Spanish Colonial

Period
1521 - 1898
Historical Overview
• Though the South have been
resistant, the Spanish Colonizers
gained control in the Central part,
which they classified them as
“Lowland Christians.”;
• Art forms, as they demanded, are
under the strict rule of the
church and the colonial state, and;
• By Religious orders they
dispatched to convert all the
natives to Catholicism
 • Art forms are stylistically and
culturally which are classified under:
− Religious art

Historical − Lowland Christian art

− Folk art.
• To carry out their projects like, the
Overview plaza complex, they relocated the
natives and let them build town
centers, municipio(s), and cruches
 • Designed according to
prescriptions of the Spanish
crown, establishments must
imposes scale and overall visual
appeal like:
Historical − Cruciform churches with a
shape of the Latin cross, and;
Overview − Hispanic churches, the
baroque style are
predominantly employed to
appeal emotions
 • Baroque are implied with
churches like:
− San Agustin Church in Manila
− Morong Church in Rizal
− Paoay Church in Ilocos NorteS
Historical − Sto. Tomas de Villanueva Church
in Miag-ao, Iloilo.
Overview • European inspired but with
local interventions suits its
native sensibilities and
adjustment to local
environmental conditions
 • façade of Miag-ao Church -
surrounded by reliefs or relleves
- tropical motifs
• - palm fronds and papaya
trees
Historical • - adobe, limestone, or brick
Overview • - thick buttresses or wing-
like projections
• It is called the Colonial Baroque
or Philippine or Tropical
Baroque
 • We will be focusing on Spanish
application in different aspects and new
introduction to new forms of arts in
the following aspect.
Architecture
Sculpture and Ornamentation
Historical Music

Overview Writing System

Theater
Dance
Paintings
Printing System
 • And topic focusing on the
development of statuses in
Historical the Spanish Era

Overview Rise of Classes and Privilege

Different Prominent
Painting Styles and their
Artists
Architechture
 • Saints and interpretations are the
essentials into worship
• As the process of engravinf, painting
Architecture and sculpting they are highly
supervised in accordance to
imposing scale and overall visual
appeal.
 • The friars brought the Western
models for our local artists to copy
which are most likely made from
either ivory or wood and portrays
classical and baroque models
Architecture • In the 17th century, Chinese artisans
are engaged in making icons or
saints or santos, building churches
and houses, making furniture.
 • spread which later on spread
throughout Cebu, Batangas,
Manila, and Ilocos
• It drew upon Chinese features
Architecture and techniques like in Nuestra
Señora del Rosario in Bohol
which Kuanyin, the deity of
mercy in East Asian Buddhism
Sculpture and
Ornamentation
 • Santos are displayed most on
decorative altar niche, which are
called retablo.
Sculpture • Town’s patron saint implies
And with architecture and sculpture
which embellished with rosettes,
Ornamentation scrolls, pediments and
Solomonic columns and are
color dependently classified
(gilded or polychromed)
Sculpture • Via Crucis (14 paintings or relief
sculptures) is series of reliefs which
And shows Christ’s crucifixion and
Ornamentation resurrection
 • In other churches, Holy Family, the
Virgin Mary, and the four
Sculpture evangelists proliferate in the ceilings
and walls in an ornate manner of
And trompe l’oeil.
Ornamentation • In Taal Basilica in Batangas or at the
St. James the Apostle Parish in Betis,
Pampanga it can be seen.
 • Church altars *carved figurative
Sculpture protrusions like relleves in organic
designs and in hammered silver or
And the plateria (plateria technique)
Ornamentation which can be seen at bodies of the
carroza
Music
 • Western musical instruments like
the pipe organ, the violin, the guitar,
and the piano gives a very new
European flavor with new rhythms,
melodies and musical forms.
Music • Catholic liturgical music, in 1742,
where Archbishop of Manila, Juan
Rodriguez Angel started singing
schools in Manila Cathedral which
boomed the industry of choirs.
 • Other musical forms like pasyon or
pabasa which are biblical narration
of Christ’s passion chanted
(sometimes read)

