IV.

American Colonial
Period (1898-1940) to the
Postwar Republic (1946-
1969)
 Major Art Movements
 The independence that the Philippines gained after the
revolution of 1896 was cut short with the establishment of the
American colonial government in the Philippines. Bound by the
Treaty of Paris in 1898, Spain “surrendered” the Philippines to
the United Sates. From 1899 to 1913, the bloody Philippine-
American war occurred, claiming the lives of many Filipinos.
Beginning with the institution of government and education
systems, the new colonial government took charge of initiating
the natives into the American way of life, creating a lasting
influence on Filipino culture.
 What were the changes brought about by American
colonization? How are they different from the religious
forms of the Spanish colonial period?

 With the coming of the Americans, Filipino playwrights who

had just undergone the Philippines Revolution of 1898 against
Spain now found themselves confronted by censorship with
the issuance of the Sedition Law which banned the writing,
printing, and publication of materials advocating Philippine
independence, and engaging in activities which championed
this cause.
Drama Simbolico – these one-act plays come to represent a
deep and profound yearning for freedom.

Plays such as:

*Juan Abad’s Tanikalang Guinto or “Golden Chain” in 1902.
*Juan Matapang Cruz’s Hindi Ako Patay or “I Am Not Dead” in
1903.
*Aurelio Tolentino’s Kahapon, Ngayon, at Bukas or “Yesterday,
Today, and Tomorrow” in 1903.
A Modern Filipina (1915)
- Lino Castillejo and Jesus Araullo authored this first Filipino
play written in English.

Vaudeville
- originated from France
- another form of theater which the Americans introduced that
became popular in the Philippines during 1920s.
 20th Century
A new urban pattern that responded to the secular goals of
education, health and governance was imposed.

Daniel Burnham
- an architect and urban planner who was commissioned by the
American government top design Manila and Baguio, while;

William Parsons
- implemented the Burnham Plan.
 City Beautiful Movement
- introduced in 1983 at the Chicago World Fair
- a new urban design employed Neo-classic architecture for its
government edifices and integrated parks and lawns to make the city
attractive by making its buildings impressive and places more inviting for
leisure amid urban light.

Neo-classic architecture include;

 Post Office
 Legislative Building (now the National Art Gallery)
Filipino Architects who design buildings during the
period and they also received training in the US or in
Europe.

Tomas Mapua
Juan Arellano
Andres Luna de San Pedro
Antonio Toledo
In 1909, a year after the establishment of the University of the
Philippines, its school of Fine Arts was opened.

Fabian de la Rosa
- He succeeded the peninsulares Rafael Enriquez as director.
- His naturalists paintings characterized by restraint and formality
in brushwork, choice of somber colors, and subject matter.
 Planting Rice, 1921
 El Kundiman, 1930
Peninsulares is a term used particularly during the colonial
period to refer to Spanish-born residents of the
Philippines.

Fernando Amorsolo
- a prolific artist
- produced numerous portraits of prominent individuals
- He was known for his romantic paintings that captured
the warm glow of the Philippine sunlight.
- Genre scenes highlighting the beauty of the
Dalagang Filipina, idyllic landscapes; and historical
paintings
- Professor at the UP School of Fine Arts
- He was posthumously declared National Artist on
1972
- a graphic artist who rendered drawings for the
textbook series The Philippine Readers as well as
illustrations for the Newspaper The Independent.
“Amorsolo School” influenced:
* Irineo Miranda
Torribio Herrera
Cesar Buenaventura
Dominador Castañeda
 Guillermo Tolentino
- He was Amorsolo’s counterpart in sculpture.
- He studied Fine Arts in Rome.
- Credited for the Iconic Oblation (1935, original/1958,
bronze cast found at the UP Oblation Plaza) of the UP
and the Bonifacio Monument, in Caloocan.
- He proclaimed as National Artist in 1973
 Academic
- (a term referring to the kind of art that was
influenced by European academies) tradition of
painting and sculpture in the manner of Amorsolo
and Tolentino prevailed in the art scene.
 Victorio Edades (National Artist)
- Modern Art movement profoundly influenced him.

 The Builders, 1928

- latter’s pastoral images
- showed distorted figures of foiling workers using dull
colors
- a shift in the treatment of form and subject matter.
Napoleon Abueva (National Artist)

- a sculptor who has worked with a wide

variety of mediums, from hardwood to
precious alabasters.
- a later-proponent of Modern Art
Modern Art and Its Challenge to Academic Art

What is Modern Art?

Modern Art includes artistic work produced

during the period extending roughly from the
1860s to 1970s, and denotes the styles and
philosophy of the art produced during that era.
 Edades’s modernist sensibility was shared by
several artists.

 National Artist Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco

- known for his magisterial works
- Filipino Struggles Through History 1964, is one of the largest and most
ambitious in scape, which he did for the Manila City Hall.
 National Artist Galo Ocampo
- recognized for indigenizing western icons
- Brown Madonna 1938, which sets the mother and child in a native.
Edades, Francisco, and Ocampo have been regarded as the
“triumvirate” of modern art after having worked on
several murals together.

