History of

Philippine Art
Wait! This ain’t
Philippine art
A BRIEF HISTORY
OF PHILIPPINE ART
Was there “art” before
colonization?
 TUMPAKGANERN!!

Yes, there is!

…But the not as an
expression of an
individual
Everyday expressions were all
integrated within rituals that
marked significant moments in a
community’s life.
✣Like planting and harvesting
✣Rites of a passage
✣Funerary ceremonies
✣Weddings
✣Pottery, weaving, craving,
metalwork and jewelrt
I. Preconquest period
Hunter-gatherer society
 This is a slide title

#Squad goals

Hunter-gatherer society
 LITERATURE
Bes sawi Thug life
me, di na kami,
me sogbu na
nakahuli
haist
When they told stories about their
hunt, this form of ORAL
STORYTELLING marked the
beginning of LITERATURE
THEATER or PLAY
ACTING
 When they imitated animal
movements that they hunted, this
marked the early beginnings of
THEATER or PLAY ACTING
 MAYVANUVANUA
ritual to open the fishing season
Cañao or Kanyaw

the ritual-dance performed

during native feasts or
celebrations in the
highlands of the
Cordilleras–in the Luzon
area of the Philippines
✣Healing
✣To announce birth of a child
✣Coming of age
✣During wakes
✣Weddings
✣Burial ceremonies
 KASHAWING
✣Ritual to ensure the abundance during rice
planting and harvesting
 TAGBANWA
✣Believed that every thirteenth moon, three
goddesses descend from heaven to bless the
planting rice.
✣Before the coming of the Spaniards, the pre
colonial peoples of the Philippines already
possessed a varied and vibrant musical culture.
Insert pictures
PANGALAY from SULU
Kinabua
Banog-banog
MAN MANOK
TALIP DANCE
KADAL IWAS
TINIKLING
Pre-colonial Filipinos have been making images
before colonization. This exemplified by the
country’s rich tradition in carving.
BULUL
HAGABI
Carvings in Laguna and Pampanga
PAETE
OKIR
TERRACOTA
Manunggul Place your screenshot here

Jar
WEAVING
✣PIS SIYABIT
II. ISLAMIC COLONIAL
(13TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT)
Place your screenshot here
 What are the main beliefs of Islam
that influence the ways art is made
and interpreted?
 TAWHID…NOT TAWID �

TAWHID
-doctrine or belief that
emphasizes the
IMPERMANENCE of NATURE
and the GREATNESS of
DIVINE BEING
*negates materiality
 ISLAMIC ART IN RELATION TO
TAWHID

Interior Mosques
-elaborate, abstract patterns
of relief

purpose
*to draw attention away
from humans and nature
*to contemplate the Divine
*to compel the believer to
engage in mental
concentration
 ISLAMIC ART IN RELATION TO
TAWHID

MIRHAB (niche) and QIBLA

(wall) are oriented toward
the west

Oriented toward MECCA

 ISLAMIC ART IN RELATION TO
TAWHID

DOME
-tells us about how the order
of universe is imagined
-relates to ―all levels of
cosmic experience‖
-the octagonal base
symbolizes the spirit
- The four-sided main base
refers to the earth or
material world
 ISLAMIC ART IN
RELATION TO TAWHID
✣Islamic forms are
inclined to project,
grow, or have an
upward orientation to
symbolize regard for
heaven and to veer
from material earth Torogan Sarimanok
-derived from the word
―Torog‖ which means sleep
 Torog na tayo
bes!!

Torogan
-derived from the word
―Torog‖ which means sleep

This classroom I not a ―TOROGAN‖

 III. SPANISH
COLONIAL PERIOD
(1521-1898)
 During Spanish colonial period…

✣The colonizers used art

as a tool to:
1. propagate the Catholic faith
through beautiful images
2. explain concepts behind
Catholicism
3. To tell stories of Christ’s life
and passion

THE PROPAGATION OF CATHOLIC FAITH COULD NOT HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT THE USE OF ARTS
 ART FORMS DURING
THE SPANISH REGIME

Lowland
Religious art Folk art
Christian art
 CHURCHES

Style: Baroque
- Characterized by
grandeur, drama,
and elaborate
Sto Tomas de Villanueva church, Iloilo
details
- -extensive use of
San Agustin church in Manila
decoration and
ornamentation
- -European-
inspired
- -e/i
They are still existing!!!
 Inside churches

✣Trompe l’oeil

(French for ―fooling the eye‖)

-optical illusion
- Painting style used in
- Taal Basilica, Batangas

(c) F.Belizario
Taal basilica of St.Martin De Tours
Asia’s largest Catholic church