Music • Lowland Christian communities of

Pampanga, Ilocos, Bicol, and Iloilo,
on another hand, has awit and the
corrido which musical forms
chanted, based on European
literature
 • Another one is Balitao which is
sentimental love songs and lullabies
in the latter half of the 19th century
• Sentiments began to develop which
Kundiman is born that spoke about
Music resignation and fatalism, a vehicle
for resistance with lyrics of
unrequited love.
• The love object pointed to which is
the Philippines is cleverly concealed
as a beautiful woman
Writing System
 • Mangyans of Mindoro has bamboo
poles which are etched with
Writing Baybayin script, used for courtship
and emotional concerns

System • In the town of Ticao, Southern

Leyte, a huge stone contained of
Baybayin invocate a safe journey by
sea.
Writing • Spanish colonization brought with it
printing technology in the form of
catechism and prayer books in
System Spanish for a lot to read and write
and to evangel.
Theater
 • There are a lot of theater forms
formed locally and through
colonization with a simultaneously
development of literature and other
art forms.
Theater • One of the earliest forms of theater
is pomp and pageantry
−A religious processions with
embellished carrozas that shows
religious tableaus, saints and scenes
 • Zarzuela or Sarsuwels in the
19th century is a singing and
dancing - prose dialogue which
the story is carried out in song

Theater • Later on, the locals learned to

write locally language
sarsuwelas in the leadership of
Severino Reyes and Hermogenes
Ilagan and Honorata ‘Atang’
dela Rama as their lead actress.
 • Another one is Senakulo
− Christ’s suffering in metaphor to
the suffering of Filipinos under
Spanish colonial rule.
• 1st senakulo written in 1704 by
Gaspar Aquino de Belen is now
divided into two main types :
Komedya de Santo - life of Christ
Theater or of any saint - during church
celebrations - stylized way -
extravagant costumes - elaborately
choreographed war scene
Secular Komedya commonly
known as “Moro-Moro” which is
typical a love story Christian hero
and an Islamic heroine, clashes,
and is done with dance
 • Today several groups are still
performing komedya & senakulo
• Like there are several families who
align themselves to a local parish

Theater church to stage

• Scripts are handed down to children
or apprentices which serves as a
form of panata or devotion to the
Church
 • In many towns in the provinces
of Pampanga and Tarlac,
senakulo is in Kapampangan or
Ilocano and is a full staging
Theater crucifixion, literally, which
serves also a major tourist and
media attraction
• Senakulo in Nueva Ecija
− araguio or arakyo
Dance
 • As the galleon trade between
Mexico and the Philippines
brought Mexican influences
Dance Cariñosa, Pandanggo or
Fandango, Polka, Dansa and the
Rigodon and European influence
like Habañera, Jota, and Tango
dances from Spain
Paintings
 • Paintings are expressed through
visual interpretation through biblical
texts in Catholic devotion.

Paintings • Like; Heaven, Earth, and Hell (1850)

is a mural of Jose Dans placed now
in Paete Church, Laguna that shows
the map of the universe and the
terrifying depiction of hell
 • Image making during the period
are conformed like in Basi
Revolt which is are 14 paintings
Paintings by Esteban Villanueva that
shows the defeat of Ilocanos
who rebelled at the Spanish
government’s monopoly of basi
or rice wine in 1821
Printing System
 • Reprographic art of printmaking is
brought as early as the 16th century
which is a technique of xylography
Printing or woodcut printing
• Doctrina Christiana (The Teachings
System of Christianity)
− printed in 1593 in Spanish and in
Tagalog compiling song lyrics,
commandments, sacraments, and other
catechetical material.
 • It also engraves the production
of secular or non-religious
works like which scientists and
artists does maps as other
sources of classification
Printing • In 1734, Jesuit priest Fr. Pedro
Murillo Velarde with artists
System Francisco Suarez and the
engraver Nicolas de la Cruz
Bagay made Carta
Hydrographica y Chorographica
de las Yslas Filipinas is a
scientific map of the Philippines
 • development of lithography
born the reproduction of
color palates, the mass
printing of newspapers and
Printing periodicals
• Another example is,
System Augustinian botanist Fr.
Manuel Blanco made an
extensive compilation of the
Philippine plants in Flora de
Filipinas in 1878
Rise of Classes
and Privilege
 • opening of Manila to
international trade in 1834 and
Rise of Suez Canal in 1869, economic
Classes benefits raise for the native
elites
and • Commercial ventures opens
Privilege opportunity to study in Europe
with the class rose the Ilustrado
or “enlightened” ones
 • Development of music with the
Rise of efforts of Pakil-born Marcelo Adonay
are compositions based on the
Classes Western tradition of Gregorian
and chants
• Domestic realm with their altars
Privilege comprised of delicate santos in
viriña and urna.
 • Manifestation in town organization
Rise of is focused when they occupied the
plaza complex

