Colonial Engraving 1'111'Loosi OF COLO IAI.

Aur

B I:lWEI' 1 rm: evolution of sculpture and the flowering of colonial painting, the
"midway" art of engraving reached its height in the eighteenth century,
This is not surprising, since it involved both drawing and carving on
woodblocks and copper plates. (Copper has been mined in the Philippines
since pre-Spanish rimes.) The quality of their draftsmanship tells LIS that the first
engravers were also painters. I Jnrilrhi« rime, Philippine all W:1S religious. En-
graving signaled the beginnings of secular art, particularly the quest for Filipino
identity-both individual and social-in ~l plural national community.
The leading engravers, Francisco Suarez (ca.1690-ca.1762) and icolas de la
Cruz Bagay 0702-ca.1765), did genre as well as religious works, showing their
countrymen of differeru racial and social classes-including the tao, or common
man-in various endeavors and setting». The pnnrmakers were also the first
Filipino artists to sign their work. Suarez, Bagay and others proudly specified
BELOW, LEfT
they were "Indio Filipino" or "Indio Tagalo" ro distinguish themselves from the
FIlANCISCO SUAItEZ
Spanish and Chinese mestizos. This signified their anxiety for recognition, as
PI-IIL1PO V REY 01, I.AS liSPAiilAS
w~1I as their pride in their work, which had "no equal in all the Indies," in the 1738, 32 x 23 eM
SIGNED ANI) OATED H01TOM CENTER
estimation of the jesuit Pedro Murillo Velarde. Brought to England as war booty
DH. ELELnF.lllO M. PASO/AI. CoUl'CIlO,
from the British occupation of Manila in 1763, the copper engravings of Bagay
and Suarez were an arristic sensation in London. BELOW,HIGI/T

The engravers also were the first to reproduce brown madonnas like the N,COlAS DE lA Cnuz BAGAY
jH5US J)}'lNC ON 77-/[: cnoss
Nuestra Sellora de Guia (17 j 1). This oldest Marian image in the colony had
1760, E GI<AVING FHOM MANGA PANAL\NGIN
been worshipped ~lS an anito hy Filipinos before the coming of the Spaniards. BY GASPAR AQllINO DE 13E1.EN
 Verdadrro futmo d; Nra, Sc.i1orll, de Oui~
[lJll.~j ~1J':'o s: 'Don Yr.7rtmc: de la CUVfIl .J{(Z!Jb.o dd'6nilll concrl» +0 dJ#s JrJrrJul!
II/OJ 'It r~'en unll ..),,}v Jrlunle de rjlaJant4 yma.Jl-'P1 por fa 1K~\JmbraJc . .J1.1J.

UNKNOWN ENGItA van

NlIISmA Sli,,()/UI ot: GlIIII
171] , COPPEH EN( ;1(,\ VIN(;

DO:"IINGO AI~El.IJ\ COI.LE(:-110N

24
 THE LOOM OF COLONIAL AIlT

;
,,I-

I(

~
8
o
~L- ~

JOSE LoDEN, TOMAS NA7.AIUO AND MIGUH. DE LOS REvEs FHOMjUAN DE CUElLAR'S FLORA
17Ho-IHO(i
 ART PHILIPPINES The Nuestra Senora de Antipolo (1749) still is the object of pilgrimage in the hill-
town southeast of Manila. Like the "statue-paintings," these "statue-prints"
helped propagate the cult of Mary. The recurrence of surnames (Suarez, Bagay,
Atlas, Correa, etc.) among the engravers and other artists who came after them
affirms not only that talent and imagination tend to run in families or clans, but
also that engraving, like other trades, was a craft whose skills and techniques
were passed down through apprenticeship in a family enterprise.