(Nature’s Bounty photo)

In this painting, we can discern how the artists
integrated folk subject matter with a style that draws on
Modern Art. The linearity of the figures, the sensuous
curves, and the flatness of the composition closely link it
with the spirit of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, popular
styles at that time which also found expression in
architecture. An example of Art Deco architecture is
Juan Arellano’s Metropolitan Theater in Manila (1935).
 Right before the war, Edades publicized a roster of
artist who, in his view, had modernist leanings.

Thirteen Moderns are:

 Victorio Edades
 Arsenio Capili
 Bonifacio Cristobal
 Demetrio Diego
 NA Carlos Francisco
 NA Cesar
 Diosdado Lorenzo
 Anita Magsaysay-Ho
 Galo Ocampo
 NA Hernando R. Ocampo
 Jose Pardo
 Ricarte Purugganon
 Japanese Occupation (1941-1945)
Early moderns and conservatives alike continued to produce art and even
participated in KALIBAPI ( Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod ng Bagong Pilipinas)
sponsored at competitions. In 1943 and 1944, Purugganon and Francisco
won KALIBAPI awards, respectively.

Slogans such as “Asia for Asians” made its way to the public through
posters, ephemera, comics, and Japanese sponsored publications such as
Shin-Seiki, and in newspapers and magazines such as Liwayway and
Tribune. The production of images, texts, and music underwent scrutiny.
 Felipe P. De Leon
In music, the composer National Artist De Leon was said
to have been commanded at the “point of the gun” to
write Awit sa Paglikha ng Bagong Pilipinas. Declared as
the anthem specifically for the period, it conveyed
allegiance to the nation reared in East Asia, where Japan
was actively asserting its political power.
Amorsolo’s painting many of which showed little or
no indication of war’s atrocities, continued to be
favored. Examples include Harvest Scene, 1942 and
Rice Planting, 1942.
 Sa Kabukiran, hit song of Sylvia La Torre, written in Tagalog in
the 1940s by he acclaimed composer Levi Celerio (National
Artist for Music and Literature, awarded 1997). La Torre’s
operatic singing along with an energetic tempo offered an
escape from the troubles war. Commissioned portraits of high
officials such as His Excellency, Jorge B. Vargas, Chairman of
the Philippine Executive Commission, 1943 and
“Independence this Year”, said His Excellency, Premier Tojo,
1943 were also produced at this time.
Portraits representing different ethnolinguistic
groups were produced, and this is exemplified by
Crispin Lopez’s Study of an Aeta, 1943.

Amorsolo’s Bombing of the Intendencia, 1942 and

Ruins of the Manila Cathedral, 1945 examples of
imagery remained neutral, focusing rather on the
aesthetic qualities of ruin and disaster.
Works with depicted the horrors of wars are:

 Diosdado Lorenzo’s Atrocities in Paco, 1945

 Diosdado Castañeda’s Damned Family, 1945
 Neo-Realism, Abstraction, and other Modern Art Styles

Alice Guillermo, recounts how artists and writers reflected about

national identity as Filipinos were rising from the ashes of war. A group of
artists who exemplified a new kind of modernism emerged, and this was
observed by the artist-writer E. Aguilar Cruz who named the movement
Neo-Realism.

(Manansala, Legaspi, and HR Ocampo were among the National Artist

associated with Neo-Realism).
 Vicente Manansala
 The Beggars, 1952 consists of the image of two women with emaciated
bodies, their fornlorn faces set against a dark background capturing the
dreariness of poverty.

(The Beggar photo)

Many of Manansala’s painting are characterized by
transparent cubism.
Tuba Drinkers, 1954 a style marked by the soft
fragmentation of figures using transparent planes
instead of hard-edged ones.

(Tuba Drinker’s photo)

 Cesar Legaspi
 Gadgets II, 1949

 Bar Girls, 1947, distorted by Legaspi’s elongating or making

rotund forms in a well-ordered composition.
 Hernando Ocampo

 The Contrast, 1940 is a distinct figurative work which exposes dire

human conditions amid the backdrop of modernity.

Ocampo is more recognized for his paintings that combine geometric

and biomorphic shapes with vibrant colors.
Genesis, 1968 puts together warm-colored shapes,
become the basis of the stunning tapestry hanging at
the Main Theater or Bulwagang Abelardo of the CCP.
Other artists identified with Neo-Realism are Ramon
Estella, Victor Oteyza, and Romeo Tabuena.
Purita Kalaw-Ledesma – a leader of establishing the institution
the Art Association of the Philippines in 1948.

Lydia Arguilla – an artist-writer provided a venue and laid out

early programs for modern art, was put up in 1951 through the
efforts of her.