Classes • Which are called “bahay na bato” for

rich and prominent families,
and spacious interiors, commissioned
portrait paintings, miniaturist style
Privilege which artist use to reveal meticulous
signify the wealth and refinement of
the sitter.
 Different
Prominent
Painting Styles
and their
Artists
 • Simon Flores’s painting Portrait
of the Quiazon Family in 1800
is a type of miniature.
• Other miniature painters are
Different Antonio Malantic, Isidro Arceo,
Dionisio de Castro, and
Artist Justiniano Asuncion
and their • Details in painting, like Letras y
Figuras with combining names
Styles and vignettes of everyday life
became popular. As the Filipino
natives acquired Spanish names
under a decree implemented in
1884
Different • Another Academia-trained Lorenzo
Guerrero painted The Water Carrier

Artist uses of chiaroscuro in the late 19th

century

and their • Another one from Pampanga-born

Simon Flores, Primeras Letras in
Styles 1890 shows a woman teaching a
child how to read.
 • In 1884, Juan Luna won gold
Different for Spoliarium and Felix
Resurreccion Hidalgo silver
Artist medal for Virgenes christianas
expuestas al populacho in the
and their Madrid
exhibits
Exposition
Filipino
which
artistic
Styles excellence even in standards set
by the European academy
Different • Hidalgo’s Virgenes christianas
expuestas al populacho
Artist emphasizes on a woman held
and their captive which counterparts
Philippines’ oppression under
Styles Spanish rule.
Different • Luna’s (Spolarium) depiction of a

Artist lifeless body of a gladiator being

pulled across the coliseum, and;

and their • Luna with ilustrados’ Propaganda

Movement in España y Filipinas by
Styles 1886
American
Colonial
Period
1898 - 1940

Photo CC BY 2.0
 • Independence – Philippine
revolution of 1896 was cut
short to the establishment of
Historical American colonial government
• Treaty of Paris in 1898 is where
Overview the Spain “surrendered the
Philippines to the United States
 • 1899 to 1913, The bloody
Philippine American war begun
with the institution of
government and education who
took charge in initiating the
Historical natives to American way of living

Overview • Filipino
themselves
playwrights
confronted
found
by
censorship in issuance of the
Sedition Law which banned
writing, printing, and publication
of materials advocating Philippine
independence
 Here it will show us how
the Americans influenced
Philippine Culture and
Historical Standards by:
Overview Eyeopener to New Forma(s)
The Clique
Education
Modern Art
An Eyeopener to
New Forma(s)
  Lingua franca in English, poems
and stories from books in
classroom to facilitate the
An teaching of the English through
public school system, which the
Eyeopener Americans had brought.
 In less than a decade, Filipino -
to New began to write plays in English.
- In 1915, Lino Castillejo
Forma(s) and Jesus Araullo authored A
Modern Filipina which first
Filipino play written in English
  Vaudeville (originated from
France) form of theater during
An the 1920s.
Eyeopener  Motley collection of slapstick,
songs, dances, acrobatics,
to New comedy skits, chorus girls,
magic acts, and stand-up comic
Forma(s) acts which is locally called
bodabil.
  In a time span, some
An performances has
messages to the guerillas
hidden

