LESSON 9: THEMES AND

SUBJECT MATTER
OBJECTIVES:
 Identify a range of themes
and subject matter rendered
in the various art forms
 Understand the meaning of
artworks by linking the
medium and expressive
elements with their subject
matter and themes
 Interpret themes and subject
matter by situating the
SUBJECT
MATTER
SUBJECT MATTER
 Subject in the arts refers to what they are all about.
 It is the main idea that represents the artwork.
 Subject Matter shows the essence of a certain piece.
 The image may be representational or figurative, which means
the image is drawn from the world around us.
 If it is abstract, non-representational or non-figurative, it does
not, have a recognizable subject, such as a tree, or face, or
object.
 Its subject is its form and elementsꟷ its texture, color,
composition, shape or movement, among others.
 We use our basic senses to identify subject matter; answering
the questions: What do I see? How does it smell? How was the
texture? How do I hear it? Using our senses is the initial step, it
requires keen and diligent observation, not just of the image, but
how it is presented and if there is no image, how the formal
elements are deployed.
THEMES
THEMES
 Themes go beyond the literal, the data on the
artwork and what we see at the surface level with
our senses. It is at this point when form and the
contexts come together to help us interpret the
works and identify their themes, which may range
from ecology, to identity, migration, globalization,
religion and spirituality, and political economy.
Issues of power come into play, not just in the
larger contexts, but in the art world itself. The
insights that we gain, and the questions we ask
will result from our own research and keen
observation, but it may also be “colored” by our
own lenses and points of view.
SOME EXAMPLES
OF THEMES
HEROISM AND
IDENTITY
JOSE
RIZAL
 Our National Hero
 Who immediately clues
us to the themes of
national identity and
heroism.
RIZAL NATIONAL
MONUMENT
 It is the result of National Competition in 1905.
 The first prize was awarded to Italian Carlos
Nicoli but due to inability to comply with the
certain requirements, the commission was given
to the second place winner, the Swiss artist
Richard Kissling.
 In 1914, it is a landmark monument cum
mausoleum housing the remains of the hero
 Depicts its subject as standing figure, clutching a
book, perhaps symbolizing the importance that
Rizal placed on education.
RIZAL STATUE
 Rizal's Largest Statue which stands 26 feet high and
portrays him as a sportsman can be found at his
birthplace at Calamba, Laguna.
 The first monument erected in 1898 did not include a
human figure but consisted of an Obelisk with Masonic
elements in Daet, Camarines Norte.
 Locally, there are easily hundredsꟷ potentially thousands
of Rizal statues and busts in 81 provinces, 144 cities, and
1491 municipalities (As of September 30, 2015,
according to the Philippine Statistics Authority).
 Outside the Philippines, there are at least 68 statues,
busts and stand-alone plates in 24 countries.
 In fact, Rizal was many things in his lifetime,
a sportsman, a doctor, a writer, a devoted
son, and a lover.
 Rizal was an illustrado, and one of the first
migrants who left.
 Today, many Filipinos are driven to work
abroad. Just as Illustrados left to pursue
opportunities for reform and study, so do
today’s overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)
leave to pursue opportunities that are
absent in the home country. One president
even referred to them as heroes, whose
remittances to keep the country afloat.
HEROISM AND
ECOLOGY
 Natur
al Poet t or
Scien ulp
tist Sc
a n t
Farme e r ch
r M

g So n
Teacher Lovin

n gine er
E Patriot
Rizal as an Environmentalist.
●During his exile in Dapitan, Rizal bought a piece of
land through the prize money he won in a lottery,
planted trees, raised livestock and pets and shared
produce to his community. He engaged with farmers
to market their products and with the help of the
community, built a dam out of discarded roof tiles,
gin bottles, and stones. He gave lessons to children
imaginatively through art, anecdotes, poetry and
statues. He collected information on species he
discovered, and sent information to scientific
communities.
As result, he has species named after him:

Draco Rizali;
Apoginia Rizali;
Flying lizard Beetle

Rhacophorus rizali; Spatholmes Rizali;

