishops, other Church officials, and
founders of religious orders, in the mid-19th century there emerged a vogue for
secular portraiture. These portraits were of men and women of the elite
celebrating the economic prosperity of the merchant ilustrado or “enlightened”
class. Outstanding examples were the works of Juan Arceo, Severino Flavier Pablo,
Justiniano Asuncion, Simon Flores y de la Rosa, and Antonio Malantic. These
homegrown artists worked in the miniaturist style, so called because it was
concerned with recording minutely and meticulously the features of costume, the
elaborateness of embroidery, the fineness and transparency of the bodice, the
textures of cloth and jewelry. As to the sources of the miniaturist style, the direct
influence could have been the miniature portraits from the limner’s art in vogue in
Europe since the Renaissance. This fashion was introduced in the Philippines
where at one time the most valued gift became the miniature portrait of the loved
one or of the Virgin or a saint enclosed in a gold locket. A number of portraitists,
like Domingo and De la Rosa, also did miniature paintings. The influence could
have come directly from Spain alongside the numerous art objects in the period of
international trade or from Mexico, where paintings of saints carried incidental still
life rendered in painstaking detail. A more indirect but nonetheless important
source were the Dutch and Flemish strains in Spanish art since Spain in its
imperial heyday extended as far as the Netherlands. Philip II himself was an avid
collector of Flemish art. The Flemish strain, for instance, can be seen in the
paintings of Diego Velasquez and in the still lifes of Fray Juan Sanchez Cotan. It
is a lively realist strain with a keen appreciation for material detail and texture.
The populist aspect of Velasquez’s and Murillo’s works, however, did not reach
the country, although it is found in a few works of Hidalgo, such as Los mendigos
(The Beggars) which shows two wandering beggar-children.

European-trained Luna and Hidalgo also painted portraits, but unlike the
homegrown painters they were not concerned with capturing minute detail.
Influenced by late 19th century impressionism (the first impressionist exhibit was
in 1874), they were interested instead in the general aspect of the figure and in the
psychological values of portraiture. This can be seen, for instance, in the two
artists’ Chula paintings and in Luna’s La Bulaqueña (The Lass from Bulacan), as
well as portraits of family members he painted on his last visit to the Philippines.

A special form of the miniaturist style was the letras y figuras of which Jose
Lozano was the principal exponent. In this form done in watercolor on brown
Manila paper, the letters of the patron’s name were painted as genre figures
detailing occupations of the period, and were thus valuable as artistic records of
the late 19th century. Although the letters were only a few inches high, the details
of costume, accessories, and other material features of the setting were painted in
remarkable detail. The figures were, moreover, often supplemented with scenes of
Manila Bay with its foreign merchant boats anchored at bay, and of the Pasig
River and Intramuros, as in Lozano’s Francisco Garcia Ortiz. In Balvino
Mauricio, the principal feature is a mansion and its lavishly furnished interiors.
The British Punch magazine of the Victorian Period featured similar illustrations
in which letters, especially those beginning a text, were embellished with figures of
all kinds—humans, animals, and plants. In the British mode most letters were
clearly drawn and the figures served as embellishments, but in the letras y figuras
it was the figures themselves which formed the letters, a more clever and skillful
accomplishment. A more remote yet indubitable influence lay in the illuminated
manuscripts of the Medieval period. The embellishment of initial letters became
an art form in itself, sometimes with one letter alone occupying an entire page of
illumination, painted in tempera, gilded, and decorated with figures and scenes of
all kinds. These influences encouraged local interest in beautiful writing or
calligraphy which was considered a mark of culture, especially at a time when
letter writing in beautiful hand done by scribes was an important profession in itself.
The Euro-American Influence

In the American colonial occupation and the later Commonwealth period, new
styles such as art nouveau and art deco were introduced into the country. As total
decorative styles, the inspiration of art nouveau was organic, while that of art deco
was geometric and technological.

Art nouveau, a style in the visual and applied arts, flourished in Europe from 1890
to 1910. Its center was the Arts and Crafts Movement founded by the British
artist William Morris. He believed that the common man was as worthy a client
for the designer and architect as the rich man, and that real art should be made for
and by the people. He also encouraged the cooperation of painters, architects,
sculptors, and designers, and preached the superiority of handcrafted objects over
the mechanized products of industry.

