Author: National Museum of the Philippines

For this week’s #ArtStrollSunday, we feature Cenon Rivera’s artistic excellence or “galing” in time for National Arts Month this February with the theme “Ani ng Sining, Bunga ng Galing,” through his painting entitled “Genesis: Leggenda Filippina.”

Rivera (1922-1998) was an art teacher, painter, writer, printmaker, stained glass artist, and sculptor. In 1957, he started a painting style characterized by horizontal and vertical grids as seen in this oil on canvas work which was created in 1963 in Rome, Italy. It is currently exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Third Floor Southwest Wing Hallway Gallery, along with other abstract works by Filipino modernist painters. Four of his paintings, including this masterpiece, are part of the National Fine Arts Collection. 

Rivera was born on April 16, 1922, in Hagonoy, Bulacan. He began his artistic career in 1952 by pioneering in graphic art. In 1956, he experimented with monoprint, woodcut, linocut, lawanicut, and serigraph. Also, in that year, he started teaching at his alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas, and published “Pintig ng Buhay at iba pang Katha”, a limited edition bilingual collection of his short stories, poems, essays, and other writings from 1938 to 1956. Rivera received a study grant in Rome, Italy and took painting courses at the Academia di Belle Arti, and learned stained glass making at Vertrate d’Arte Giuliani as an apprentice. One of his designs is a three-panel stained glass “The Call to Arms”, The Supreme Sacrifice” and “Peace” located at the Mt. Samat National Shrine in Bataan. Cenon Rivera’s contribution to Philippine art is not only evidenced by his body of works as an artist, but also by his passion as an art educator and his contributions to his hometown, Hagonoy, and Pasig. He passed away on November 25, 1998.

Celebrate National Arts Month with us! For visitor guidelines, please visit bit.ly/3Hz3IwK. You may also view the 360 degrees virtual tour of selected NMFA galleries on the link https://www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/nmfa360/HTML5/NMFA360.html. See you at your National Museum!

#CenonRivera #ArtStrollSunday #NAM2023

Text by NMP-FAD

Photo by Bengy Toda

© 2023 National Museum of the Philippines

The #NationalMuseumPH celebrates the 93rd birth anniversary of Napoleon “Billy” Veloso Abueva, born #OnThisDay in 1930. 

Napoleon Abueva was born in Manila but grew up in Duero, Bohol. He finished his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts in 1953. He was mentored by the first National Artist for Sculptor Guillermo Tolentino. He pursued studies abroad and became a versatile sculptor who produced works in academic representational style and modern abstract using various materials such as wood, metal, steel, cement, bronze, marble, and brass. He was recognized as the Father of Modern Philippine Sculpture. In 1976, Abueva was declared National Artist for Sculpture. 

Featured here from the National Fine Arts Collection is one of Abueva’s notable creations and early works, “Mother and Child”, sculpted in adobe stone or volcanic tuff. It depicts a sitting mother adorably playing with her child as she raises her kid above her head as the child reaches back to cling to her. 

You may view this featured artwork and other works by Napoleon Abueva at the Vicente and Carmen Fabella Hall (Gallery XIII), Third Floor of the National Museum of Fine Arts, and in the “Pagpauli: A Homecoming Exhibition of National Artist Napoleon Abueva” at the #NationalMuseumBohol in Tagbilaran. 

Follow this page for more features from the National Fine Arts Collection.  The #NationalMuseumPH is open to the public for free.  View the link for the 360 degrees virtual tour of the nine select galleries at the National Museum of Fine Arts:  https://nmfa.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/

#OnThisDay #NapoleonAbueva #MuseumFromHome

Text and photo by NMP FAD

© 2023 National Museum of the Philippines

The #NationalMuseumPh celebrates the 113th birth anniversary of National Artist for Painting Vicente Silva Manansala.

Born in Macabebe, Pampanga, Manansala earned his Fine Arts degree at the University of the Philippines. He pursued further studies at Ecole de Beaux Arts in Montreal, France and the University of Paris through the UNESCO scholarship grant and French government scholarship, respectively. He was mentored by French artist Fernand Léger who advised him to simplify the shapes and colors in his works. He eventually rendered figures and objects and simplified them into basic geometric shapes while applying layers of colors. This style, which he pioneered and developed, is called transparent cubism. 

For his birth anniversary, we feature his memorabilia of paintbrushes and a serial palette he used to create his pieces. These memorabilia give us a glimpse and make us wonder about the artist’s process in creating their masterpieces. These tell us that Manansala was fastidious about cleaning his materials and equipment, as he would scrape and scrub his hardwood palettes after each use. In contrast, some artists would clean workspaces only after finishing each series of paintings as though they were wiping the slate to start afresh. As you may notice, Manansala may have opted to mix various colors on this particular palette, especially when he was creating larger paintings.