(c) F.Belizario, 2011

 Inside churches

✣Retablo Via Crucis

-decorative altar niche
(way of the cross)
-depicts Christ’s Crucifixion and
resurrection
 Performance art
✣Pasyon- Biblical narration of Christ’s passion chanted
in improvised melody
✣Sarswela (Zarzuela)- operatta which features singing
and dancing with a prose dialogue
✣Senakulo- dramatic presentation depicting the Passion
of Christ
✣Komedya- colorful theatrical tradition that describes
the conflicts between the Muslims and the Christians
 Music and Literature
✣Doctrina Christiana- first printed
book in the Philippines compiling
song lyrics, commandments,
sacraments, and other catechetical
material

Kundiman- traditional Filipino love

song
 Paintings

✣(usually) uses Chiaroscuro-

interplay of light and dark and
Primeras Letras
their contrast Simon Flores
España y Filipinas
Juan Luna

✣Landscapes, still life, and

Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas
genre were popular choices al Populacho
Felix Hidalgo
 III. AMERICAN COLONIAL
PERIOD TO THE POSTWAR
REPUBLIC
1898-1940, 1946-1969
 paintings

✣Inclination toward still life, portrait

and genre still persisted
✣
✣Fabian De la Rosa (naturalist
paintings)
✣Fernando Amorsolo (―romantic‖
paintings) In The Rice Field
✣1909 UP school of Fine Arts was Fabian De la Rosa
1921
opened
 paintings

Fabian De la Rosa (naturalist

paintings) *depiction of realistic
objects in a natural setting

-used subdued, cool colors

-first dean of UP school of Fine
Arts
paintings

Fernando Amorsolo (―romantic‖

paintings) *
✣-bursting with yellow-orange and
golden sunlight
✣-idealized rural life of working men
and women
✣-was able to show the ideal beauty
of Philippine landscape, rural life, and
Filipinas
✣-first nat’l artist
 Performance Art

✣Bodabil (Vaudeville from

France)
-became popular in 1920s until
Japanese regime
-the motley collection of slapstick,
song, dances, acrobatics, comedy
skits, chorus girl, and standup comic
acts
-died away soon, replaced by film
 Architecture

✣Neoclassic Architecture
-characterized by grandeur of scale,
simplicity of geometric forms, Greek—
especially Doric (see order)—or
Roman detail, dramatic use of Post office

columns, and a preference for blank

walls

legislative building-
national museum
 Sculpture

✣Guillermo Tolentino
-Amorsolo’s counterpart in sculpture
-Oblation
-Bonifacio monument
What were the changes brought about by
American colonization? How are they
different from the religious forms of the
Spanish colonial period?
Modern Art
 Philippine Art in the Modern Era

› has evolved into a wide variety of

expressions and medium turning
the country into a situation of
creative upheavals.
› Modern Filipino Artists have more
freedom to explore on his own.
› They show their love for country
and evolving culture.
› Their style is from cross-cultural
exposures in the Eastern and
Western world yet they have not
forgotten their Filipino roots.
Modern art
›Victorio Edades
-modern art movement
profoundly influenced him
from his art studies in U.S.

The Builders 1928

-showed distorted figures of
toiling workers using dull
colors

There is a shift in the treatment of form and subject matter

 Filipino Struggles Through History
Botong Francisco

Transfiguration
Metropolitan theater Napoleon Abueva
Juan Arellano
Neo-realism, abstraction, and
other modern art styles
› Neo-realism- art that
exposed the true
social conditions,
shapes and colours of
daily life
Neo-realism, abstraction, and
other modern art styles
› Abstraction
-generally consists of
simplified forms
-avoided mimetic (exact
copy) representation
-emphasized
Street Musicians
relationships of line, Arturo Luz
Piko
color, and space or the Arturo Luz
flatness of canvas rather
than 3-dimensionality Pounding Rice
Nena Saguil
Roberto Chabet
-‖flux‖ artist
- widely acknowledged as the father of
Philippine conceptual art ( a movement
that prizes ideas over the formal or
visual components of art works)
- His ―scandalous‖ art work displayed in
CCP helped art works not only to be
confined in museum
Chabet- Albano axis

Opened up non white Raymundo Albano

cube sites for art -initiated projects termed
exhibitions and ―developmental art‖
performance spaces -use of sand, junk, iron,
non-art materials such as
rocks, lumber, etc.
-‖Exhibitions should be
alive, not church-like,
quite high in festive
ambience‖
Social Realism
›Emerged during the
intense political ferment of
the 70s and 80s
›Protest art that exposed
the sociopolitical issues
and struggles of the times
›Conscious with its regard
for the oppressed and
underrepresented masses