Eyeopener  After the war, bodabil

to New deteriorated into vulgar shows
and soon died away, replaced by
Forma(s) the popularity of film and later,
television
The Clique
 In the beginning of the 20th
century, a new urban
pattern - secular goals of
education, health, and
governance
The Clique  - architect and urban
planner Daniel Burnham -
American government -
design Manila and Baguio -
 - Architect William
Parsons - Burnham Plan
  City Beautiful Movement introduced
in 1893 at Chicago World Fair in
which new urban design, Neoclassic
architecture are integrated parks
and lawns, to make attractive
buildings impressive and places for
leisure amid urban blight
The Clique  Manila’s Neoclastic architecture
examples are:
− Post Office and the Legislative
Building
− National Art Gallery
 Which are monumental in scale and
are iconically composed of thick
columns
 Other Filipino architects
designed buildings with
Neoclassism are:
− Tomas Mapua, Juan Arellano
The Clique − Andres Luna de San Pedro
− Antonio Toledo
 Who got their training in the
US or in Europe
Education
  1909, a year after
establishment of the University
of the Philippines, School of
Fine Arts was opened and the
course on commercial design
aforementioned had in-
Education demands.
Fernando Amorsolo became a
professor in the UP School of
Fine Arts, which students
pertained to as “Amorsolo
School”
 Guillermo Tolentino, on the
other hand, in sculpture
studied Fine Arts in Rome
being influenced by the
classical tradition
Education He made the Oblation (1935,
original/1958, bronze cast
found at the UP Oblation
plaza)
Bonifacio Monument, 1933
in Caloocan
 academic (a term referring to the
kind of art that was influenced by
European academies) tradition of
painting and sculpture
Education *Amorsolo and Tolentino challenged
National Artist Victorio Edades in the
modern art movement in the
homecoming exhibition in 1928 by which
Philippine Columbian Club value
conservative styles of Amorsolo.
 latter’s pastoral images,
Edades’s The Builders, 1928
Education − dull colors; a shift in the
treatment of form and
subject matter
Modern Art
 The proponent of Modern
Art, Victorio Edades style
were initially rejected and
misunderstood in which his
Modern Art modernist sensibility was
shared by several artists:
 Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco
 Galo Ocampo
  Botong Francisco had his magisterial
mural titled the Filipino Struggles
Through History in 1964 placed in
Manila City Hall
 Another piece is Brown Madonna in
1938 of Galo Ocampo
Modern Art *Edades, Francisco, and Ocampo are called
“triumvirate” of modern art with their collaborative
work that survives to this day is Nature’s Bounty, (ca.
1935)

• With various mediums, techniques,

and themes it is defined as “new”
and even “shocking
  Edades publicized a roster of
artists modernist leanings. They
are the “Thirteen Moderns”
included himself and 12 others:
− Arsenio Capili
− Bonifacio Cristobal
− Demetrio Diego
− National Artist Carlos Francisco
Modern Art − National Artist Cesar Legaspi
− Diosdado Lorenzo
− Anita Magsaysay-Ho
− Galo Ocampo
− National Artist Hernando R.
Ocampo
− Jose Pardo
− Ricarte Purugganan.
1946 - 1969

