Con Arts Comprehensive Notes

Defining Art

• Key Questions to judge an artwork:
– Was it created with creativity or a deliberate purpose?
– Does it communicate an idea, feeling, or cultural value?
– Was it intended to be appreciated or interpreted as art?
• Core definitions
– A. Tan: Art comes from the Italian word artis— “craftsmanship, skills, mastery of form, inventiveness, and the link between form/ideas and material/technique.”
– F. Zulueta: “Art is a product of man’s need to express himself.”
• Essential characteristics of art
– Must be man-made
– Must be creative (not merely imitative)
– Must provide benefit/satisfaction and be useful in practical terms
– Is always mediated by a material or medium that carries the artist’s message to others

Contemporary Art

• Getty Museum definition: “art made and produced by artists living today” who operate in a global, culturally diverse, technologically advanced, multifaceted environment.
• Sample Filipino practitioners & works (visual references in slides):
– Zyza Bacani (documentary photography, $2013$)
– The Contrast — H. R. Ocampo (abstract painting)
• Hallmarks
– Broadest range of media: digital tools, found objects, performance, installation, new media, etc.
– Themes: identity, globalization, politics, technology, climate, gender, consumerism, migration.
– Audience reception: may provoke strong, polarized reactions because forms challenge pre-existing definitions of art.

Modern Art

• Time span: roughly $\text{1860s–1970s}$ (international)
• In Philippine lecture slides, nick-named “traditional” vis-à-vis the newer contemporary art.
• Predominant Western movements: impressionism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, minimalism.
• Materials: still primarily oil, canvas, bronze, marble, printmaking, etc.
• Reception: initially resisted; gradually institutionalized (museums, academies, canon).

Modern vs. Contemporary (Quick Matrix)

• Period
– Modern: $\text{late 19th c. – 1960s}$
– Contemporary: $\text{1960s – present}$
• Themes
– Modern: formal experimentation & abstraction for its own sake.
– Contemporary: pluralistic, socially engaged (identity, politics, tech, environment).
• Materials
– Modern: traditional fine-art media.
– Contemporary: any material incl. digital, bio-art, VR, social practice.
• Audience
– Modern works once shocking, now canonical.
– Contemporary works actively debate and re-negotiate meaning.
• Similarities
– Both pursue new forms of artistic expression.
– Both reject rigid tradition.
– Both harness technological/media innovations of their era.

Historical Overview of Philippine Art

1. Pre-Conquest

2. Spanish Period $1521–1898$

3. American Period $1898–1940$

4. Japanese Occupation $1941–1945$

5. Post-War Republic $1946–1969$

6. $1970s$ to Contemporary

1 · Pre-Conquest (Before $1521$)

• Painting & Body Ornamentation
– Tattooing (pintados tradition)
– Decorative body adornment (gold, shells)
– Manunggul Jar (burial jar with ship-of-the-dead cover)
• Sculpture
– Sarimanok (mythical bird)
– Bulul (rice granary guardians)
– Hagabi (Ifugao prestige bench)
– Santos (indigenous anitos)
• Architecture
– Bahay kubo (vernacular stilt house)
– Torogan (Maranao royal house, panolong beam with okir carving)
– Ivatan stone house (adaptive to typhoons)
• Performing / other arts
– Pangalay (Sulu, intricate hand dance)
– Cañao (Cordillera ritual with dance & gong)
– Kulintang ensemble (percussion)
– Pis Syabit (Tausug tapestry)
– Oral epics & myths (e.g., Legend of Maria Makiling)

2 · Spanish Period $1521–1898$

• Architecture
– Churches: San Agustin (Manila), Taal Basilica (Batangas)
• Painting
– Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) devotional panels
– Religious iconography proliferated in oil‐on-canvas retablos
• Sculpture
– Wood retablos, processional santos, carved church furniture
• Music
– Liturgical (pipe organ, chant)
– Pasyon (sung biblical epic), kundiman, balitao
– Awit & corrido (metrical romances)
• Theater
– Zarzuela (musical comedy‐drama)
– Komedya/moro-moro (Christian–Moor pageant)
– Senákulo (Lenten passion play)
– Araguio (religious drama)
• Dance
– Cariñosa, pandanggo, polka, rigodon
• Education milestone $1821$: Damian Domingo opens Academia de Dibujo, first formal fine-arts school; creates first known Filipino self-portrait.