Colonial Painting

L ATE IN the eighteenth century, as interest in the black-and-white print waned

and its quality declined, colonial painting began to flower. This flowering
was nurtured by the policies of an enlightened Bourbon who rose to the Span-
ish throne, Charles III 0759-88). Under his patronage in 1781, a progressive
group of Spanish and Filipino government and church officials in Manila, organ-
ized as the Real Sociedad Econ6mica de Amigos del Pais (Royal Economic
Society of the Friends of the Country), was the first of several development
organization~ in the colonies. Before this time, Manila had been closed to for-
eign trade. Within a few years, foreign merchants, including the British, were at
least tolerated in Manila. The Royal Philippine Company, set up in 1785, encour-
aged the cultivation of indigo, among other export crops, and research into
other indigenous sources of dyes and pigments.
Charles III dispatched scientific expeditions to the colony to record its plant
and animal life, as well as the customs of its people. lnspir d by the royal pur-
pose and captivated by the beauty of the islands, a Spanish botanist, Juan de
Cuellar, settled in Manila in 1786. I-Ie commissioned Tagalog painters to draw
the range of fiord and fauna in the archipelago. These were the first still-life
paintings in the Philippines. Over the next century, they would appear unobtru-
sively in the background of portraits, genre pieces, landscapes and scenographic
an. Three outstanding painters who collaborated, from 1786 to 1806, with
Cuellar were Jose Loden, Tomas azario and Miguel de los Reyes. Their exqui-
site paintings were recently discovered in Madrid. They have been published in
facsimile to commemorate the bicentennial of the death of Charles III (1988).
The earliest known painting of a Philippine historical eptsode=-Zbe Conquest
of the Batanes (1783)-was a mural done by an unnamed Filipino painter in
1790 at the Palacio Real in Intramuros. (It was destroyed when the palace col-
lapsed in the Great Earthquake of 1863.) Before the turn of the century, Filipino
artists had taken up a fresh topic called IpOS del pars (human types of the coun-
try). The colorful costumes, postures and faces of the various ethnic groups
which made up the fabric of Philippine society in the late 1700s were rendered
in watercolor on rice pap r, some of which was imported from Canton in South
China. By this tim also, th Church hac! partly relinquisheci its patronage of the
arts to the naturalists and to the Economic Society.

26
 THE Loo« OF COLONlAL AnT

Quiotan, Domingo and Philippine Academic Art (1800-50) Arrnnnrrno TO FAUSTINO QUlOTAN
SAN SA TURl\'INO
011. ON nOAHO

F AliSTL'JO
QIIIOT,,-'J(c3.1770-1825), a Chinese mestizo master from Santa Cruz
district in Manila, may have trained with the eighteenth-century engravers
CENTRAL I3ANK COIJ.ECnON

and painters. Like Giotto in Western art, Quioran stood at the threshold of a
new tradition in Philippine p~linling-a new tradition which rejected the
hieratic .mc] stereotyped forms of the official an and gave its forms naturalness ATnunUfED TO F"US11NO QUlOTAN
PI!:.'T)'
and solidity. Quiotan was certainly one or the first Filipino artists to show
CA. 1850, OIL ON NAI<RA

emotion in his subjects. His mosr representative work, Sedes Sapientiae, shows 96.5 x 83 CM

a Madonna and child exchanging affectionate glances: the enti.re composition 11'n"RAMUI!OS ADMINISTRKIlON COLLECIlON

throhs with warmth and tenderness. The Blessed Mother carries her Son, like
most mothers do, with both hands. This gesture contradicted iconographic
canons daring back to the Byzantine period. As h fitted an artist from Santa
Cruz-then the center r precious metal crafts=-Quioran crowned his subjects
with gilded silver appliques.
In his turn, Quiotan was the only competent painter that we know of who
could have overseen the artistic growth of Damian Domingo y Gabor
(ca. 1790-1832), the Filipino master of the early nineteenth century. The self-
~Issured Domingo speeded up the growth of art in the Philippines when, in
·1821, he ser up :1 privare arr school in his spacious house in Tondo town. The
first or its kind in the country, the school attracted not only young Tendo
people hut also scions or inllucntinl I.uuilics in the \Valled City and its environs.
By declaring paillling to he the proper object of formal education, Domi.ngo
raised it from the level of a narc Perhaps because he was acutely aware of his
catalytic role in Philippine .ut, Domingo was th first known Filipino artist to do
;1 sdJ"-p()rtr;lil.

27
 ART PIIIUPl'INFS

JOSE DOMINGO
l'OIt! i{/1 rr OF f)/1,\/ I/IN f)OM IN(,'O
C.A IH50, FUO~I (}IUCiINAI.

