AMERICAN COLONIAL

PERIOD (1898-1940) TO THE

POSTWAR REPUBLIC (1946-
1969)
Major Art Movements:
 the independence that the Philippines gained after the revolution of 1896
was cut short with the establishment of the American Colonial
Government.
 bound by the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Spain “surrendered” the Philippine
to United States.
 from 1899 to 1913, the bloody Philippine-American war occured.
 new colonial government took charge of initiating the natives into the
American way of life, creating a lasting influence on Filipino Culture.
CHANGES BROUGHT BY THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION:
 Filipino Playwrights who had just undergone the Philippine Revolution againts
Spain now found themselves confronted by censorship with the issuance of the
Sedition Law which banned the writing, printing, and publication of materials
advocating Philippine independence and engaging in activities which championed
this cause.
 PLAYS: 1902 Juan Abad's Tanikalang Ginto or Golden Chain
1903 Juan Matapang Cruz's Hindi ako Patay or I am not dead
1903 Aurelio Tolentino's Kahapon, Ngayon, at Bukas or Yesterday, Today, and
Tomorrow
echoed not only the nationalist sentiments of their playwrights but also
served as medium for political protest, openly attacking the Americans.
DRAMA SIMBOLICO, one-act plays came to represent a deep and
profound yearning for freedom.
 English- Lingua Franca of this period.
Poem,and stories from books were dramatized in classroom to
facilitate teaching of the English Language.
Unlike Spanish, the Americans zealously taught their language
through an efficient public school system.
In less than a decade, Filipino playwrights began to write plays
in English.
• A MODERN FILIPINA
-1915, Lino Castillejo and Jesus Araullo wrote it.
- the first Filipino play written in English.

English plays from the classics to Broadway and West End

musicals are still staged in the Philippines and are generally
lucrative ventures.
• VAUDEVILLE
– originated from France.
– was another form of theater which the American's introduced that
became popular in the Philippines during the 1920s.

