COLONIAL PERIOD

SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD

1521-1898
SPANISH COLONIZATION

 When?
 Who?

 Why?
 Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines at the
head of a Spanish expedition searching for the Spice
Islands in 1521. Magellan never completed the
journey himself; he was killed in an encounter with
natives after having claimed the Philippines for Spain.

Battle of Mactan
April 27, 1521

Magellan and his 100

soldiers fought Lapu-
Lapu and his 1,000
warriors.
Clearly outnumbered,
Magellan and most of his
soldiers were killed.
 The actual work of
colonization began in
1565, when Miguel
Lopez de Legazpi
concluded treaties of
friendship with the native
chiefs (datus). Then he
proceeded to establish a
Spanish town on Cebu
Island, to convert the
people to Roman
Catholicism.
REASONS FOR COLONIZATION

 The 3 G’s:
 God – the conversion of natives to Christianity
 Gold – accumulation of gold or wealth

 Glory – supremacy of Spain over Portugal as a

superpower
SPANISH INFLUENCE ON FILIPINO VISUAL ARTS
 The colonizers used art as a tool to propagate the
Catholic faith through beautiful images.
 With communication as problem, the friars (a member
of a religious order) used images to explain the
concepts behind Catholicism, and to tell the stories of
Christ’s life and passion.
 Images of the Holy Family and the saints were
introduced to the Filipino psyche through
carved santos, the via crucis (Stations of the Cross),
engravings on estampas (prints) and estampitas
(stamps), and through paintings on church walls.
 Icons brought by the friars were used as models
for sculpture. Filipino artisans were taught the
Chinese brushwork technique in painting.
Engraving was also introduced.
 The concept of patronage emerged. (Patronage =
support given by a patron = supports someone or
something)
 Artisans were commissioned and paid to carve,
engrave, and paint. They replaced the arts that
were once done in a communal spirit and
community setting for rituals. The church,
particularly the friars, became the new patron of
the arts.
 Art was only for the church and religious use.
PAINTING

 The Spanish friars introduced Western painting in

the Philippines to artisans who learned to copy on
two-dimensional form from the religious icons that
the friars brought from Spain.
 For the first centuries of Spanish colonization,
painting was limited to religious icons.
 Paintings appeared mostly on church walls,
featured religious figures appearing in Catholic
teachings.
 Portraits of saints and of the Holy Family became
a familiar sight in churches; other subject matters
include the passion of Christ, the Via Crucis, the
crucifixion, portrayal of heaven, purgatory and hell.

 Painters from the Visayas island of Bohol were

noted for their skillful manipulation of the
technique. Their paintings of saints and religious
scenes show figures in frontal and static positions.
For the Boholano painters, the more important
persons would be depicted bigger than the rest of
the figures. Christ normally dwarfs the Roman
soldiers in these paintings. Unfortunately, they did
not sign their names on their works and no record
of their names exists.
 The earliest known historical paintings in the
Philippines was a mural at the Palacio Real
(Royal Palace) in Intramuros entitled The
Conquest of the Batanes done in 1783.
Unfortunately, it was destroyed during the 1863
earthquake.
FILIPINO PAINTERS
 Josef Luciano Dans (one of the earliest
recorded painters in Philippine art history)
 Langit, Lupa at Impierno ca. 1850 (Heaven, Earth
and Hell), a three-level painting which shows the
Holy Trinity, Mary the Mother of Christ, saints, the
Seven Blessed Sacraments and a macabre
depiction of Hell.
 Purgatorio (Purgatory) which shows the eight forms
of punishment the soul passes through for
cleansing before reaching Heaven.
 Langit, Lupa at Impierno ca.
1850 (Heaven, Earth and Hell)

Purgatorio (Purgatory)
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Esteban Villanueva of Vigan, Ilocos Sur

 The Spanish government commissioned the work.
The fourteen panels show the series of events that
led to the crushing of the Ilocano basi workers
revolt by Spanish forces. It also showed the
appearance of Halley’s comet in the Philippines
during that time.
 depicted the Ilocos revolt against the basi
monopoly in a 1821
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Tagalog painters:
 Jose Loden, Tomas Nazario and Miguel de los
Reyes, did the first still life paintings in the country.
 They were commissioned in 1786 by a Spanish
botanist to paint the flora and fauna found in the
country.
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Damian Domingo y Gabor (ca. 1790-1832)

 the most popular artist who worked in style called -
Tipos del País - is a style of watercolor painting that
shows the different types of inhabitants in the
Philippines in their different native costumes that
show their social status and occupation during
colonial times.
 In the early 19th century, the rise of the ilustrados saw a
rise in the art of portraiture. The need to adorn their newly
constructed bahay-na-bato and the want to document
their new found wealth and social status, the ilustrados
commissioned painters to make portraits of themselves.