MINIAnrRE SEIF-PORTI{AIT

Nineteenth-Century Portraiture

F IUPINOPOHTIVIITUHE
came of age in the nineteenth century. By this time the
Filipino had gained some self-confidence, after achieving <Imeasure of
social standing and-economic prosperity. Filipino <ll1iSIShad <llw;IYs been ;11 the
forefront of the search for identity. Domingo was a Spanish mestizo married to a
Chinese mestiza, whose family had been granted the privilege of the Spanish
nobility. He was the first artist to resist the system of racial classification and
prejudice the Spaniards practtsed=-of classifying the Philippine inhahitanls
according to their proportion of Caucasian blood. In 1823 the Real Sociedad
Econ6mica founded an art academy. The society offered Domingo the school's
professorship in 1826, in effect proposing a fusion of' the two pioneer institutes:
Domingo's and the society's. Before Domingo accepted the position, he saw to
it that the principle or racial equality was unequivocally stated in the academy's
statutes. Thus the government school had "to enroll any applicant of whatever
class whether Spanish, mestizo or Indio as long as there [was] an opening and
he presentee! himself decently." Domingo was promoted director or the school
in 1828, his second year or teaching. He remained the only professor and dircc-
tor of the Academia de Dihujo. In <I larger sense, Domingo was the Acadcmy-
a one-man revolution in Philippine an.
It is indeed quite remarkable that although Domingo did not study in a Span-
28 ish academy, he developed a style comparable to that of an academically trained
 Ti n:Looa OF COLON1At ART

DAMIAN DOMINGO
NUES7RA SENORA DB ROSARIO
CA. 1830
31.5 x 23.5 0.1
SIGNED LOWER iucur
Mils. JAIME ONGPIN COLl.ECIlON

artist but with :1 refreshing, indigenous grace and color. \Xlhile his school
officially subscribed to the Spanish tradition, in reality it distilled the accumu-
lated experiences of Filipino artists before him which had been passed on
hy apprenticeship in the previous rwo and :1 half centuries. Damian Domingo
sysrernarized this accumulated practical learning into a set of academic rules.
Ironically, therefore, the "Srxlnis!1" academic style which Domingo taught
was far more Filipino than Spanish; just about its only aspect which was
Sp:lnish \Vas its religious patterns and models. Perhaps, this was why the school
was simply called Academia de Dibujo (Academy of Drawing) rather than
l\c:ltiL'llli:1 <Iv Pimura.
Domingo was primarily :1 miniaturist. He had won his wife Lucia by giving her
a miniature portrait or herself that he had clone from a respectful distance. The
gift'so impressed Lucia's aristocratic father that he allowed the painter to call on
his daughter at home. Domingo's own autorretrato was painted on an oval
ivory medallion. The romantic nature of the Filipino was probably responsible
for the popularity or miniature portraits during this period. Kept in a locket, the
portrait wus « scruirncrunl tulisnum from an admirer. 29
 AnT PilILIPPINE-; As Filipino homes became larger and more solid, their walls and altars re-
quired bigger paintings and images. For Domingo and his pupils. i! could no!
have been a smooth transition. for instance, since in miniatures, they focused
wholly on the face, they nev r completely solved the problem of foreshortening
hands and feet in full-sized portraits. On the other hand, their experience with
miniatures served them in good stead in detailing th clothes, iewclry and other
trappings or their sitters' new wealth.
In collaboration with Rafael Danicl Bahoom, a collector or Philippine cos-
tumes, Domingo popularized the watercolor albums Tipos de! Pars. This genre
had been started by Domingo's eighteenth-century predecessors. He brought it
to its peak. The illustrated volumes were snapped up by European travelers,
who included "Filipinas" on their Eastern tour, In most of these volumes,
Domingo painted his countrymen with essentially the same features, regardless
of racial, social or regional origins. In at least one picture in the album, however,
Domingo apparently painted his wife, Lucia Casas, and one of their daughters as
the mother-daughter pair, dressed in their Sunday best, on their way to church.
Yet the master did not neglect the religious motif it characterizes his three oil
paintings that survive. In La Sagrada Familia he amiably showed the "ex-
tended" Holy Family to include not just Jesus' parents, but also his maternal
grandparents as well as God dle Father and the Holy Spirit. For good measure
DAMIAN DOMINGO Domingo also drew a hovering host of angels. The focus, however, is on father
UNA MESflZA MI::RCADERA DJ:.'MAN/LA
c,\.1830, WATERCOWR ON RICE PAPER
and son=-Sr.joseph tenderly kissing the infantJesus--which calls to mind
15.4 x 11 eM Faustino Quiotan's earlier affectionate memes.
ELEUl'ERIO M. PASCUAL COu.ECIlON