Art nouveau was characterized by long curvilinear lines which were vitally
sensitive and tendril-like, in forms organically asymmetrical, metamorphosing into
women’s hair, lines, plant stems, waves, and animal forms. This artistic style also
manifested a penchant for the precious and the “exotic.” Thus, among its principal
symbols were the peacock and the tiger lily. The influence of Japanese art, much
in vogue in Europe at the time, was evident in art nouveau designs and drawings
which earned simplicity, two-dimensionality, concern for clarity, and love of
space. Architecture was characterized by asymmetrical compositions akin to
sculpture and made use of stained glass and intricate ironwork. The style was
applied to jewelry, vases, lamps, leather book jackets, and furniture. In the
Philippines at the turn of the century, art nouveau was used primarily in carving
furniture and picture frames. Moreover, a local variation was created when art
noveau merged with the Isabelo Tampinco decorative style which used indigenous
plant motifs like the pineapple and the anahaw.

Art deco, on the other hand, was a style which became popular in Europe in the
1920s and 1930s. It was largely the creation of fashion designers who strove to
define modern chic. Its origin is traced to 1909 when Diaghilev brought the Ballet
Russe to Paris in the heyday of haute couture king Paul Poiret. This mixture led
to an explosion of color and boldness in all areas of design. Art deco borrowed
freely from cubism, futurism, fauvism, Egyptian art, African art, and pre-
Columbian American art.
Both art deco and the earlier art nouveau were total styles which sought an integral
unity of design in all the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, and
the applied arts. But while art nouveau rejected industrialization, art deco
welcomed it and encouraged an aesthetics of geometry and machine in the unity of
art and industry.

Art deco showed a number of influences, such as that of pre-Columbian art,

particularly the stepped design of Aztec temples or ziggurats, and of Egyptian art
from the 1923 discovery of Tutankhamen’s sumptuously furnished tomb. In
organic motifs, it shifted from whiplash tendrils to geometric rosebuds. Because
of its fascination with industrial technology, it glorified speed in such motifs as
the streamlined racing car, leaping gazelles, ziggurats, lightning, sunbursts, and
fountains. It exemplified industrial design in airplanes, automobiles, and ocean
liners. At the same time, it popularized posters and advertising art. Philippine
furniture before World War II showed a fusion of art deco and art nouveau motifs.
In architecture, our most striking example of art deco in both structure and
ornamentation is the Metropolitan Theater at Liwasang Bonifacio.

Art nouveau fused with the indigenous decorative tendency, as well as with
baroque and rococo influences, and was indigenized with local plant and floral
motifs. The influence of both styles was seen primarily in architecture, interior
design and such applied arts as women’s fashion, furniture, and picture frames.

Modernism was brought into the country via the historic 1928 exhibit of
Victorio Edades at the Philippine Columbian Club. He had just arrived from
art studies in the United States of America where he was able to view the travelling
Armory Show featuring artists of the School of Paris. Challenging the dominance of
the Amorsolo school trained at the UP School of Fine Arts, Edades campaigned for
modern art which opened possibilities in form and expression. Through him
Filipino artists came to know the work and concepts of impressionists Claude
Monet, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Pierre Renoir and the postimpressionists Paul
Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, George Braque, and Pablo Picasso, and abstractionists
Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian. The influence of cubism, fauvism, expressionism,
and surrealism soon became visible in the work of new artists who formed groups
such as the Thirteen Moderns and the neorealists. The influence of Cezanne can
be seen in Edades’ The Artist and His Model which went beyond traditional
single-point perspective to multiple points of view. His other works showed the
influence of Gauguin.

The artists who heeded Edades’ campaign for modern art formed a number of
groups: the triumvirate which included Edades, Carlos V. Francisco aka Botong
Francisco, and Galo B. Ocampo, the Thirteen Moderns, and the neorealists. For
neorealists Vicente Manansala, Cesar Legaspi, Hernando R. Ocampo aka H.R.
Ocampo, and Romeo Tabuena, the predominant influence was cubism. This was
deepened by Manansala’s stint in Paris where he came under the tutelage of
Fernand Leger and Legaspi’s stint at the Academie Julien also in Paris. The result
was a transparent cubism which brought out the interplay of tones and hues and
which eschewed the arbitary fragmentation of the figure in Paris school of cubism.
For his part, H.R. Ocampo developed an abstract art which drew lessons from the
baroque, Picasso’s synthetic phase of cubism; and from local sources of
inspiration, like indigenous design. In the 1950s, Tabuena drew from Asian
sources in his atmospheric paintings of rural scenes with their delicately drawn
figures, and later developed a more robust expressionist style in dark tonalities.
Increasingly, he moved towards a prismatic cubism with light and bright hues.
While discovering their individual styles, the early modernists were also concerned
with indigenizing the modernist idioms in their quest for national identity in art.