 The works of painters like Simon Flores, Antonio

Malantic and Justiniano Ascunsion captured the intricately
designed jewelry and fashion accessories, the minute
details of the embroidered clothes, and ornately designed
domestic furniture of the patrons. The painstaking
attention to minute details characterized miniaturismo.
 The Ilustrados (Spanish: [ilusˈtɾaðos], "erudite",
"learned" or "enlightened ones") constituted the
Filipino educated class during the Spanish
colonial period in the late 19th century.
 They were the middle class who were educated
in Spain and exposed to Spanish liberal and
European nationalist ideals.
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Jose Honorato Lozano

 Developed Letras Y Figuras, (letters and
figures),combines both tipos del pais and genre
paintings by forming the letters of the patron’s
name from figures of people in local costumes
doing everyday activities. It also utilized landscape
scenes as background.
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Simon Flores, Lorenzo Guerrero,

Felix Martinez, Paz Paterno and her half sister
Adelaida Paterno
 genre, landscapes (paisajes), and still
lifes (bodegones).
FILIPINO PAINTERS

 Juan Novicio Luna and Felix Resureccion

Hidalgo
 had the chance to study and work abroad
 became the first international Filipino artists when
they won the gold and silver medals in the 1884
Madrid Exposition.
SCULPTURE
 The carving of anito was transformed into sculpture of
the saints. These santos were used primarily for the
church altars and retablos. It also replaced the anitos in
the altars of the natives’ homes.
 Carvings for churches include altarpieces
called retablos (usually with niches for the icons), the
central point of any Catholic church. The retablo houses
the tabernacle and the image of the town’s patron saint.
Usually referred to as a “cabinet of saints”, one would
see a hierarchy of saints depending on their importance
to the townspeople. The patron saint would be in the
middle; less important saints would be in the periphery.
 The most elaborate retablos can be seen in the San Agustin
Church in Intramuros.
 Other parts of the church that may have carvings are church
doors, pulpits, and carrozas (floats that carry the saints for
processions). The façade of churches may be carved from
adobe, coral stone, and volcanic rock, among others. It may
have carved images of saints, floral decorations or leaf
decors. In the case of the Miag-ao Church in Iloilo, the
façade is decorated with a carved image of St. Christopher
carrying the Christ Child on his shoulders under a coconut
tree.
 Relleves (carved images in relief) usually depict the Via
Crucis. It may also show holy images in religious scenes.
 Niche - a shallow recess, especially one in a
wall to display a statue or other ornament.
SCULPTORS

 Juan de los Santos(ca. 1590 – ca. 1660) of

San Pablo, Laguna
 earliestknown sculptor in the Philippines
 17th century sacristan, sculptor and silversmith

 Crispulo Hocson, Romualdo de Jesus, Leoncio

Asuncion and Isabelo Tampinco.
 Bonifacio Arevalo, Graciano Nepomuceno,
Marcelo Nepomuceno, and Anselmo Espiritu
SCULPTORS

 Mariano Madriñan
 produced the finest santo carvers during the
second half of the 19th century.
 Paete, a small woodcarving town in Laguna,
Southern Luzon
 won a gold medal in the 1883 Amsterdam
Exposition for his Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful
Mother).
SCULPTORS

 Pelagia Mendoza y Gotianquin

 the first woman student was accepted in the
Academia de Dibujo Y Pintura by then
Director Lorenzo Rocha.
 won in the 1892 Columbus Quadricentennial Art
Contest with a bust of Christopher Columbus.
GRAPHIC ARTS
 Engraving was introduced in the 1590’s by the
Spanish colonizers.
 In 1593, the Dominicans published the La
Doctrina Christiana en la Lengua Española y
Tagala (The Christian Doctrine in the Spanish
and Tagalog Language), first book printed in
the country. On it was a woodcut engraving of
St. Dominic by Juan de Veyra, a Chinese
convert.
 The religious orders owned printing presses
and printed mostly prayer books and estampas.
 Estampas (prints of miraculous images) usually
featured portraits of saints and religious
scenes.
 Estampas and estampitas (smaller version of
estampas) were distributed during town fiestas
to the natives.
 In the 18th century, copper etching became
more popular. Filipino engravers like Francisco
Suarez, Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay, Laureano
Atlas, and Felipe Sevilla were the first Filipino
artists to sign their works.
 Francisco Suarez (ca. 1690 – ca. 1762) and
Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay (1702 – ca. 1765)
collaborated to depict landscapes, genre
scenes and flora and fauna on the borders of
maps commissioned by Fr. Murillo Velarde in
1733. These were probably the first secular
images done in the country.
 The two also illustrated the pasyon written by Gaspar
Aquino de Belen entitled Mahal na Passion ni Jesu
Christong Panginoon Natin Na Tola (The Holy Passion
of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Verse), possibly the first
pasyon written in the country.

Written in 1703
Approved in 1704
 Laureano Atlas
 made religious scenes and images. He did one of the
earliest known portrait engraved on copper, a portrait of
Archbishop Juan Angel Rodriguez in 1743.

 Phelipe Sevilla
 depicted scenes from the life of Christ.

 Filipino engravers were the first to depict and

reproduce brown madonnas. The Nuestra
Senora de Guia was made in 1711, the oldest
Marian image. The natives worship this icon
like an anito.
 Copperplate engraving remained popular until the
introduction of a new printing medium. Lithography
was introduced and this facilitated the printing of
newspapers and periodicals in the country. It also
enabled the printing of the local edition of Fr. Manuel
Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas in 1878.

 One of the popular newspapers during the 19th century

was La Illustracion Filipina published by Don Jose
Zaragosa. It had more than 100 issues from November
1891 to February 1895. It usually featured lithograph
prints of people, landscapes and genre scenes. Since
most of the family members know how to draw, some
of their works must have been published here.
Fr. Manuel Blanco’s
Flora de Filipinas in
1878