Japanese & Post

War Republic
 • As the Japanese Occupation of
Manila, the Modern Art
project begun to slow down t
Historical • The “Moderns” and
Overview “Conservatives” continued to
producing art in KALIBAPI
(Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod ng
Bagong Pilipinas)
 As the Japanese left a scar
into a lot of hearts; we will
see how many good sight the
colonization has brought
Historical through the following:
Pro & Con "-paganda"
Overview Genre Paintings
Other Modern Styles
"Conservatives" vs.
"Moderns"
Pro & Con
"-paganda"
 • Japanese forces built a formation
“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere” - a movement created a
Pan-Asian to rejected Western
through sponsored publications
Pro & Con such as Shin-Seiki, and newspapers
and magazines like Liwayway and
"-paganda" Tribune
• Images, texts, and music underwent
scrutiny which subversive or anti-
Japanese led to torturous
consequences, even death
 • Regulating the information
campaign was a Japanese
Information Bureau or Hodobu
who employed local artists and
cultural workers
Pro & Con • National Artist Felipe P. de Leon
said to have been “commanded at
"-paganda" the point of the gun” to write Awit
sa Paglikha ng Bagong Pilipinas
declared as the anthem for the
period, which conveyed allegiance
reared in East Asia, especially Japan
who is in political power
 • Strictly policed under the
Second World War
Amorsolo’s paintings still
though has little or no
Pro & Con indication of war’s atrocities
"-paganda" − Harvest Scene, 1942
− Rice Planting, 1942
*semblance of peace, idealized
work in the countryside with docile
industriousness
 Genre
Paintings
 • Genre paintings are widely
produced showing neutral
relationship between the
Filipinos and the Japanese of the
normality of daily living
Genre • Colonizers preferred to have
Paintings showed indigenous and pre-
colonial traditions representing
different ethnolinguistic groups
− Crispin Lopez’s Study of an Aeta,
1943
 • Although scenes of war made
imagery remained neutral but
rather on the aesthetic
qualities of ruin and disaster
Genre − Amorsolo’s Bombing of the
Intendencia, 1942
Paintings − Ruins of the Manila Cathedral,
1945 - elegant handling - value in
the billows of smoke or the pile of
ruins
 • Works that depicted the
horrors:
Genre Diosdado Lorenzo’s Atrocities in
Paintings Paco
Dominador Castañeda’s Doomed
Family were painted after 1945.
Other
Modern
Styles
 • Alice Guillermo as an artists
and writers reflected national
Other identity with rising from the
ashes of war
Modern • Debates for art’s sake and art
Styles conscious about “true social
conditions” of the period
 • Period has a promising
development of modern art
Other when a new kind of
Modern modernism emerged, observed
by the artist-writer E. Aguilar
Styles Cruz, which he named
NeoRealism
 • Many artists explored folk
themes, crafted commentaries,
and urban condition in the
Other effects of the war.
• Manansala, Legaspi, and HR
Modern Ocampo are other artisit
Styles associated with Neo-Realism.
• Manansala’s The Beggars, 1952
& Tuba Drinkers, 1954
• Legaspi’s Gadgets II, 1949
 • Most of Legaspi’s Bar Girls,
1947
• HR Ocampo’s The Contrast,
Other 1940, and;
Modern • Genesis, 1968
Styles *tapestry hanging - Main
Theater or Bulwagang Nicanor
Abelardo of the CCP.
"Conservatives"
vs
"Moderns"
 • Two years later, the rift between
the “Conservatives” subscribe to
the Amorsolo and Tolentino
"Conservatives" style & “Moderns” by Edades
would resurface in the AAP art
vs competition
"Moderns" • Artists who continued
conservative tradition, walked
out to protest and exhibited
their works on the streets
 • Their studios lining the street
of Mabini, Manila, referred to
as Mabini painters
"Conservatives"
vs • UP Diliman campus’ Church
"Moderns" of Holy Sacrifice, 1955 -
employed concrete as primary
material with rounded or
parabolic forms
"Conservatives" • Chapel of St. Joseph the
vs Worker in Victorias, Negros
"Moderns" • Angry Christ
 • Abstraction (by modernists)
• avoided mimetic (exact copy)
"Conservatives" representation referred as non-
vs representational or non-
"Moderns" objective art with relationships
of line, color, and space or the
flatness of the canvas.
 • abstract expressionist is an
"Conservatives" aspect of spontaneity in the
vs process of making
"Moderns" National Artist Jose Joya uses
thick and often vigorous
application of paint
 70s to
Contemporary
 • helm of Ferdinand and Imelda
Marcos in 1965
*cultural projects built backdrop of
poverty and volatile social
Historical conditions
• National chaos of emergency
Overview proportions emerged as Martial
Law was declared on September
21, 1972 that envisioned a New
Society or Bagong Lipunan
 • propagated and implemented
through an art and culture
program - fine arts,
Historical architecture, interior design,
tourism, convention city
Overview building (hotels, theaters,
coliseums), engineering, urban
planning, health, among many
others.
 • Marcoses is considered either
an friend or a foe but let us see
how they have influenced the
Historical art industry through the
following:
Overview Marcos Regime Bloom
Hybriding Arts
Developmental Art
Social Realism
Marcos
Regime
Bloom
 • discerned in the anthem or songs,
aims optimism toward a new
beginning