DAMIAN DOMINGO
1./1S/1CIV!f)A FAMILIA
CA. lR.?O, AQIIAREI.I.E ON copp[m SllElT
46.5 x 34.5 C.'I

SI(;NI:I) LO\\?EH [(leI IT

Lounrux V. ONGPIN COU,ECI10N

30
 Damian's only contemporary who may be comparable ro him was Juan THE Looa OF CoLONIAL ART

Arzeo (ca. 1795-ca.1865) of San Fernando de Dilao (now Paco), another suburb
of Manila. The most mystical Filipino painter, Arzeo is like the austere and
gloomy Spanish Francisco de Zurbaran 0598-1644). In contrast to the joie de
vivre in Domingo's works, Arzeo concentrated on the likenesses of haunted
saints and ascetic churchmen. A vivid red hue-the magical color for ancient
Filipinos-was the only paint rly IUlI.LJryhe allowed himself. He was the first
Filipino painter to integrate his countrymen as worshippers in a religious com-
position. On bended knees, a Filipino mother in the traditional baro't saya
prays the Rosary with her chile! before Our lady of Consolation (ca.1850).
JUAN ARzEo
Domingo and Arzeo were a pair of contrasting but complementary tempera- MAGDALENA
ments--one outgoing and the other introverted. Their styles and choices of CA. 1830
APPROXIMATELY 305 x 244 eM
subject reflected their personalities. T11 se two archetypes we are to see again SIGNED LOWER RIGHT

and again in Philippine 311. UNlVERSm' OF STD. TOMAs COLLEcnON

31
 JUAN ARzEo
SAN ANTONIO DE BA YLON
1836, 011. ON nOAHD
240 x 161.5 eM
SIGNED ANI) DATED I.O\VEIt !.EF!"
32 SAN J>WHO I:lAlJl1STA CIIUHCII COIJ.ECIlON
 A neglected contemporary of Domingo and Arzeo was Severino Flavier Pablo THE LOOM OF COLONIAl ART

(ca.1805-ca.1875) of Paco, Manila. To Pablo we owe the oldest surviving portrait

of a Filipino-e-that of Don Paterno Malo, founder of the affluent Paterno clan of
Manila. Pablo painted him in a blue barong tagalog (1836). Pablo's subsequent
portraits show the development of his skills: his awkward and stiff style became
more relaxed and more decisive in the 1850s and 1860s.
A cogent counterpoint to Domingo and his Manila colleagues was Esteban
Villanueva 0798-1878) ofVigan, IIocos Sur Province, in Northern Luzon. Like
the first painters, he apparently learned to paint by himself. A Western critic
would classify Villanueva's manner as "naive." His 14 tableaux of The Basi ~
Uprising (lH2l) have a singular charm and vigor. They are the earliest paintings 8
~
~lrx~l:l~r~~~
that survive of a local historical event. l.
Domingo's prize pupil W~IS,JlIstiniano Asuncion y Molo (181()-96), scion of a
Es'rEuAN VlUANUEVA
prolific family, both in an artistic and in a genetic sense, of Sm. Cruz, Manila.
BASI REVOLT
Three of his brothers were also painters: Antonio 0794-1849), who was called 1807, OIL ON CANVAS
"Fray Angelico Filipino"; Mariano 0802-85), another religious painter who in his 91.4 x 91.4 eM
SIGNEI) AND DAn:!)
old age was addressed as the "doyen of Filipino painters"; and Ambrosio (1808- LOWER lUG I IT

GI.1890)' The older brothers may have developed their talent under their Buncos MUSEUM,
VIGAN
townmate Quiotan, and the younger ones under Domingo. Two other brothers,

