Artes de las Filipinas
THE ARTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
The History of the San Agustin Church 
by Jericho Paul C. Santos
January 2012--Along with its search for wealth, the Spanish colonizers made it a top mission to spread Catholicism in the Philippines. And to broaden the reach of Christianity, a place for worship is needed to bring the congregation together. As a result, churches were built around the country for Christianity to thrive. One of these churches was the San Agustin Church.
The San Agustin church was rebuilt three times due to man-made and natural disasters. Since then, it has withstood natural disasters and has become the oldest church in the Philippines. It is now recognized by the government and UNESCO as a historical landmark.
The History of the Church
The San Agustin Church was under the auspices of the Agustinian Order. The friars took the cudgels in building the church. Like many structures during that time, the church of San Agustin was built with the use of nipa and bamboo. The building of the church started in 1571, it was then officially named as Iglesia y Convento de San Pablo.
In 1574, the Chinese pirate, Limahong invaded Manila. The invasion led to the burning of the city and the San Agustin Church was not spared. This led to the first reconstruction of the church a year later. The second church was made of wooden materials. Because of the choice of the structural material used, it remained risky to fire accidents. True enough, another fire caused the destruction of the church in 1583.
ARTES
December 2011--In the not so distant past, Antonio Gonzales Dumlao was a big name in Philippine art. He was a contemporary of Fernando Amorsolo and Vicente Manansala who began his career during the late the 1930s painting landscapes and figures while maintaining a job in an advertising company and engraving firm. Although he was self-taught, he had the guts and technical dexterity to produce large figurative works that were remarkable and brought insight into his own legacy and life. In this December interview, Marinela Dumlao-Currie, Antonio Dumlao’s daughter and a primary and secondary tutor in Sydney, Australia, sets the history of her father and discusses at length about what her father was in life and his works with the hope that the memory of his name returns to the consciousness of the Filipino art-loving public and reproposes his relevance in contemporary time.
You are doing a book on your father, Antonio Dumlao. Tell us some details about your own research and why the family has decided to have a book made on Dumlao.
My father was a generous person when it came to sharing his inborn talent. In fact, he gave some of his artworks to friends. As long as he knew his paintings were valued, kept and appreciated, he was happy seeing them on display in the family homes.I was the one who initiated publishing a book about Papa. Yes, there has never been a book about him since. He was an extremely good father and provider to his children. There have been hundreds of articles about him and his arts but never a book! Obviously, he was not too keen on publicity. All his life what he always did was to paint, sketch, draw, sculpt and deal with his art patrons. His works were advertised and sold by word of mouth by his friends and
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ANTIGUEDAD
"…the work of an artist and master potter."--Robert Fox
27th April 1995—I was 11 years old when I visited the National Museum -- the repository of our cultural, natural and historical heritage. I remembered the majesty of climbing those steps and walking past the Neo-classical Roman columns until I was inside the Old Congress Building.
Today, if the Metropolitan Museum’s identifying piece was the painting Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas Al Populacho by Felix Resurrecion Hidaldo and the GSIS Museum its Parisian Life by the painter Juan Luna, the National Museum’s, El Spoliarium, Luna’s most famous piece. Many people come to the museum just for this painting. But another less-popular but quite significant piece was the Manunggul jar.
The Manunggul jar was one of the numerous jars found in a cave believed to be a burial site (Manunggul, was part of the archaeologically significant Tabon Cave Complex in Lipuun Point, Quezon, Palawan) that was discovered on March 1964 by Victor Decalan, Hans Kasten and other volunteer workers from the United States Peace Corps. The Manunggul burial jar was unique in all respects. Dating back to the late Neolithic Period (around 710 B.C.), Robert Fox described the jar in his landmark work on the Tabon Caves:
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DE INTERES
November 2011-- The year was 1521, as Ferdinand Magellan set foot in the Philippines, it marked the arrival of Catholicism in the Philippines. The Spanish colonization paved way for the spread of Christianity and the era of Western church architecture in the Philippines. During the three centuries of colonization, it produced grandly design churches; one of these is the Manila Cathedral.
The present Manila Cathedral, situated at the heart of the walled city of Intramuros has gone several major reconstructions since its inception. The Neo-Romanesque-Byzantine cathedral has long been the seat of archbishop in the Philippines. And it continuous to be one of the most admired churches in the country.
The Seat of Spain’s Ecclesiastical Rule
The Manila Cathedral of today features Romanesque façade and beautiful cupola but its humble beginning is a far cry from when it was first built.
Mandated with the mission of the sword and the cross, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, occupied Manila in 1571. Then the Spanish conquistador assigned an area for his new settlement for a church. The cathedral was known as Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate under the patronage of the La Purisima Immaculada Conception.
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CRITICA
Trying to understand why art can offend, and why artists should continue to be free
by Imelda Cajipe-Endaya “What in art gives such remarkable power that it can offend? What makes people susceptible to being offended?” Thus spoke Prof. Flaudette May Datuin, taking off from WJT Mitchell’s What Do Pictures Want? I’m glad I attended the UP Arts Studies forum yesterday on the now closed “Kulo” exhibit at CCP. It was such an intelligent, unemotional exchange of facts and ideas on a wide range of offensive art, audience reaction, culture and legalities.
