In celebration of National Heritage Month and for this week’s Art Stroll Sunday feature, we present National Artist Vicente Manansala’s 1948 oil painting, “I Believe in God”, from the National Fine Arts Collection (NFAC) on display at the GSIS Northwest Hall.

This oil on masonite was created in 1948 when Manansala was around 37 years old. This oil painting is a significant part of the national collection, being one of the artist’s early works in this style before he introduced transparent cubism, wherein geometric shapes and layers of colors were used in rendering figures and objects. This painting also shows Carlos “Botong” Francisco’s influence, being one of the painters that Manansala admires the most. “I Believe in God” depicts a family pausing from pounding rice grains to pray the Angelus. The Angelus is a prayer recited by Roman Catholics at noon or at 6 in the evening. It is also noteworthy that this was completed three years after the end of the Second World War, when Filipinos were still picking up and trying their best to rise from the horrors of the war, and the artist himself, was one of those who survived it. This oil painting is apt as we celebrate National Heritage Month with the theme “Pamanang Lokal: Binhi ng Kulturang Pilipino,” highlighting the importance of preserving and promoting local heritage within a community.

Manansala was born in Macabebe, Pampanga on January 22, 1910. He spent his childhood in Intramuros, Manila, and grew up with fellow artists Antonio Dumlao and Jose Alcantara. He worked as a newsboy, a distributor of programs in movie houses, and a billboard painter. He graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1930. In 1949, he received a UNESCO scholarship grant to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Montreal, Canada for six months. In 1950, he went to France and studied at the University of Paris under a French government scholarship. His mentor, a French artist, and filmmaker Fernand Léger, taught him cubism. He was declared National Artist for Painting (1981). Manansala passed away on August 22, 1981, in Makati City.

You may view this painting inside the GSIS Northwest Hall, Gallery XXIII of the National Museum of Fine Arts. Other masterpieces of the National Artist are displayed in the other galleries on the Third Floor, namely: The International Rice Research Institute Hall (Gallery XXII) and the Philam Life Hall (Gallery XXIV).

We have numerous activities and programs this National Heritage Month! Click https://www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/national-heritage-month/ or https://ncca.gov.ph/nationalheritagemonth/ for more information

Text by NMP-FAD
Photo by Bengy Toda

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

The deep is truly a dark and scary place to live- but for other marine animals, it is their home. Welcome again to our #WildlifeWednesday featuring a deep-sea living fossil echinoderm known as the Sea Lily.

Sea lilies or stalked crinoids have stems emanating from underneath their crown with the bottom end attached to a hard substratum such as rocks. They are known as the ancestors of feather stars, which have no stems, can swim freely, and live on shallow warm waters.

Because sea lilies are attached firmly to a hard surface, scientists thought that they cannot move from one place to another. Interestingly, they found out that sea lilies could relocate themselves by detaching their segments anchored on the sea bed, then settle themselves in a new location. They regenerate their lost parts as they live in their new settlement. To prove that they can also move, scientists were able to capture a video of a sea lily “running” away from a predator. Sea lilies spread their arms to filter the seawater that passes through to capture and feed on plankton.

Fossil records of sea lilies indicate that they existed and became abundant in the shallow parts of the sea before the age of dinosaurs. But as time passed, they became less abundant, with only their unstalked offspring dominating the shallow tropical seas to this day. Now, most of the stalked crinoids reside in the deep parts of the ocean ranging from 1,000 to 9,000 meters.

You may visit Gallery 4 – Life Through Time exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History and see the actual specimen of the Sea Lily from the Philippines.

Text and photo by NMP Zoology Division

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

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