In sculpture, Napoleon Abueva, the pioneering modernist was influenced by

Constantin Brancusi in his simple essential shapes. A tendency toward
geometrics was likewise seen in his work and in the works of followers like
Renato Rocha. The influence of Henry Moore—the artist who brought out the
relationship of figure and space with his convex and concave surfaces, apertures,
and holes—was also seen in the works of Ros Arcilla and other artists.
Assemblage, junk sculpture, and the use of found objects pioneered by Picasso
had their counterparts in the works of Lamberto Hechanova, Edgar Doctor, and
J. Elizalde Navarro.

The School of Paris was the first wave of modernist influence in the Philippines in
the 1930s through the postwar years of the 1950s. While Paris was the
international art center before, the postwar period saw the shift of dominant
artistic influence from Paris to New York. The American scene saw the rise of
strong figurative regionalists like Thomas Benton, Grant Wood, and John Stewart
Curry, and social realists like Ben Shahn and Philip Evergood. Later, the abstract
expressionists of the New York School became a strong force.

Impressionism was a style primarily concerned with capturing the effects of light
on objects. The term was derived from the first impressionist exhibit in 1874 with
Monet’s Impression: Sunrise. The impressionists sought to capture the fleeting
and elusive aspects of a subject and the effects of light and atmosphere on it at a
particular place and time. In portraits and human figures, the effect was casual
and candid rather than formal or posed. A painterly style, impressionism gave the
spontaneous impression of the subject by means of brushstrokes of pure color
applied side by side in fresh and vibrant color relationships. The subject was built
up not by the delineation of line but by masses of color and tone.

Most active in the 1970s, a number of artists constituting the Dimasalang group,
including Emilio Aguilar Cruz, Sofronio Y. Mendoza aka SYM, Romulo Galicano,
and Ibarra de la Rosa, asserted figurative values in art in open-air landscapes done
in a basically impressionist style. They turned to earlier influences, such as
Fabian de la Rosa and even Juan Luna, although the Cebuanos among them,
tutored by the Cebuano maestro Martino Abellana, had a definite impressionist
inclination. Macario Vitalis was an impressionist-cubist-pointillist based in
France since the postwar years who was influenced by the artistic currents of
Paris. He did portraits, landscapes, and genre of his native country on his many
visits. Ibarra de la Rosa and his group of young painters exemplify how the
impressionist approach is used locally.

Fauvism, on the other hand, made use of bright, vivid colors applied in a loose and
painterly manner, often straight from the tube and without mixing. The use of
color was autonomous, without reference to the local color of objects in reality.
The style aimed to evoke strong and direct responses to color, as in the works of
Andre Derain and Henri Matisse.

This tendency is felt in the works of Antonio Austria and Norma Belleza since the
1970s, which also manifest qualities of naivete. Among the younger practitioners
but in more abstract vein is Francesca Enriquez in the late 1980s.

Expressionism was a style in painting and sculpture which began in the 1880s and
which strove for the direct rendering of emotion. The artist was no longer
restricted by classical conventions nor by the tenet of fidelity to nature but felt
free to express his personal emotions and subjective experiences through artistic
form. Following this, figurative expressionism involved distortion in
representation, as in the exaggeration, elongation or attenuation of features. While
it had a strong sense of design, it followed emotional impulse, mood, and feeling.
The style strove to capture subjective reality, such as states of mind, inner moods,
and intense feelings generally of anxiety, pathos, and suffering.

Figurative expressionism as a style appeared in times of social crises. In

Germany, it appeared in the period of emerging fascist forces, marked by
heightened militarization and moral decay. In the Philippines it appeared in the
mid-1960s marked by increasing foreign domination on local economic and
political life, intensifying bureaucratic corruption, and a militarization aimed at
protecting ruling interests.

In the 1970s, with the trend in sociopolitical art, expressionist influences came to
the fore, as in the work of Jaime de Guzman, Onib Olmedo, Ang Kiukok, and
Danilo Dalena. They used the expressionist device of distorting the figure to
achieve emotional expressiveness in the fervid sociopolitical atmosphere of the
time. Ang Kiukok has been known for his jagged bony figures in burning rage or in
deep despair. Olmedo was identified with his haunting and expressive faces of
victims of society. Dalena made the Jai-Alai a symbol of human factors and of
chance and accident in the creative process.

Abstract expressionism of the New York School, the main proponents of which
were Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, became synonymous
with “action painting” or “gestural painting.” These artists believed that the act of
painting itself was as significant as the final product. Since they painted in
sweeping strokes, they preferred to work in large scale, with the canvas like an
arena for the release of kinetic energy.

