Crossing to the Great Beyond
Filipino masterpieces bring to mind the rich tapestry of our people’s past.
A recently opened hall at the National Gallery of Art (old Legislative Building) features the Manunggúl Jar (dating from 890-710 B.C.) found in Palawan — a supreme masterpiece of Philippine art. It is a secondary burial jar that once contained the bones of a long-dead Filipino and the handle of whose lid is a haunting depiction of a boatman serenely ferrying a soul to the great beyond.
Meanwhile, down Roxas Boulevard at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila is a large oil painting: La Barca de Aqueronte by Felix Resurrección Hidalgo, depicting the boatman Charon herding lost souls across the River Styx to Hades. It won medals at the 1887 Madrid Exposición General de Filipinas, the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle, the 1891 Barcelona Exposición General de Bellas Artes, and the 1893 Madrid Exposición Internacional de Bellas Artes.
Filipino artistic creativity at the time of the Spanish arrival in 1521 was expressed in everyday objects. Ancient Filipinos wove cloth of many designs, tattooed their bodies in elaborate patterns. They wore exquisite gold jewelry, used finely potted and decorated objects. They evoked spirits and deities in stone, ceramics, and wood. They preserved the remains of their dead in burial jars of limestone or pottery.
Belief systems and art forms changed with the Spanish arrival and our ancestors learned to express themselves in other ways, for the greater glory of a new God.
Through the artists’ own dedication and with private and official support, Philippine art developed all through the Spanish colonial period. It was in full flower when Spain’s flag was lowered for the last time. By then, Filipino painters were asserting themselves with confidence, entering — and winning — competitions with sensitivities and boundaries far from anything that their ancestors had known.
One of their great triumphs was a painting based on Greek and Roman mythology and described in Dante’s La Divina Commedia. The work’s inspiration was of a tradition, a time and a place alien to our history. Using an unfamiliar medium and working half a world away from his native land, the artist had unknowingly adopted the very theme of the ancient master who, two millennia before, had given form to the Manunggúl Jar with its quiet representation of a soul being steered across the water to the great beyond.
The Manunggúl Jar is of clay, the prize-winning painting of oil on canvas. The latter is of a multitude, the former of a solitary soul. The jar evokes serenity, the painting violence. The early work was in a spirit of faith and acceptance, the latter of resistance and struggle. The jar was created long before conquistadors reached our shores, the painting as our fathers were poised to strike for independence.
The contrast in concept and execution of the two masterpieces bring to mind the rich tapestry of our people’s past and of how the Filipino’s spirit remained unbowed, how his spark of creativity remained alive, ever ready to again burst into glorious flame, in the face of everything that fate had chosen to hurl his way. – Article courtesy of Manila Bulletin
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