Asian Art and Craft

Philippines is an Asian country that have its own image of arts(Drama,Film, Painting, Sculpture, Art Craft and Paintings).

While ancient Philippine literature took the form of oral stories such as myths, legends, and folktales that were closely interwoven into the people's lives, Christianity brought a religious-based literature that consisted of morality and passion plays as well as stories based on the life of the saints. Because Filipinos were barred from the classroom, their reading material was mainly dictated by the church. By the 18th and 19th centuries, however, a group of Filipinos had acquired education and started to write both in the vernacular and in Spanish. One of the important writings of this era is Fransisco Baltazar's Florante at Laura, a Tagalog narrative in verse.

Intellectuals educated in Europe wrote anti-Spanish, anti-clergy texts, not with a Filipino audience in mind but a Spanish one. The greatest works of the period, and perhaps in all of Philippine literary history, are the novels of Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (1912) and El Filibusterismo (1912), both realistic depictions of Spanish abuses and Filipino nationalistic aspirations.

The coming of the Americans gave birth to a literature in English. Barely 20 years after the first class in English was set up, the first short story was published. Although the first attempts were awkward, literature in English has since then achieved greater heights, as can be seen in the volume of work published from 1920 to the present.

The 50s and early 60s were the golden age of writing in English. This period saw the simultaneous publication of writers such as NVM Gonzalez, Francisco Arcellana, Bienvenido Santos, F. Sionil Jose, and of course, Nick Joaquin, the most famous of them all. Two schools of thought emerged with the development of writing in English. They were the art for art's sake group, led by poet Jose Garcia Villa, and those who were convinced by Salvador Lopez's essay Literature and Society that literature should be a mirror of society.

The issue was extended to the use of English, viewed by some writers as a colonial language. With the surge of nationalism in the 60s and 70s, many writers have shifted to Filipino as a medium, and writers in the regional languages were given their due importance. Social realism has become a strong contemporary tradition.

Filipinos are great followers of popular culture. They may like Shakespeare, but that does not mean they don't love comics, too. Sari-sari stories often rent comics so people can follow their favorite serials.

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Early Philippine drama was performed as part of the rituals that accompanied activities such as planting and harvesting as well as birth and death. Like literature, drama was enmeshed in everyday life and did not need a stage or lights.

European drama came as part of the evangelization process. Passion and morality plays were encouraged. The cenaculo ("si-NAH-KU-loh"), a play on the life of Christ, is still performed today. Secular drama came in the form of the comedia or moro-moro, which depicted the Christian's victory over the Moors, the zarzuela, which combined theater and music. During the early part of the American occupation, seditious zarzuelas were performed to protest at colonial exploitation.

Dramas in English were first seen at the universities. Favored topics were historical events and domestic problems. In the late 60s, with the resurgence of nationalism, dramas in English gave way to a new batch of writers who used Filipino. At the height of activism, there was renewed interest in drama, which was seen as the most potent art form for exposition of national issues. At present, drama continues to thrive. Performances are often world-class. The drama in Filipino has arrived even while plays in English continue to be written. Foreign classical plays are staged by university groups, while contemporary Western plays and musicals are staples of professional theater groups.

Film, Painting, and Sculpture
As far as the ordinary Filipino is concerned, the world outside is what one sees in the movies. Hollywood has shaped the Filipino mind for so long that Filipinos have begun to believe that there are cowboys in the Cordillera mountains. There was a local Elvis Presley who even imitated Elvis' pelvis; there was a local James Dean and a John Travolta. In the tradition of Hollywood, Filipino movies are full of sex and violence. Fortunately, a concerned group of directors have preserved in creating quality films that have not only tackled the realities of Philippine life but also brought out the best in Filipino cinematic artistry.Painting and sculpture have been largely influenced by the West. The first distinguished painters, Juan Luna and Felix Resurrecion Hidalgo, won awards in Spain and Paris. Modern painters and sculptors continue to produce a wide mix of art forms in traditional or experimental themes and techniques.

Art and Craft

Despite the almost total destruction of Philippine pre-Spanish culture, a great deal of craft work has been preserved, especially by those who resisted colonization. Basketry, for example, is highly developed among the Mountain Province, Mindanao, and Mindoro/Palawan tribes. Used to catch fish or store grain and goods, the baskets are woven with such skill and artistry that they now grace the houses of the rich.Textile weaving is also an indigenous art. The T'boli people dye the bark of a tree and weave the strands into geometric designs. The Yakans produce a flame of colors in their work. Woodcarving and furniture making have produced the most intricate of creations from Philippine trees. The whole town of Paete, Laguna, has made woodcarving a town industry. The town of Betis, Pampanga, has the highest reputation in wooden furniture. Other handicrafts that have put the Philippines on the par are the shellcraft of Cebu and the silver filigree of Baguio.

In the last half of the 19th century, Filipino painters showed enough maturity of concept and technique to merit critical acclaim. Damian Domingo got recognition as the “father of Filipino painting.” Towards the end of the Spanish regime, two Filipino painters won recognition in Europe – Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna. Hidalgo’s Antigone and Luna’s Spolarium were both acclaimed in Europe as masterpieces of Filipino painting. In 1884, Luna won the first Gold Medal at the Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes for his Spolarium. This monumental painting shows fallen gladiators being dragged to an unseen pile of corpses in a chamber beneath the Roman arena.

Spoliarium,Art Manila
Luna's great canvases are People and Kings and the Spoliarium, both of which, it has been noted often enough, vibrate with what's called a social conscience. In the Spoliarium there's compassion for the sons of the proletariat: those gladiators who are sacrificed to make a Roman holiday. In People and Kings the theme is the uprising of the masses against their age-old oppressors. So popular, such crowd-drawers indeed were Luna's canvases that one Spanish critic could declare that the Spoliarium was "of the public." But he did not confine himself only to grandiose historical epics.

Gallery of Paintings

A Look at Chinese Paintings

Elegant Gathering in the Apricot
Garden , 1437

On April 6, 1437, Yang Rong, a high-ranking scholar-official serving the emperor of China, invited eight important officials and dignitaries to his famous garden to view paintings and calligraphy, compose poetry, and play chess. One of these invited officials is seen above, brush in hand, poised to write a poem on the paper unrolled on the table before him. Two other guests admire a painting in the format of a hanging scroll. The servant on the left is readying another hanging scroll for viewing while two more hanging scrolls lie rolled up on the low table beside him. Yang Rong served at the court of five successive emperors, rising to the rank of grand secretary, the highest official position in the Ming dynasty court. In this feature you will have an opportunity to look closely at and learn more about a number of Chinese paintings and calligraphies (brush writings). Just think of yourself as a guest at this party, composing a poem or taking an imaginary journey through a distant landscape by examining a painting, as these gentlemen are doing.