Marcos *Levi Celerio and Felipe Padilla de Leon’s

- Bagong Pagsilang
• Index of progress, refinement,
Regime radical experiment, national identity
and love for country circulated in

Bloom the intricate network of institutions

in threads of the pre-modern,
vernacular, the modern and
international
 • Cultural Center of the Philippines
Marcos (CCP) is a bureaucratic entity of art
acquisition that upholds exhibition

Regime making, workshops, grants, and

awards
*created on 25 June 1966 in the

Bloom Executive Order 30 and inaugurated in

1969, the year Marcos was elected to his
second term as Philippine President
 • Leandro Locsin designed the modernist
building, crossing between the
vernacular bahay kubo and art brut
minimalist structures as shrine to High
Marcos Art
• Structure presides - entrance of the
CCP complex - satellite structures
Regime o Folk Arts Theater - venue of the first
Ms. Universe Pageant in the Philippines in
1974

Bloom
o Philippine International Convention
Center (PICC) - 1976 IMFWorld Bank
Conference
o Tahanang Filipino or Coconut Palace -
anticipation of a papal visit
o Manila Film Center - Manila International
Film Festival - rival Cannes
Hybriding
Arts
 • CCP supported artists by
providing venues and grants
and served as a validating entity
of major awards to National
Artists.
Hybriding • Propped up, the authority on
Arts modern art had an avant-garde
like composer and
ethnomusicologist National
Artist Jose Maceda was staged
in CCP
 • Opened and managed by artist
professor Roberto Chabet, tasked as
first director - avowedly conceptual,
emphasizing the idea rather than

Hybriding technique and form. He considered

himself as Flux artist - instrumental
to CCP’s - became an establishment
Arts figure
• Group exhibition, Objects in CCP in
1973 is a tore up a copy of a coffee-
table book to Philippine
contemporary art into trash bin
 • Tearing into Pieces was scandalous
critique to conventions of the art
world, The Struggle for Philippine
Art referred by Purita Kalaw-
Ledesma which she says “anti-
Hybriding museum art.”
• Under Chabet and later Raymundo
Arts Albano, CCP Museum opened its
exhibition programming influenced
western avant-garde - tenets, pop
art, happenings, environmental
assemblages, new realism,
performance art, and sound works.
Developmental
Art
 • Curatorial stance of Albano as more
populist - initiated projects into a
rubrics he termed “developmental
art”
Developmental • In 1971-1975 - it is still in the
Art “exposure phase” as advanced art is
experimental in nature
*with the use of sand, junk, iron, non-art
materials such as law lumber, rocks
 • People were shocked, scared,
delighted, and satisfied by the
notions of art did not agree
Developmental • Under Albano’s directorship, CCP
Art also reached out to regions outside
Manila and beyond through art
workshops and outreach programs
through PAS
Social
Realism
 • Social Realism (SR) is a significant
strand of intense political ferment in
Social the 70s and the 80s
• various mediums, techniques, and
Realism styles was referred to as protest art
in sociopolitical issues
 • Struggles that a realist approaches is
conscious with regards for the
oppressed and underrepresented
masses

Social • Commonly tackles plight of the

marginalized, inequality, and forms
Realism of repression
* In a worked collectively, and in
collaboration not only producing murals
and other art forms but also in making
aesthetic decisions grounded on a
common mass-based, scientific and
nationalist framework.