Frog Fungus Beetle
 LEONARDO CO
Such activities makes us draw
parallels with another kind of
hero, a contemporary one,ꟷa
botanist named Leonardo CO,
who also discovered a endemic
plants species. The most
famous species associated with
him is the Rafflesia Leonardi, a
parasitic plant named after him,
which bears flowers and is
among the largest species in the
world.
♦Rizal was shot dead in Luneta when he was 35.
♦Leonardo Co was 56 when he was slain in an
alleged crossfire amidst the forests of Kanaga, Leyte,
where he and his team were doing research for a
project aimed for propagating endangered and
indigenous trees in the area.
♦Like Rizal, Co was a polymath, a man of many
talents and intelligences. He was a dedicated
botanist, musician, photographer, and poet. He spoke
Mandarin, Filipino and Latin, he was a comic whose
performances soothed his team’s weary minds
whenever they were out on the field. The many
people he touched testify to his passion, humility,
simplicity, and unbelievable breadth of knowledge in
Philippine Botany.
SPIRITUALITY,
ECOLOGY, AND
EVERYDAY LIFE
19th century built San Carlos Church
♦The sleepy town of Mahatao in Batan Island, a municipality
that is 99% Roman Catholic.

♦A heritage site and a physical hub that has played a key role
in protecting the various historic structures and objects of the
place.

♦The kumbento, which leads to the office and quarters of the

parish priest, is also a meeting for local organizations, and
because it has door was that cut across the church, it is also a
corridor and passageway to a shortcut.

♦It is dark, barren and empty at times, filled with people on the
way to somewhere else at other times, or occasionally
engaging with each other and perhaps for others with a
meditative bent, the space could serve as a transit point,
where tired minds and hearts can rest and reflect.
San Carlos Church, Mahatao
“Community-Based Initiatives Towards Ecological Balances.”

♦Ticar proposed this installation in response to this theme, as part of the group who
went to Batanes, one of the sites of the Asia-wide research involving the Philippines,
Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.
♦The Artist Jay Ticar was inspired by the character of the heritage site, the
constructed an archive composed of blank books arrayed on shelved that mimic the
waves of the sea, and other object that resonate with the surrounding environs.
♦Passerby and users of kumbento-turned-library can pick one of these books at
random, on which they can record their thoughts and feelings through texts, drawings
and actual objects. The simple gestures or mark in the pages of the books gather like
dust on furniture left passive and unused for a long time.
♦The artist hopes that the library gathers as much dust as possible, and becomes in
the long term, a “meaningful collection of dust", as he puts it in his concept paper for
a collaborative project of Asian Public Intellectuals (API) in 2009/2010.
♦Ticar also brought two boats into the library.
1) An abandoned tataya, the traditional wind-
powered boat once owned by a fishers association.
A central livelihood object that still figures in
traditional rituals and fishing practices became a
nest for poultry and object or curiosity when it was
abandoned.
 