Abstract expressionist paintings often did not show a central focus or center of
interest but treated the entire surface evenly. The spontaneous gestural lines,
executed not so much with the brush as with sticks and twigs, conveyed energy
rather than defined forms, and created dense textured layers of strands and flecks
of pure color. Paint was also made to drip freely upon a canvas textured with
sand, broken glass, and other substances.

The influence of abstract expressionism was reflected from the 1950s to the
1960s, primarily in the works of Jose Joya who studied art in Cranbrook, USA.
Joya foregrounded the quality of spontaneity in the creative process, the use of
collage, and the creation of textural effects such as the incorporation of sand into
pigment. This influence would likewise reflect in the work of younger artists like
Mars Galang.

At the same time, avant-garde art made its appearance in the works of
David Cortez Medalla. He did a number of paintings, highly informal
“portraits” influenced by art brut, a term coined by the French artist
Jean Dubuffet to describe the spontaneous images of ordinary people
which form the raw material of art.

Surrealism was a movement in art which showed the influence of Freudian

psychoanalysis and which drew its subjects from dreams and the nonrational
levels of the mind. Among the European surrealists active in the 1920s and
1930s were Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Yves Tanguy, Rene Magritte,
and Paul Delvaux. Surrealism sought to explore the unconscious to unravel a world
of fantastic images.

The surrealists invented what they believed were techniques of dredging the
depths of the unconscious to reveal its contents. Among the methods practiced
were automatism or automatic writing in which all controls by the conscious mind
were released. In automatic drawing, the artist lets himself go on doodling without
any apparent objective. It is from surrealist automatism that abstract
expressionism would derive its basic technique.

Two kinds of surrealism developed: surrealism based on automatic writing and

veristic surrealism. The first kind was exemplified by the paintings of Miro and
Klee with their spontaneous and fantastic figures; the second was to be seen in the
“dream paintings” of Dali, Magritte, and Delvaux which employed realistic
techniques for contents not of the real world. Surrealist art in fact has affinities
with children’s art and the art of the insane.

Abstract expressionism or gestural/action painting, a derivative of the “automatic

writing” of surrealism, became the order of the day. Abstract expressionism is a
style of abstract art which became dominant immediately after World War II and
was associated with the New York School. The immigration of European artists
and intellectuals to the United States in the wake of the war stimulated the growth
of art theory. They propagated the idea that art was a world in itself with its own
language of form and color, and stressed the importance of understanding the
medium. They also introduced a definite surrealist strain which placed importance
on the role of nonrational desperation in search of the elusive stroke of luck.

There is a constant surrealist trend in Philippine art. Juvenal Sanso, has surrealist
undertones in his landscapes with their mysterious nocturnal mood. A number of
Filipino artists use the basic method of juxtaposing diverse elements to enrich the
content of their work. An artist who has worked in this style is Prudencio Lamarrosa
in whose Amburayan Queen and Ecology series realistically textured stones and rocks
glow with a magical life. His unique surrealism is a combination of highly realistic
landscapes with abstract passages. Santiago Bose has used folk symbols from the
ancient Cordillera traditions with mystical and cabalistic undertones. Another
outstanding realist now based in Europe is Ramon Gaston who works in a
meticulous but visionary style that brings together symbols from various sources
and juxtaposes elements from different temporal dimensions and levels of experience.
Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi, Brenda Fajardo, Roderick Daroy, and Mario de Rivera
combine medieval European imagery with disjunct contemporary images.

Surrealism was also given a boost in the highly original and technically excellent
paintings, lithographs, and constructions of Glenn Bautista. Bautista has derived
inspiration from the diverse religious faiths and philosophies of Asia and the
West. Much of the surreal quality of his work comes from a unique lighting which
emanates from within the form and is internal where most works have the light
source coming from the environment outside the subject.

Surrealism has also been used within the context of political meanings, as in the
works of Jose Tence Ruiz. His jeepney assemblages are lively thought-provoking
constructions made of diverse objects from popular culture. His box
constructions consist of the material ingredients of the folk tradition of
cockfighting and reflect the daily struggles of the masses. Like Ruiz, Arnel
Agawin also makes use of assemblages, but of natural elements such as twigs and
dried leaves and collages of handmade paper and newspaper clippings, to convey
his ecological and social concerns. A younger surrealist with sociopolitical
undertones is Arnel Mirasol who also does highly original editorial cartoons. Like
Ruiz and Agawin, Mirasol fuses surrealism and social themes.

