Filipino painting

Title

Filipino painting

Creator

Luz, Arturo Rogelio

Language

English

Source

Panorama XII (8) August 1960

Subject

Art, Philippine

Painters -- Philippines

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

Original or copy? FILIPINO By Arturo Rogerio Luz What do we mean by Fili pino painting? A paint ing by Filipino, a Philip pine theme painted by any painter, or do we mean a Phil ippine theme painted by a Fili pino painter? Again: When a Filipino painter paints a foreign theme or subject, does he pro duce Filipino painting or is he merely a Filipino painter paint ing? And when a foreign paint er paints a Philippine theme or subject, does he produce Fili pino painting or is he merely a painter painting a Filipino theme or subject? Filipino painters have paint ed and are painting native and foreign subjects, in local and foreign surroundings. Luna and Hidalgo painted foreign themes and subjects and are said to have produced Filipino paint ing. Others before them copied saints, depicted religious themes and painted foreign subjects. They are remembered not on ly as Filipino painters but as the grandparents of Filipino painting. And there are paint ers who have also painted, and are painting, native themes in local surroundings: Igorots, the planting and harvesting and pounding of rice, the nipa hut and the barong-barong. The works of Luna and Hidalgo, and those before them, may or may not be considered Filipino 10 Panorama PAINTING painting, but not because the theme is foreign. Paintings of Igorots, the nipa hut and barong-barongs may or may not become Filipino painting, but not because the subject is na tive. The use of native themes or subjects does not necessarily produce Filipino painting, any more than the use of borrowed themes or subjects will always produce foreign painting. Gauguin was a French painter who lived and painted in Ta hiti, and who married a Tahi tian. But Gauguin did not pro duce Tahitian art by painting Tahiti, any more than by mar rying a native could he have made himself a Tahitian. A Chinese painter painting a New York skyline will not produce American painting, but might produce a painting of a New York skyline, a Chinese painting of a New York sky line, or simply a Chinese paint ing. A painting by Hernando Ocampo was at one time award ed a prize for being the most representative Filipino painting among many other paintings. Yet the painting was abstract and the symbols, universal. ■ una, Hidalgo and others " since then have painted and are painting foreign themes and subjects, and have some August 1960 11 times produced Filipino paint ing. And other painters have painted and are painting native themes and subjects, but do not always produce Filipino painting, only paintings of Philippine themes by Filipino painters. And a few painters have painted and are painting native and foreign subjects, and have sometimes produced Fili pino painting. For in the term Filipino painting is clearly^ or perhaps_ hopefully^ implied a body of paintings that, irrespec tive of content or form, and without recourse __to the acci dents of geographyor nationaHty^iiZyeEZreprESentati^^of the native character or spirit. “From time^tb-time Filipinos indulge in intense, if misdirect ed, nationalism. At such times the tendency has been to pro nounce as foreign anything ac quired instead of inherited, and to condemn as evil anything that is borrowed. In painting this has often resulted in a hasty reexamination of existing forms and a rejection of any thing even remotely foreign. This is accompanied by a fran tic search for purely native forms and motifs, supposedly inherited and uninfluenced. In variably the search ends with the rediscovery of Igorot and Moro forms and motifs, an cient Tagalog script and indi genous fauna and flora. fThese are used, more or less arbitra rily, to disguise otherwise con ventional paintings, masquerad ing as True Filipino Painting. While these cannot be denied as being native subjects, neither can they be accepted as the on ly native subjects, nor taken to be the only requisites to Fili pino painting. This is not to suggest that Filipino painters should not paint native themes, or that native subjects will not pro duce Filipino painting. Quite the contrary. Filipino painters should paint native subjects, for native subjects have produced and will produce Filipino paint ing, though not necessarily al ways. For while Igorots and palms and carabaos are unde niably Philippine subjects, ty pical native subjects, they are not necessarily the only Philip pine subjects. The danger, if any, in limiting ourselves to the hut and palm and carabao is not so much because they are not Philippine subjects, which they are, but because these are often mistaken to be the only ~tfue Philippine sub jects, which-of course they are not. There is a tendency among many painters to rely on these native elements as leading in evitably to Filipino painting. At