ESTEIlAN
VillANUEVA
BASI REVOLT
1807
OJ I. ON CANVAS

91.4 x 91.4 eM
SIGNED LOWE" LEI'T

BllRCiOS MUSEUM}

V,GAN 33
 AnT PIIILlPPI '[5 Manuel (1792-]863) and Leoncio (1813-88), were sculptors who learned their
profession from anonymous imagen-makers.
When he became to ill to paint, Domingo passed down to the still adoles-
cent Justiniano the work of painting tipos del pars for the travelers' market.
Asuncion's flair for detail soon surpassed that or his teacher. Yet the details in his
portraits always complemented rather than competed with his sitter's face. His
genius we see best in a pride of portraits he painted of his nieces from the
Asunci6n and Paterno clans (his mother was a sister of Don Paterno Molo). He
immortalized their grace and their elegant clothes 0850-75), Like Flavier Pablo
and two of his brothers, Antonio and Ambrosio.justiniano was elected mayor
by the principalia of his town in 1853. This affirms both the prestige of artists
and their involvement in community affairs in the nineteenth century. This
political role would widen even more in the next generation of artists,
Rivaling the fame of Asunci6n was Antonio Malantic y Arzeo (ca.l 820-
ca.1885) ofTondo, Manila. He apparently studied with both Domingo and his
uncle, the elder Arzeo. Though almost as exuberant and certainly as competent
as Asunci6n in rendering details of embroidery and jewelry, Malantic was handi-
capped by a marked linearity in his composition. evcnhcless, he was a master
of lyricism and character delineation. His well-known portraits of the Francia
sisters of Pagsanjan, Laguna (1876), have a brooding and affecting quality similar
to Arzeo's saintly portraits. Malantic's painting of the illustrious Don arciso
Padilla with his grandson, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo y Padilla (859), foreshad-

ANTONIO MAlANI1C
PONT/<Arr OF INOCENClA FJ<ANClA
1876, OIL ON CANVAS
l05x84cM
SIGNED AND DATED LOWER LEIT
ARCI nrtcr AND MRS. LEANDRO LoCSIN
COLLEenON

34
 Till' Looa OF COLON1AL AnT

JUSTlN1ANO AsUNOON

/'O/tl1?1I1T OF ""DMI:W/I VII.lAFlV1NC/i

lH()O, 011. n,'J CANVAS, H6.4 X 66 C\I, ~I{;NEI} l\NI} DATED I.()\,\:'EU wClrr 35
1~IHnH/I() M. I)A'><:II:\I. C()UH:IlC)N
 Anr PHILIPPINES

JUSllNlANO ASUNClllN
POmlUl/T OF /lCUUJA p/\ 7Z:RNO
CA. 1860, OIL ON CA VAS. 84 X 65 CM

36 PKIVA·ll' COI.I.I'GION
 Tin: LOOM OF COI.ONIAL AIlT

JUSTINIANO AsUNCION
ROMANA CARiLLO
1870, 73 x 56 C"', SIGNED AND Do'n,1) LOWE" I!I(;IIT 37
AHCllfI'ECT AND Mns. LEANDHO Locsu- COLl.ECI10N
 ART PHlUPPINES ows the continuity in Philippine portraiture, since Hidalgo grew up to be a
master portraitist himself.
No sculptor of the first half of the nineteenth century approached Domingo's
stature in painting. On the contrary, the sculptural standard declined from the
formal or "classical" to the "ornate." A preoccupation with doll-like figures
emphasizing Caucasian features with glass eyes, upturned lashes, brownish
human hair and gilded robes characterized those fifty years. Folk sculpture had
much more to offer in terms of local color and imaginative vigor. St.Joseph
wears a soft woven fiber hat. The ilustrado in his barong tagalog or Western suit
kneels as the humbled landlord of San Isidro Labrador. Peasants in bare feet and
loose collarless shirts appear as shepherds in Nativity scenes. The manger
becomes a nipa hut, and the ricefleld carabao mingles with the cattle and the
BELOW,I1:FT
sheep attending the Savior's birth. The coconut tree blooms as the tree of life
SAN PABLO beside the Virgin of the Apocalypse.
EARLY 19m CEN11JRY One government order which affected painting was Claveria's decree calling
SOLID IVORY FIGURE wrnt WIG AND GlASS EYES
HEIGl rr wm-IOUT BASE AND HALO: 29 CM for the systematization of family surnames in 1849. A catalogue of Spanish,
!NTIlAMUROS ADMINISTRATION COUECTION Malay and Chinese surnames was prepared from which Filipinos who did not
BEI.OW, MIDDLE
carry regular patronymics could choose permanent ones.
SANjOSE
19m CENTURY
IVORY MOUNTED ON A WOODEN UODY
!NTIlAMUROS ADMINISTRATION COlLECTION

