Francis Kim R.

Tanay ARTS 1 THR-2

LIS-Freshman
Culture, Identity and Transformative Value of Art
Throughout the history of the Philippines, art plays an important role in developing it own culture.
Not only art adds on to the beauty to its surrounding but it also gives various identity, and value across
different periods. In this paper, I will discuss the transformation of art and how it reflects the identity and
culture of it from the Philippine context using the concept I’ve seen in an art gallery.
Last November 15, 2019 I went to the Ateneo Art Gallery were numerous forms and types of art
were exhibited. A certain part in the gallery, the Yellow Ambiguities, exhibits art with the theme of the
color yellow pigment. It was divided into five section that shows the relation of yellow to art, and at the
same time the transformation of art. The first section focuses about the abundance of yellow to our nature
and discusses that yellow is one of the earliest pigments of art. The section displays different art crafts like
pottery, textiles and weaved clothing, that were created by our ancestors in the 13th-19th AD. I can say that
in this period, art mostly focuses to the functionality, just like the Globular Pot with three handles. Another
interesting display is the Funerary Mask that was excavated and known to be present before the Spaniards
came. It is not clear about what its real purpose. My assumption is that, probably only the leaders are capable
in using it in their deaths or it is part of their beliefs about immortality and power. But the idea of
immortality and power became more evident in the second section. Here, it shows yellow to have the
identity relating to a divine being. Because of this, art forms in the Hispanic colonization leans towards
beliefs, immortality, power and gods. An example of this is a replica of the Our Lady of Peñafrancia, that
consist of gold and silver weavings to its clothing. Another example is the painting called the “Brown
Madonna”, created by Galo Ocampo on 1938. Both of these shows the context of art in line to the religious
beliefs of the Philippines. The ideology of the religious institutions during this period controls the platform
of art, and the identity of art was anchored to divinity and sacredness. But even though art in this period
were limited and controlled by the church, the next sections show how art breaks its academic style. The
third section focuses on the reality and the common activity of the Filipinos, but because of the previous
colonization, art was subjected to poverty and suffering. Some examples are the paintings titled
“Tanghaling Tapat”, “River of Life”, and “Harvest”, which was created by Jose Ruiz, Galo Ocampo and
Alfredo Manrique respectively. Arts identity become revolutionary and became the voice of the
community. The use of color yellow in these paintings denotes illness and propaganda for revolution to the
country. Even before the country was changed, art styles and its own ideology already changed. Art in this
period served as the starting point for a bigger change, like a droplet that created a massive ripple to the
community. Change in art become more evident in the fourth section. From art that consist of various
meanings became art without a concrete meaning or probably no meaning at all. In this section, abstract
paintings were displayed, like Granadean Arabesque by Jose Joya, Permutation Series II by Romulo Olazo,
Saeta No. 37 by Fernando Zobel and more. The transition of art from being functional, became art for its
own sake. The identity of art as beauty and beauty along arose. But it doesn’t only stop there. Along with
the change to the art styles and its identity is the continuous advancement of technology. This event
transitioned to the next section of the gallery, that display art in various form of medium. The experiments
of artist in art using different materials became popular in these days. Digital art, installation art,
photography, and other forms add to the culture of cotemporary art.
Today, art still portrays political aspects, other art forms still have the values of the previous
ideologies, while others were far from its traditional forms. Amidst with these variation and differences, art
plays an important role in shaping our culture. As yellow is an unavoidable color, so as change is
unavoidable in the destiny of art in our community. Because of this, I can say that art’s identity is “change”.