the same time few, if any, seem to realize thatQFilipinos are not necessarily Igorots or Moros or barefooted natives but can also be Manilenos who like to wear~shoes and” prefer palm-beach suits to g-strings 12 Panorama and would rather go about in automobiles; that the Philip pines is not made up entirely of palm-filled islands infested with carabaos in an eternal sunset; that the carretela is no more native than the jeepney and that Moro art and life and custom is no more Filipino than it is Hindu or Mohammedan; that we are part Chinese and Indian, Spanish and Indonesian and in many ways American, in speech and manner and cus tom, and certainly in art. Jk national art or expression stems from tradition, or it grows from influences. Many influences acquired from different sources over a long period of time, absorbed and altered£by native use and man ner and custom, slowly assum ing ^untaue^and^ particular form or charaCter~~until these are completely assimilated into the native culture, in time be coming the native tradition. There is yet not tradition in Filipino painting, only painters painting in a foreign manner or style or tradition. We have painters painting in the classic and academic Western tradi tion. And we have painters painting in the contemporary styles or manner, in the con temporary French or American or Mexican manner. But not in the Filipino manner, for there is yet no distinct Filipino style or tradition, only Filipino painters painting in a foreign manner or style or tradition. If we have therefore pro duced, or are producing Filipino painting, we have produced it painting in a foreign style or tradition, and not necessarily using native subjects. We have produced, or are producing, Fi lipino painting by painting saints and fields and dalagas, huts and fruits and buildings, leaves and shapes and color. And we have painted these either in the Western tradition, in the contemporary interna tional styles, or sometimes in the manner of a Klee or Ma tisse or Tamayo. Never in the native tradition, not in the Fi lipino style or manner yet sometimes, perhaps, in the Fili pino spirit, that indefinable, in tangible blend of diverse cul tures and backgrounds and qualities. For how else can one account for that quality in a Manansala, which can be in any one of many styles and bearing the trace of many sources yet sometimes, often times uniquely, curiously Filipi no? Or how else explain the Filipinism in Ocampo ' who paints in the international style, in the abstract and non-representational manner yet suc ceeds, as no other Filipino painter, in reflecting the native heat and vitality and color? Filipino painting does not stem from tradition, but from influences: malayan-ori e n t a 1 August 1960 13 traits deeply ingrained in the native character and, more re cently, occidental influences no less, if not possibly more, a part of native culture and expres sion. If it is therefore to our malayan-oriental origin that we can ultimately attribute that native element that spirit or quality in native art or expres sion, it is to the occidental cul tures that we owe our whole background in painting. The Filipino painter is native by birth, European-American by training or tradition, partly Mohammedan or Spanish or Chinese or Indian or American, in heritage and manner and custom. And not any one of these, but all. If we have pro duced, or are producing, Fili pino painting it is only because the native element, our innate and inherited traits and torms have combined, or are combin ing, with all the acquired orien tal-occidental cultures and has formed, or is slowly forming, an art or expression which is neither occidental nor oriental, at the same time both — but which must ultimately be dis tinct, unique and Filipino. It may have failed to define the native element or more closely examine Filipino paint ing. But if I have succeeded in suggesting what Filipino painting is not, or what the na tive spirit or quality could be, that is good enough. For as one painter suggested: no one should define Filipino painting, for there is yet no Filipino painting, only paintings by Fili pinos. * * * Evidence Early in his career, young Clarence Darrow was defend ing a difficult case against an older attorney whc loftily re ferred to Darrow as "that beardless youth.” When Darrow’s turn came, he addressed the court as fol lows: "My worthy opponent seems to condemn me for not hav ing a beard. Let me reply with a story. The king of Spain once dispatched a youthful nobleman to the court of a neighboring king, who received him with this outraged complaint: ’Does the King of Spain lack men, that he sends me a beardless boy?’ “To which the young ambassador replied: ‘Sire, if my King had supposed that you imputed wisdom to a bear, he would have sent a goat.’ ” Darrow won the case. 14 Panorama

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10-14

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