BELOW, RIGHT

SANISIDRO
19m CEN11JRY
IVORY HEAD AND HANDS ON WOODEN UODY
HEIGHT Wffi\ BASE 69 CM
!NfRAMUROS ADMINISTRATION COUECTION

38
 THE Looa OF CoLONIAL ART

The Claveria edict heightened the Filipino awareness of his personal identity
JOSE HONORATO LoZANO
and family legacy, which may have resulted in a demand for portraiture. Most LETRAS Y PIGURAS:
early Filipino portraits date from the decade 1850-60. The earliest extant self- BAL VINO MAURICIO
1864, OIL ON CANVAS
portrait of a Filipino painter is the 1860 autorretrato of Vicente Villasenor 93 x 113 CM
SIGNED AND DATED I3O"ITOM CENTER
Cca.1825-85)of Lucban, Tayabas. He was the eminent portraitist of the southern
ALEJANDRO ROCES CoLLEcnON
Tagalog region.
Governor CIaveria's decree on surnames in 1849 gave impetus to a unique art
form known as tetrasy figuras C'letters and figures"). In graphic terms, it defines
the identity of the subject by Illustrating the letters of his complete name (includ-
ing the maternal surname) with his figure together with those of relatives and
friends. The spaces between the names are filled with the subject'S favorite
haunts which delineate his life and times.
The master of this medium was Jose Honorato Lozano Cca.1815-80)of the
Sampaloc district in Manila. He was also a painter of historical scenes and land-
scapes. A knowledgeable Spanish journalist, Rafael Diaz Arenas (1850), consid-
ers Lozano a "genius" and puts him "in the same class" as Domingo and Arzeo. 39
 and funds closed down the first art academy in 1834,
JOSE HONORATO
LElRAS Y FIGURAS:
LoZANO

FRANCISCO DE YRIARTE
A LACK OF LEADERSHIP

soon after Domingo's death. In 1850 the school was formally reopened
CA. 1867, WAnRCOLOR under the patronage of the Junta de Conunercio. This time it was named
52x80CM Academia de Dibujo y Pintura; its director was a painting graduate of the Royal
SIGNED AND DAlID LOWER RlGIIT
PRIVATI:: Couzcnox Art Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, of which it was to be a satellite.
Domingo had boldly set down the principle of racial equality for the first acad-
JOSE HONORATO LoZANO emy, founded in 1823. This time the school was segregated in practice: there
LElRAS Y F/GURAS: were separate sections for Spaniards and "natives," the latter term referring to .
FRANCISCO DE YRIARTE (DETAIL)
both indios and mestizos. This policy was apparently abolished during the term
of the liberal Governor Carlos Ma. de la Torre (1869-71).
To serve as models for students, copies of the religious canvases of the trium-
virate of Spanish painting-Murillo, Ribera and Alonzo Cano-plus a sprinkling
of royal portraits by Velasquez and Guido Reni were ordered from the Prado in
Madrid. The first three directors, Nieto, Cortina and Valdes, came and went
during the first seven years of the academy. To fill the gap the most outstanding
student of the school, the criollo Lorenzo Rocha y leaza (1837-98), was ap-
pointed interim professor in 1857. (A criollo is of Spanish blood born in the
Philippines; a peninsular is a Spaniard resident of the Philippines born in
Spain.) His classmate, the indio Lorenzo Guerrero y Leogardo (1835-1904),
offered to be his ass!stant, in charge of the natives, without salary. In the previ-
ous year, the two Lorenzos had won the prizes for the best portraits by a Spanish
and a native student. Rocha painted the likeness of the reigning Queen, while
Guerrero portrayed Magellan.
40 After a careful search, the Junta de Conunercio recruited an experienced
painter of the Madrid School, Don Agustin Saez y Glanadell (ca.1830-91), as the THE Looa OF CoLONlAL Am'
fourth director of the Manila Academy. Rocha, in turn, was sent in 1858 as the
first Philippine an scholar to Madrid. He stayed in the Spanish capital for eight
years. Before he returned to the Philippines in 1867, he won an honorable
mention at the National Exposition in Madrid for his historical canvas entitled EI
Sueiio de Don. Ramiro en fa Batalla de Claoijo. This work became the yardstick
for the works of younger artists, and before long Rocha himself became known
as the "painter of the Dream."
To forestall any conflict between the two accomplished painters, a royal
decree made both Saez and Rocha professors of the academy with equal rank
and salary, The directorship was declared honorary and transferred to the Minis-
ter of Public Works, who disbursed the school funds. "To help the natives march
toward civilization," tile partnership of Saez and Rocha set the direction and
shape of academic art in the Philippines. The two introduced principles and
techniques which Domingo and his school had hardly known. Chiaroscuro and
perspective now gave a greater depth and volume to Philippine painting. Stu-
dents took up anatomy for tile first time, without the prudishness that had veiled
the subject, although they still used pictures rather than live models. The palette
of the Filipino painter became lighter; his lines flowed more confidently. The
vogue for details gave way to the primacy of character and mood, and the
expression of the painter's individuality.
Saez ancl Rocha stamped on tile school their own brand of academism. Pa-
tiently, tyranically, they drilled generations of students-spurred on by the
promise of public exhibits, awards, prizes and scholarships--in the "correct"
style of painting as prescribed by the Spanish academy. Rocha and Saez taught a
generation of artists who would prove at least equal to their teachers.
Although Rocha and Saez were masters of academism, they were not num-
bered among its great masters. Lorenzo Guerrero and Simon Flores de la Rosa
(1830-1904) were to develop their own styles in the Philippine setting. Juan Luna
(1857-99) and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo (1853-1913) went to Europe, where
they won many awards.
From 1867 to 1891 Rocha and Saez were tile two teachers of painting in the
Academy. Only artists educated in Spain were allowed to teach. Except for the
Bicolano Melecio Figueroa Y Magbanua (1842-1903), all professors were either
peninsulares or criollos.