3 · American Period $1898–1940$

• Political backdrop: Sedition Law $1901$ barred advocacy of independence; artists responded with allegory.
• Theater
– “Drama Simboliko”: Tanikalang Ginto (Juan Abad), Hindi Ako Patay (Juan Matapang Cruz), Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas (Aurelio Tolentino).
– First English play: A Modern Filipina ($1915$) by Lino Castillejo & Jesus Araullo.
– Bodabil/vaudeville: mixed spectacle (slapstick, magic, chorus girls).
• City Beautiful & Neoclassical Architecture
– Daniel Burnham’s urban plan for Manila & Baguio; landmarks: National Art Gallery, Manila Post Office.
• Graphic Design
– Fernando Amorsolo: textbook illustrations; Ginebra San Miguel logo → scholarship to Spain.
• Sculpture
– Guillermo Tolentino: Oblation, Bonifacio Monument (classical dynamism, nationalist symbolism).
• Painting (rise of modernism)
– Victorio Edades: The Builders → broke from Amorsolo’s pastoral light toward expressionist forms.
– Carlos “Botong” Francisco: giant historical murals (Filipino Struggles through History).
– Galo Ocampo: Brown Madonna (indigenized icon); Nature’s Bounty.
– Napoleon Abueva: modern sculpture (The Transfiguration).
– The trio Edades–Francisco–Ocampo dubbed the “Triumvirate of Philippine Modern Art.”

4 · Japanese Occupation $1941–1945$

• Context: fear, poverty, censorship; propaganda slogan “Asia for Asians” / Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
• Media strictly policed (Shin Seiki, Bagong Araw, censored Liwayway).
• Painting
– Fernando Amorsolo created serene rural scenes (Harvest Scene, Rice Planting) used to project tranquility and industry despite war realities.
• Artistic climate
– Modernist momentum stalled; surviving artists either complied, coded resistance, or went underground.
• Ethical implication: tension between survival, collaboration, and silent resistance; highlights art’s vulnerability under authoritarian control.

5 · Post-War Republic $1946–1969$

1. Shift from Conservative to Modernist ideals
   – Victorio Edades re-energizes modernism at UST; forms “Thirteen Moderns.”

2. Rise of Neo-Realists & Modern abstraction
   – Younger artists pursue abstract expressionism, symbolism, cubism, social realism.

3. Institutional Support
   – UP & UST expand Fine Arts; Art Association of the Philippines ($1948$) mounts local/international shows.

4. Cultural Identity & Nationalism
   – Synthesis of folk motifs, indigenous symbols with modern styles; search for post-colonial Filipino identity.

5. Art as Political Commentary
   – Seeds of social realism; artists critique corruption, inequality, urban blight — groundwork for 1970s Martial-Law-era protest art.

Over-Arching Themes & Reflections

• Continuity vs. Change
– Each colonial/occupational regime reshaped the arts: Spanish (Christian iconography), American (English, neoclassicism), Japanese (propaganda), Post-war (modernist freedom).
• Technology & Media
– Print presses, photography, electric theater lighting, digital media each catalyze new genres.
• Art and Power
– Sedition Law, Japanese censorship prove that authorities regulate imagery; yet art remains a quiet/explicit form of resistance.
• Nation-Building
– Philippine art chronicles the archipelago’s evolving self-concept: from pre-colonial animism to Spanish religiosity to modern nationalist narratives.
• Ethical/Philosophical Questions
– What responsibilities do artists have under oppressive regimes?
– When does assimilation of foreign styles enrich culture vs. erode authenticity?
• Real-World Relevance
– Contemporary Filipino artists still wrestle with globalization, OFW diaspora, climate disasters — echoing historical patterns of art responding to upheaval.

Chronological Quick-Reference (Dates in LaTeX)

• Pre-Conquest: $\text{\<1521}$
• Spanish Rule: $1521\text{–}1898$
• American Rule: $1898\text{–}1940$
• Japanese Occupation: $1941\text{–}1945$
• Post-War/Neo-Realist Rise: $1946\text{–}1969$
• Contemporary Era: $1970s\text{–present}$

Study Tip: Map major artists to their signature works and historical contexts; notice how material, theme, and political climate intersect. Building timelines with thumbnails can help anchor memory for exam essays.