Manansala’s paintbrushes and serial palettes are on loan from the Manansala family. These are on view at the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) Northwest Hall Gallery at the National Museum of Fine Arts (NMFA), along with some of his works from the National Fine Arts and GSIS collections. You may view other works of National Artist Vicente Manansala at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Hall and the PHILAM Life Hall also found on the third floor of the NMFA.

#OnThisDay

Text and photos by NMP-FAD

© 2023 National Museum of the Philippines

The value of rice in the Philippines goes beyond its role as a staple food in the country and other neighboring countries in Asia. In its many forms and state, rice is deeply embedded in the daily routines as well as in rituals and festivities among several ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines. As we end the celebration of National Rice Awareness Month, we highlight today the socio-cultural significance of rice by featuring the most popular effigy associated with it – the bulul/bulol of the Ifugao in northern Philippines.

Bulul/bulol are carved anthropomorphic figures serving as granary idols believed to protect against pests and assure good harvest for the Ifugaos in the Cordillera. They are effigies of one’s ancestors and guardian spirits. Once they are given proper rituals by the descendant community, their status becomes bulul, transcending beyond being tag-tagu or human figures devoid of any social constructs or signification.

Christian missions in Ifugao in the 19^th century, though sporadic, resulted in the scarcity of the bulul as some families began to discard them; its production was reduced if not halted, making it difficult to obtain them starting from the 20^th century. Among the tradition-bound Ifugaos, only wealthy families could afford to commission and maintain a bulul since the required rituals are often lavish. This situation led some locals to re-appropriate tourist art from the market by performing new libations of blood and grease for ritual use. Various opinions on what makes a bulul “authentic” have surfaced, primarily due to its different production methods, yet some of these may have become conceptually “authentic,” having been superseded by the ritual performance and the ascribed value given by the descendant community.

The rise in demand for the currently limited number of original bulul (i.e. those that underwent ritual and were actually used by the community for their intended purpose) in antique shops from the early 1960s to late 1970s triggered the production of imitations and replicas. Some of the newly carved figures were buried in mud or ground to achieve the old and dark color of the wood. These bulul are often prized possessions as these have been passed down from generations. Acquiring them often required owners to spend for costly rituals to sort of remove their attachment to the divine. Moreover, retiring a bulul also obliges them to build and ritually cleanse another statue to serve as the deity’s new dwelling place.

This level of importance that we accord to the bulul/bulol has been the motivation for us at the National Museum of the Philippines to include them in our National Ethnographic Collection, along with hipag (war deities) and other anthropomorphic figures. While continuing debates on the authenticity of a bulul and expertise on Ifugao culture abound, what remains clear is the unceasing respect of our indigenous people for our ancestors, for nature, and for their sense of community. The bulul/bulol will forever be a testimony to the artistry and craftsmanship of the Ifugaos which we hope is still being passed on to the younger generations.

Learn more about the Philippines’ rice culture by visiting the newly upgraded Pakhey, Humay, Palay: Rice, Biodiversity and Climate Change gallery at the 4F, National Museum of Anthropology.

#Bulul
#RiceAwarenessMonth2022
#MuseumFromHome

Article and poster by the NMP Ethnology Division

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

Did you know that scientists can reconstruct the Earth’s past climates thousands to millions of years ago? 

As we celebrate Global Warming and Climate Change Consciousness Week (Nov 19-25), let us learn how fossils are used in determining ancient climates and how they teach us about climate change. 

The study of past climate is known as Paleoclimatology. While we can’t go back to the past to see what the ancient climates were, luckily, nature has provided us with climate proxies. These proxies are imprints from our past that preserve our climatic history. Some proxies that we use in paleoclimate studies include shelled organisms and plant fossils. 

One standard method for determining ancient climates is by analyzing the chemical composition of shells of fossilized marine animals like forams (shelled microorganisms). The oxygen isotopes in shells give an indication of the temperature changes in the ocean over the last millions of years. Their abundance may also indicate ancient environmental conditions, wherein they typically proliferate in warmer weather.  Clamshells also have annual growth bands. The space between each band depends on the environmental conditions during the time when the growth bands were forming. 

Meanwhile, we know that plants cannot root in an inhospitable environment.  In each environment, they develop specific characteristics to help them adapt and survive.  These make them a reliable indicator of their climate and ecology. Typically, plants in tropical regions have smoother and larger edges, while plants that live in cooler regions are more jagged and have smaller leaves. When these are fossilized, we can get an idea of what climate they lived in. 

The Earth’s climate changes over the past millions of years are due to several factors operating together. The changes in the position of continents may close off or open up new routes of ocean currents, which can then change the distribution of temperature over the Earth’s surface.  Sea-level changes in response to mountain building and continental drift may have also caused paleoclimate changes. Generally, the sea level is high in times of warmth. Other factors that contribute to climate change include variations in atmospheric chemistry and the Earth’s orbital position to the Sun. 

The Earth’s climate has undergone extreme changes over its geologic history. And by studying past climates through fossils, we can better understand how climate will change in the future. 

Text and image by the NMP Geology and Paleontology Division

© National Museum of the Philippines (2022)