A MO G

Guerrero
the homegrown painters, the two most acclaimed
and Simon Flores. Guerrero
were Lorenzo
was the first Filipino painter to
specialize in genre subjects, especially the working classes--subjects which had
been initiated more than a century ago by the eighteenth-century engravers.
Guerrero translated Westem aesthetics to tile Philippine setting without allowing
it to dominate the real life of the tropical archipelago. In this light, it is not hard
to see why he was the only teacher who really understood the young and rest-
less Luna, finally advising the mariner-painter to develop his talents abroad.
Simon Flores carried on the portrait tradition begun by Justiniano Asuncion
and Malantic, combining them with the artistic insights he had gained from his
chooling at the Manila Academy. He apparently painted only a few genre
scenes; but one of them, Music of the Town, made him the first Filipino painter
to win a silver medal at an intemational competition-tile Philadelphia Exposi-
 ART PJ-IIIJPPINES

42
 THELOOMOFCOLONIAL
ART

SIMON FWRES Y DE lA ROSA

tion of 1876----celebrating the centennial of American Independence. It was DEADCHfW
actually he and nor the more celebrated Luna or Hidalgo, who first exceeded the 1902, OIL ON CANVA.~
61.5 x 86 CM
mark of Rocha. Working quietly in the province of Parnpanga, he arid his wife, SIGNED AND DATED UPI'EI! IUGHT
being childless, adopted and tried to rehabilitate his psychotic niece, Celestina, NATIONAL MUSEUM COIJECJ10N
BEQUEST OF JAIME LAYA &JUAN T. GATllONTON
by teaching her to paint. Unwittingly, he became the first Filipino practitioner of
art therapy for the emotionally ill. OPIJ()snl:

SIMON FwRES Y DE lA ROSA

IlE OPENING
of the Suez Canal in 1869 facilitated the voyage of Filipino schol- QUfAZON FAMiLY
T ars to "perfect" their skills in Madrid and Rome. They came from different
1880, OIL ON CANVAS
145x 109cM
racial and social classes and regional groups, as did the contemporary propa- SIGNED IUGIIT SIDE