• BODABIL
- Motley collection of slaptick, songs, dances, acrobatics, comedy
skits, chorus girls, magic acts, and stand-up comic acts.
 During the Japanese Occupation, players would poke fun at the Japanese
soldiers or send messages of hope disguised as innuendos that only the
local people could understand.
 Some performances also conveyed hidden messages for guerillas, a
clever vehicle for information disemination through live entertainment.
 After the war, bodabil performances deteriorated into vulgar shows and
soon died away, to be replaced by the popularity of film and later
television.
 In the beggining of the 20th century, a new urban pattern that responded
to the secular goals of education, health and governance was imposed.
 Daniel Burnham- architect and urban planner who was commissioned by
the American Government to design Manila and Baguio.
 William Parsons- implemented the Burnham Plan. Inspired by the City
Beautiful Movement introduced in 1893 at the Chicago World Fair, the
new urban design employed Neoclassic Architecture for its government
edifices and integrated parks and lawns to make the city attractive by
making its building impressive and places more inviting for leisure amid
urban blight.
 NEO-CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE
- Buildings in Manila including Post Office and the Legislative
Building(National Art Gallery). Both monumental in scale and are
iconically distinguished by thick columns.
- may incorporate decorative sculptural elements house in a
pediment, as exemplified by the National Art Gallery.
-Tomas Mapua, Juan Arellano, Andres Luna de San Pedro, and
Antonio Toledo were among the Filipino Architects who designed
buildings during the period. They received training in the US or in Europe.
 Landscapes - became cherished as travel souvenirs, especially those that
captured the exotic qualities of Phillipine Terrain.
 1909, a year after the establishment of the UP. its school of Fine Arts was
opened, it also offered a course on commercial design to fulfill the
aforementioned demand. Fabian de la Rosa succeeded the peninsulares
Rafael Enriquez as director.
 Peninsulares- a term used particularly during the colonial period to refer
to Spanish-born residents of the Philippines.
 Fabian de la Rosa- was known for his naturalist paintings characterized
by restraint and formality in brushwork, choice of somber colors, and
subject matter, as seen in the works Planting Rice in 1921, and El
Kundiman in 1930.
 Fernando Amorsolo- known for his romantic paintings that captured the
warm glow of the Philippines Sunlight.
had produced numerous portraits of prominent individuals; genre
scenes highlighting the beauty of the dalagang filipina, idyllic
landscapes; and historical paintings.
Amorsolo's logo design for Ginebra San Miguel, depicting the saint
trampling on a devil, won for him a grant that enabled him to study
Fine Arts in Spain.
he gained a following among his peers. Among those influenced by
the “Amorsolo School” were Irineo Miranda, Toribio Herrera, Cesar
Buenaventura, and Dominador Castaneda.
Guillermo Tolentino- Amorsolo's counterpart in sculpture. he
studied Fine Arts in Rome and was influenced by it lassical
tradition.
creditd for the iconic OBLATION (1935,original/1958,bronze cast
found at the UP Oblation plaza) of the Up and the BONIFACIO
MONUMENT, in 1993 in Calaocan. A sculpture in the round the
latter consist of the lifed sized figures in dynamic poses, exemplifying
restraint, formality, and elegance in an historical tableau.
• Academic- term reffering to the kind of art that was influenced by
European academies.
• Tradition of painting and sculpture in the manner of Amorsolo and
Tolentino prevailed in the art scene.
• Victorio Edades- studies art in US, where modern art movement
profoundly influenced him.
- his homecoming exhibition in 1928 at the Philippine Columbian
Club unveiled paintings which departed from the conservative style of
Amorsolo.
-Unlike the latters pastoral images, Edades The Builders,1928
showed distorted figures of toiling workers using a dull colors; a shift in the
treatment form and subject matter.
 NEO-REALISM, ABSTRACTION AND OTHER
MODERN STYLES
• Alice Guillermo recounts how artist and writers reflected about national
identity as Filipinos were rising from the ashes of war.
• Manansala's THE BEGGARS.1952, consist of the image of two women
with emaciated bodies and forlorn faces set against a dark background
capturing the dreariness of poverty.
• Manansala's painintings are characterized by transparent cubism, a style
mark by the soft fragmentation of figures using transparent planes
instead of hard edge ones.
• Legazpi's GADGETS II, 1949 depicts half naked men almost
ingulfed in the presence of machine. Most of Legazpi's figures
in this period are distorted by his elongating or making rotund
forms in a well ordered composition as seen in the painting
BAR GIRLS in 1947.
• Ocampo's THE CONTRAST, in 1940 discuss distinct figurative
works whivh expose human conditions amid the background of
modernity. Ocampo's paintings are combination of geometric
and biomorphic shapes with vibrants colors.
• His painting GENESIS,1968 which puts together warm colored
shapes.
• AAP or Art Association of the Philippines - established in 1948
under the leadership of artist Purita Kalaw-Ledesma
• PAG or Philippine Art Gallery- Provide a venue and lead out
early programs for modern art. Put up in 1951 throough the
artist-writer Lydia Arguilla.
• Awardees include Cebu Base MARTINO ABELLANA for his
work JOB WAS ALSO MAN, and FERNANDO ZOBEL'S
iconic painting CARROZA.
• Mabini painters- artist associated in the street of Mabini
Manila.
• Modern Architectural Structures
– CHURCH OF HOLY SACRIFICE 1955
– CHURCH OF THE RISEN LORD
– CHAPEL OF SAINT JOSEPH THE WORKER in VICTORIAS
NEGROS built by ANTONIN RAYMOND a CZECH-AMERICAN
ARCHITECT.
– ANGRY CHRIST- a striking mural of Christ by Filipino-American
artist ALFONSO OSSORIO.
PERIOD OF ABSTRACTION

• consist of simplified forms which avoided mimetic(exact

copy) representation. Sometimes referred to as non-
representational or non-objective art as it emphasize the
relationship of line, color, space, and the flatness of the
canvass rather than a illusion of 3 dimentionality.