Forum speaker, lawyer and Prof. Alden Lauzon, cited that Article III, Section 4 of the Philippine Constitution pronounces that “[n]o law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.” And in an attempt to define the ever-subjective “obscenity,” he quotes: (from Miller vs. California/ cited in Bernas)
“The basic guidelines for the trier of facts must be: (a) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest… (b) Whether the work depicts of describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole,lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
The ongoing controversy however is not about an artwork being prurient or obscene but more about blasphemy and sacrilege in a largely “Catholic” populace. Apparently, there are no legal precedents on such matters when it comes to testing our 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. So discussion on this did not ensue. Except I gathered it is best for artists espousing social transformation to test the aesthetics of their art on street folks rather than on May Datuin or Patrick Flores.
Before the forum, I told Mideo Cruz that I myself was offended specifically by the oversized crimson phallus placed on the crucifix, and the Jesus image with eyes blackened with dripping ink. The stretched condom hanging on one side of a crucifix was just as odious, I said. But that I didn't think CCP should close the exhibit. Politeismo should have been left open for restricted viewing. Datuin said that we should have seized this as a teaching moment.
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TRIVIALIDADES DE ARTE
February 2012--A copy of the Mona Lisa has been discovered in the Prado which was painted in Leonardo’s studio—created side by side with the original that now hangs in the Louvre. This sensational find will transform our understanding of the world’s most famous picture.
Conservators at the Prado in Madrid recently made an astonishing discovery, hidden beneath black overpaint. What was assumed to be a replica of the Mona Lisa made after Leonardo’s death had actually been painted by one of his key pupils, working alongside the master. The picture is more than just a studio copy—it changed as Leonardo developed his original composition.
The final traces of overpaint are now being removed by Prado conservators, revealing the fine details of the delicate Tuscan landscape, which mirrors the background of Leonardo’s masterpiece. Darkened varnish is also being painstakingly stripped away from the face of the Mona Lisa, giving a much more vivid impression of her enticing eyes and enigmatic smile.
In the Louvre’s original, which will not be cleaned in the foreseeable future, Lisa’s face is obscured by old, cracked varnish, making her appear almost middle aged. In the Prado copy we see her as she would have looked at the time—as a radiant young woman in her early 20s.
Leonardo da Vinci, and particularly his masterpiece the Mona Lisa, attracts endless sensationalist theories. However, the discovery of the contemporary copy has been accepted by the two key authorities, the Prado and the Louvre.
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ACONSEJAR
Book Review: Edifice Complex: Power, Myth, and the Marcos State Architecture by Gerard Lico
by Arch. Roselle SantosThe book is about Marcosian Architecture. The author started each chapter with quotes from different scholars as an introduction to his discussions. The book is very much influenced by Michel Foucaults discourse on power and knowledge. Lico says that Marcos regime recognized the nexus of architecture and society, its potential for influencing the community, and wielded this weapon to promote the aesthetics of power in the built form. The book seeks to contribute to theoretical work on the relationship between architecture and power. It documents some of the socio-historical dimensions of the Marcos regimes major architectural accomplishments which include the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Folk Arts Theater, PHILCITE, Philippine International Convention Center, Philippine Trade Pavillons, Tahanang Pilipino (Coconut Palace), and the Manila Film Center. Through this book, Lico hopes to generate awareness of the unrecognized power of architecture.
The book investigates how state architecture functioned as one of the authoritarian regime’s legitimizing mechanism for socio-political control. He hopes to introduce a novel way of writing Philippine architectural history, which has been plagued by formal rules and stylistic canons (include issues of power relations). He, however, asserts that there is no absolute view, concentrated on the socio-historical narrative of buildings situated at the reclaimed foreshore development in Manila Bay.
Chapter 1 (Architecture and Society) starts with a quote from Norris Kelly Smith about architecture revealing that "not only the aesthetic and formal preferences of an architect/client but also the aspirations, power struggles and material culture of a society." The author said that architecture implicates "space" and its utilization as "place" by its occupants. He called on Michel Focault’s "hybrid concept of power-knowledge" to explain how space is created and arranged "to gain control over knowledge" through "surveillance and asymmetrical visibility"( the gaze). Foucault introduces the term "panopticon" or knowledge tied to systems wit human beings as objects of disciplinary knowledge.
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ANUNCIO
October 20, 2009 -- EACOMM Corporation hosted a cocktail reception to celebrate the publication of its first book project, Private Collections. Almost three hundred guests turned up at the Isla Ballroom 3 of Edsa Shangri-La Hotel to welcome the release of the limited edition art book and to have it signed by the art collectors.
The audience had a warm and unforgettable moment that Tuesday evening. Artists and distinguished guests from the business, arts and society stood in lines to meet and have a chat with Washington SyCip, Hans Sy, David Consunji, Joey de Leon, Napoleon Abueva, Charlie Cojuangco, Joel Jimenez, Eddie Chua, Patrick Reyno, Mark Villar, Julius Babao, Arsenio Tanco, Jovenal Santiago, Manny Zialcita, Gilbert Santos, Wilmer Hontiveros, Louie Ojeda, Mikee Romero and Alexander Tan, who were recognized and honored that night.
Private Collections is available online and at Fully Booked and Powerbooks.
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