ARClIITECT AND MRS. LF.ANDROLOCSIN

gandists whose cause they shared. Once they reached Europe, they were all
COUEenON
Filipinos, ancl as Filipinos this cream of the crop worked for the "national
honor." For the first time ill their lives, they saw the Western world's master-
pieces in European museums, including the originals of the few copies they had
admired in Manila. They were now free to interpret them, each in his own way,
independent of the inJluence of Saez and Rocha. Now ranked among the "old
Filipino masters," among these artists were: engraver Melecio Figueroa; sculptor
Felix Pardo de Tavera, Ciriaco Arevalo and Vicente Francisco y Dionisio. Among
the painter-students sent to Madrid were Juan Luna, Rafael Enriquez, Felix
Rcsurreccion Hidalgo, Miguel Zaragoza, Felipe Roxas and Telesforo Sucgang. 43
 THE LoOM OF COLONIAL ART

01'1'0:\1"11:, ABUVE

FEUPE ROXAS
AIVI7POLO CHURCH
IHH9, OIL ON IK!AI(I)
40.6 X 533 C~I

SltiNED AND I lATEI) I.{)WEH LEI-"\"

P,-\GHEI. COU,ECI10N

OPPOSITE, BEI.O\,\I LEI'T

FEIn'E RoKAS
HOUSE BY A BrUDGE IN PAETE
1880, 011. ON I\GAltD
CA,

53.3 X 40.6 C~I

SIGNED LOWER IUGIIT

PAGIU:L COIJ.ECI10N

OI'/'OSrl1:, IU:I.oW HIGI rr

TEI£SFOnO SUCGANG
77-[1:.'
BI:.'CCAR
CA. 1880, OIL
SI(~ lED I.OWEI( IUCIIT

NATIONAL MlJSEIJ~1 COLLECI10N

Mrcuu, ZAR\G07.A
lif. l'lOUNISTA
OIL c», C\ ',SA'"

:-.11.;.•.•.
1]) I.U\\'F!( I.FI·"(,

NATI();>',II. I\,II'SI-:I .11(()I.I.I·rn()1'

45
 CARYOTA
ONUSTA
FROM
FLORA DE
FlllPlNAS
1877
42.25 x
29.25 eM
UNIVERSITY OF .- CAR'(OTA ONUSTA:-BL"-NCO.
SANTO TOMAs
M1.5EUM : .... ARENGA ·.sACCHARIFERA:-L\B.-Miq.
....•. • I . . • :
46 CoLLECIlON \. -c- ..,
 THE Loon OF COLONlAL ART

ACHRAS SAroTA...:....ll~~.-1k Bi:ln •..".

:. ,.. , S..••I'QTA ACHIV.S.-M~L ..

AtlOVE

MIGUEL ZARAGOZA
SAPOTA ACHRAS
FROM FLORA DE FILIPINAS
42.25 x 29.25 eM
AlEJANDRO ROCES COLLECDON

LEfT

LoRENZO GUERRERO

ANONA SQUAMOSA
FROM FLORA DE FILIPINAS
42.5 x 29.25 CM
In 1878 rhe Augustinian Order published the grand edition of Fray Manuel AlEJANDRO ROCES COUECDON
Blanco's Flora de Filipinas. Irs four volumes of illustrations, which echo the
forgotten work of the eighteenth-century Tagalog artists, can serve as a "Who's
Who" among the early students, alumni and professors of the Manila art school.
Its main artist was the painter-naturalist Regino Garcia y Baza 0840-1916).
Another contributor was Felix Martinez y Lorenzo 0859-1907). At the invitation
of thepainter-writer Miguel Zaragoza (1824-83), editor of La Ilustraci6n Filipina .
(1891-95), Martinez became the illustrator for the elegant weekly. Zaragoza
wrore rhe first articles on Philippine art history as well as regularly featured
Filipino artists and their achievements both at home and abroad.
The Academia de Dibujo became the only coeducational institution in
the Philippines when in 1889 it admitted its first female student, Pelagia
Mendoza y Gotianquin 0867-1939), of Pateros. Three years later she won the
covered award in sculpture for a bust of Columbus during the Philippine cel-
ebration of the Fourth Centenary of the Discovery of America. The prize for
painting was given to another woman artist, Carmen Zaragoza y Roxas (1867-
19i.)), or M:II1i1:1. 47
 ART PHIUPPINES

AGUSTIN SAEZ
COVER OF FLORA DE FILlPfNAS
1877,42.25 X 29.25 eM
UNIVERSITY OF STO. TOMAS MUSEU~1 COLLECIlON

48