Manuel Rodriguez – there was a little support for the graphic

arts, the printmaking workshop of him was opened.
 Awardees in 1953 are:
 Martino Abellana – cebu-based for his work Job Was Also Man.
 Fernando Zobel – iconic painting Caroza

Two years later, the rift between the “conservatives” or those who subscribe to the
Amorsolo and Tolentino style of painting and the “Moderns” led by Edades would
resurface in the AAP art competition as most of its winners had modernist
inclinations. Feeling that judges’ decisions were biased, the artists who continued to
practice in the conservative tradition walked out as a form of protest and exhibited
their works on the streets.
This 1950s also saw the construction of modern architectural
structures, particularly churches that modified or veered away
from traditional cruciform designs. Within the UP Diliman
Campus, examples are:
 Church of Holy Sacrifice, 1955
 Church of the Risen Lord

This is both employed concrete as primary material and

experimented with rounded or parabolic forms.
 Chapel of St. Joseph the Worker in Victorias, Negros, built by
the Czech-American architect Antonin Raymond. It features a
striking murals of Christ by the Filipino-American artist Alfonso
Ossorio. Referred to as the Angry Christ, the mural delivers
pictorial overload, filling up the walls and ceiling of the altar
space.

The church is a curious combination of modern architecture

with a minimalist character and modern painting expressive of
folk sensibilities.
Another strand of Modern Art that emerged more definitively
during the period was abstraction. This generally consists of
simplified forms, which avoided mimetic (exact copy)
representation. It is sometimes referred to as non-
representational or non-objective art as it emphasized the
relationships of line, color, and space or the flatness of the
canvas rather than an illusion of three-dimensiobnality.
 SOCIAL REALISM
 A significant strand that emerged during the intense political
ferment of the 70s and 80s was social realism or SR, for short.
 Using various mediums, techniques, and styles, SR, is form of
protest art that exposed the sociopolitical issues and struggles
of the times.
 SRs also worked collectively, and in collaboration, not only in
terms of producing murals and other art forms, but also in
making aesthetic decisions grounded on a common mass-based,
scientific and nationalist framework.ex.fig.2.10
 The format of protest art is not just confined to painting on
canvas but also extends to other more accessible and popular
forms like posters and illustrations or street art as in
collaborative murals in public spaces. Several years after the
declaration of martial law, an artist collective committed to the
development of the said art movement was formed.
 Kaisahan was composed of Antipas Delotavo ,Neil Doloricon
,Renato Hanuman ,Edgar Talusan Hernandez,Almanrique
V. 70’s to Contemporary
Under Martial law, Marcos envisioned a new Society or
Bagong lipunan . This vision was propagated and implemented
through an art and culture program that combined the fined
arts, architecture, interior design, tourism, convention city
buildings ( hotels, theater, coliseums.) engineering, urban,
planning, health, among many others .
National pride was instilled by involving the pre-modern
through murals, Folk festivals, and museums devoted to
collecting and displaying ethnographic artifacts and natural
specimens.
The CCP as Shrine for the arts
It was created on June 25 1966 through Executive order 30 in 1969,
the year Marcos was elected to his second term as Philippine
President.

The Folk Arts Theater which became the venue of the first Ms.
Universe Pageant in the Philippines in 1974.

Most of the buildings employed concrete block-like forms indicative

of the Modern style while some buildings intergrated vernacular
elements in conformity with the states thrust of reviving Filipino
traditions.
For example, the National Arts Center in Mt.
Makiling, designed by National Artist
Architect Leandro Locsin appropriated in the
style of vernacular houses like the Ifugao fale.
 CCP Museum opened its exhibition programming to works
influenced by the Western avant-garde and conceptual tenets,
pop art, happenings, environmental assemblages, new realism,
performance art and sound works.

CCP also reached out to regions outside Manila ( Baguio,

Los Baňos, Cebu )and beyond ( Fukuoka, Paris, ASEAN) initiated
art workshop and outreach programs through PAS. An early
example of installation art is Junyees Wood things , 1981
 Social Realism (SR)

A significant strand that emerged during the intense

political ferment of the 70s and the 80s was Social
Realism or SR, for short. Using various mediums,
techniques, and styles, SR, is a form of protest art tat
exposed the socio political issues and struggles of
the times.
Kaisahan was composed of Antipas Delotavo, Neil
Doloricon, Renato Habulan, Edgar Talusan
Hernandez, Al Manrique, Jose Tence Ruiz, and
Pablo Baen Santos.

Kaisahan’s influence as a collective reached

organizations like the group of UP Fine Arts
Students who eventually became known in the 80s
as the Salingpusa.
Among its founding members were Elmer Borlongan,
Karen Ocampo Flores, Emmanuel Garibay, Mark Justiniani,
Lito Mondejar, and Federico Sievert. Beyond the Manila,
the strain of political art could also be observed in
Bacolod, where artist groups such as Pamilya Pintura
were formed with Nunelucio Alvarado,Charlie Co, and
Norberto Roldan.
In sculpture, Eduardo Castrillo’s gigantic metal work Pieta,
1969, evoked a strong feeling of anguish and loss through the
expressive posses of Mary the mother and the ovrsized body of
Christ which she supports.

Roberto Feleo’s installations re-tell creation stories drawn from

indigenous myths and combine them with foreign.
In other words, the native or the folk, the self, the
environment, the nation, the past, and the various
variations of the Modern continue to be revisited by
artists as sources of inspiration in contemporary art.
Thank you for listening!