2) A larger one that have been motorized, is a
symbol of modernity’s challenge to tradition and
once belonged to a farmer/butcher/policeman and
jail warden who has under his custody fishermen-
poachers from Taiwan and Vietnam.
♦The artist describes his project, “turned into
the tables and chairs of the library. Bamboo
poles (articulated like a fishing rod), carrying a
recycled floater turned light-bulb housing
illuminate the boats. Still on the floor area,
stones from the valugan or aplaya (beach),
boulders are used as stools. Hidden planks
with wheels are installed under these stones
in an attempt to have a floating feel,
particularly if they are being moved. These
stones and boats are welcome to be
rearranged and played with.”
"Illuminated archive of dust” (Ticar’s working title)
serves as a multiple sensory and multi-gestural
bearer of non-official micro-narratives of loss and
leavings, as well as gains and triumphs that resonate
and ripple across waters with the cooperation of local
government. Boats, bamboo poles and boulder are
“ripped” from their contexts and made to function as
traces and triggers of sensation and everyday events
that occur amidst the hazardous shoreline of
Batanes. The archive is aldo intended to be a
repository, a meeting place, a site for forums and
exchange of ideas and other materials on Island
Lore, Fishing and Farming practices, among others-
a development that could extend the role of heritage
sites, form being drab, sterile spaces of nostalgia to
living spaces for human encounters.
♦The installation also compels us to reflect on
the kumbento, a passageway, a meeting
place and stopover for residents, migratory
tourists, scholars, and transients. It finds the
parallel in the vanua, a natural corridor that
serves as passageway, as transit point that
divides as well as links the seen and the
unseen, marking the points where land meets
sea. It is also a metaphorical transit point
between material, psychic, and spiritual
realms. These passageways make us think of
another research site- the shores of Diura, a
fishing village located around two kilometres
from Mahataw.
DIURA
 VANUA
It is a narrow and dangerous
path which mataws or traditional
fishers have to negotiate skilfully,
less they wander off, or if the
waters are particularly turbulent,
capsize or get dashed and
thrown on to the shallow terrace
and rocks that’s jut out here and
there on both sides of this
passage.
This vanua has another meaning:
♦It is also a stopover and seasonal port
for the migratory and precious dorado or
arayu (Coryphaena hippurus), the golden-
bellied migratory fish of summer.
♦From this port, the mataws launch
their tatayas to fish the arayu, which the
mataws catch using hooks and lines, and
by using live fishing fish as bait, which
are caught through locally-developed
special hooks, baited with freshwater
shrimps and crustaceans.
♦After a day’s fishing, the catch is immediately
hauled in, cleaned, and prepared into dried fillets, a
prestige food that will be divided and shared among
crew members at the end of the fishing season.
♦The shared portions would later on be exchanged –
as payment or exchange- for land that had been
rented out, for materials and equipment lent to the
mataw, among others. And after all the obligations
have been settled, the mataw family store receives
what was left of the arayu fillet for daily sustenance
as well as to pay for education and other items that
their farm lands cannot yield, such as groceries,
aside from occasional gifts to favoured people.
 ARAYU FISH

ARAYU is considered gold from

the sea, “ginto ng dagat” around
which revolve elaborate rules and
regulations about how to catch,
haul the fish out of the boat, clean,
carry and eat.
♦At the start of the fishing season- usually at the first week
of March – the mataws gather at the vanua or port to
perform sacrificial rites and rituals with to “make the
vanua’-mayvanuvanua- to attract and invite fish to come to
their vanua.”
♦For the duration of the 3-month fishing season, the vanua
is a sacred and sensitive place, “writes the anthropologist
Maria Mangahas.
♦Only the members who participated in the ritual are
allowed to launch their tatayas form the vanua, which has
to be kept clean and healthy- free of dirt, which is
anonymous with bad luck, bwisit or malas- because on
such qualities dependthe day-to-day success or failures of
the mataws’ fishing fortunes.
♦“The mataw rites ‘make’ a negotiated ‘community’ with a
leader and a system of government that incorporates the
spirits and the fish.”
♦The ritual, along with the taboos, comprise a kind of social
control that assures discipline, but it is a social control that is
made possible, not through legal and formal regulations-
although there are some ordinances surrounding the baiting
of the flying fish, the favourite arayu prey, and of course,
there are also international laws that guard against poachers
that prey on Philippine waters.
♦As one resident puts it: if the ritual is gone, then the Diura
valugan or port becomes open territory, more vulnerable to
indiscriminate fishing and other ecologically destructive
practices. It appears- to be confirmed by more systematic
research- that the forest cover surrounding Diura is relatively
more intact than that of surrounding villages. Perhaps this is
due to many other factors aside from the rituals; however it
is safe to say that for the Diura mataw, the inner forest- or
kakaywan¬ is not just source of precious water, but of the
freshwater shrimp, favourite bait for the flying fish, which in
turn is bait for the arayu.
♦Benefitting from research, an interview with the artist,
and reading his concept paper, we are able, not only to
identify the themes of spirituality, ecology and everyday
life, but also to analyse how these themes intricately
connect in the context of Batanes and its particular
conditions. The artwork provided the space, the
passageway and vanua for researchers, artists, tourists
and community to link up to “learn, document and promote
local community knowledge and respond to environmental
problems,” as Ticar writes in his concept paper.
THANK YOU