At the same time, the geometric abstraction of Mondrian and the chromatic
abstraction of Josef Albers found an adherent in Constancio Bernardo whose work
showed the influence of Albers’ Homage to the Square series. Geometric
abstraction with op-art effects was later pursued by Lee Aguinaldo, Mars Galang,
Ben Maramag, Rodolfo Gan, Lillian Hwang, Impy Pilapil, and Allan Cosio.
Abstract art drew influences from traditional Asian aesthetic philosophies, mainly
Zen with its minimalism, although these did not come directly from the countries
of their sources—Japan, China, and India—but via the United States where artists
like Mark Tobey with his calligraphic “white writing” and Ad Reinhardt with his
minimalist works avowed oriental influences. In the Philippines, these
orientalizing trends found expression in the work of Lao Lianben and Augusto.

Magic realism, as in the work of Nestor Leynes, Ely Gajo, Ger Viterbo, Efren
Lopez, Araceli Dans, Agustin Goy, and Stevesantos drew its inspiration from
American artist Andrew Wyeth’s images of rural and small-town America. This
style is also often referred to as macro vision or hyper-realism.

Traditions of the western avant-garde was felt in the 1970s,with the exhibition of
David Medalla’s kinetic sculpture Bubble Machine. Medalla also introduced
performance as medium for visuals artists. Conceptual art had strong proponents
in Ray Albano and Roberto Chabet.

Later a loose group of artists working around these two leading experimentalists
combined conceptual art—installations, photographic collages, constructions—
with performance art. These influences were enhanced by travels to the United
States and Europe which encouraged a cosmopolitan outlook and by dominant
American publications, such as Art Forum and Art News.

In the late 1980s Chabet’s encouragement of painting as appropriation resulted in

the proliferation of large-scale works based on blowing up of details from Western
magazine clippings and art reproductions, as one by Pardo de Leon, Stella Rojas,
and Popo San Pascual.

Appropriation of this kind was actually antedated by the 1972 exhibit of

Larawan by Benedicto Cabrera aka Bencab, who enlarged, cropped, and
rearranged compositions based on 19th-century Philippine photographs, with
outstanding draughtsmanship. This stirred a sentiment of nationalism and
nostalgia as Benjamin Cabrera dealt with the issue of Filipino identity.

The 1980s saw more experimental use of material with the effort to expand artistic
resources. This trend had, in fact, begun earlier in the United States and explored
innovative Europe. The abstract expressionists explored techniques and
instruments in applying paint on two-dimensional surfaces.

The American artist Robert Rauschenberg contributed to this new way with
materials used in his large assemblages and combines. His was a rejection of the
traditional painting process. Louise Nevelson developed the new form of “box
art,” Christo made a mark, though temporary, on the environment by large works
often involving empaquetage or enveloping objects, including buildings, with
plastic wrap. These influences found their way into the country and were
translated in lively mixed media productions, among the most important of which
have been the works of Santiago Bose and Roberto Feleo. Bose has been a most
consistent experimentalist, combining two-dimensional with three-dimensional
forms. Feleo’s Pintado series and box works, bring out the potential of a large
variety of materials and establishes a well-defined academic framework which is
nationalist, if not nativistic.

A particularly significant trend is the use of indigenous materials which began with
the use of local plants in handmade paper for printmaking and painting. In the
mid 1970s this expanded to the extensive use of natural discards as in Junyee’s
and Genara Banzon’s installations, although Francisco Verano was the first to use
bamboo in sculpture as early as 1971. In the 1980s Roberto Villanueva found
inspiration in the indigenous art of the Cordilleras and in the ritualistic role of the
shaman turned artist. Bose has also used bamboo effectively in his installation
Pasyon at Rebolusyon (Passion and Revolution). In the painting collages of
Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, sawali panels form the background of painted images of
figures witnessing contemporary events. Her works are further embellished with
collaged elements, like denim cloths and crocheted curtains to evoke a familiar
social environment. The use of indigenous materials has had the salutary effect of
making the artists come to terms with the immediate natural and social
environment. At the same time, this naturally led to their adoption of the Filipino
themes of nationalism and sociopolitical consciousness. Many young artists have
inventively worked in assemblages, box art, and installations, some in the pure
spirit of play and others in the more serious temper of reckoning with the issues
of the times. • A.G. Guillermo

References

Haftmann, Werner. Painting in the Twentieth Century. Vol. II. London:

Lund Herconphies, 1960.

Hamilton, George. 19th and 20th Century Art. Edited by Harry Abians.
New York, n.d.