PHILIPPINE CONTEMPORARY
M AESTHETICS
By Alice G. Guillermo
any artists in the
Third World today
are faced with the
questions: What is
aesthetics? What is
contemporary aes-
thetics? These ques-
tions become all the more crucial
because of the colonial history of
most Asian countries. And it is for
this reason that people of Asia and
of the Third World seek answers
drawn from their particular his-
torical experience, conditions and
needs.
Before considering these
questions based on a study of
artistic productions and direc-
tions in recent years and, to
assume a larger view, from the
productions of a hundred years, it
is necessary to begin with a
number of premises.
The first has to do with
the definition and meaning of
aesthetics. While often, aesthet-
ics is taken to mean only the
formal, technical side of art, thus,
in the visual arts, concerns of
line, texture, composition, etc., we
would like to posit the definition
of aesthetics as the philosophy of
art. Hence, being a branch of phi-
losophy, it has to do with con-
A narrow silk sash (top) from Sulu
and a Manunggul jar (above).
cerns of content, as well as of
form, with the nature of art and
its place vis-a-vis society.
Some clarification also
has to be made with respect to
the relation between form and
content. The categories of form
and content are mere categories
of convenience, for meaning is
derived from the particular form
of a work, and each work of art
has a unique meaning particular
to it because it has an original
and unique form and structure.
The second involves two
interrelated premises. On one
hand, art is socially and histori-
cally situated and is shaped by
the material conditions of society.
On the other hand, art has its
specificity, its own language and
vocabulary, which makes it a dis-
tinct area of cognition and a
signifying practice.
A third premise is that
aesthetics itself, like art, is
socially and historically situated
and shaped by the social condi-
tions of a particular time and
place. This implies that aesthet-
ics is not universal nor true for all
men and for all time, and neither
art
theory
and Asian cultural heritage.
There is the fact that our
cultural traditions continue to
exist in the countryside, away
from the centers of power. They
are found in the folk artistic ex-
pressions of the lowland peasants
in the rural areas, in their tex-
tiles, pottery, basketry, as well as
in their music and songs, their
oral literature. They also exist in
the expression of what are called
the cultural communities, cul-
tural minorities or national mi-
norities which historically re-
sisted colonization by isolating
themselves from the subdued
populations, as in the case of
the T'bolis and the Mangyans,
or as in the case of Ifugaos by
aggressively repulsing colonial
encroachment. The Maranaws
and Tausogs, because of their
higher socio-political organiza-
tion as Islamic groups, success-
fully resisted Spanish efforts to
colonize them.
But culture is not an
autonomous realm, divorced
from the economic and political.
And therefore it is not enough to
appreciate the products of our
traditional and indigenous cul-
ture and display them in muse-
ums in recognition of their artis-
tic value. For these are, first of
all, artistic productions of people,
of Filipinos, who have for centu-
ries worked under conditions of
continuing colonial prejudice,
conditions of neglect that have
perpetuated their poverty and
subsistence economy, and even
worse, conditions of exploitation,
and which have endangered their
ancestral lands, their livelihood
and expressions, their very lives.
Because of this, all efforts of
retrieving our indigenous culture
for our present edification would
remain on a purely superficial
and formalistic level if no large
and organized efforts are made to
help free the rural folk and the
members of the many cultural
communities from their present
conditions. It is not enough to
patronize, collect and encourage
fashions in indigenous art if one
does not take part in the move-
ment to obtain a better quality of
life for them, with equal opportu-
nities in education and livelihood,
with guarantees of respect for
their cultures and assurances for
their personal security and the
survival and welfare of their com-
munities. Retrieving our indige-
nous traditions in art and culture
is based on this premise of es-
pousing the interests of these
underprivileged classes, sectors
and groups, and working towards
the human welfare of these Filipi-
nos who have been able to pre-
serve and continue these tradi-
tions up to the present.
Along with these is the
necessary, although we hope not,
belated, perception that Philip-
pine culture is of a pluralist and
diverse character. There are the
cultures of the urban cosmopoli-
tan and the rural folk, there are
those arising from the different
religions in the country, Christian
and Islamic, there are the re-
gional cultures with their distinct
world views and their particular
occupations and productions,
such as those of the Cordillera
groups of the North, the
Mangyans of Mindoro and the
T'bolis of Cotabato. And while
indeed the majority of the popula-
tion is Christian, studies have
been undertaken on the animist
folk culture underlying our
Christianity, which has some-
times been called "folk Christian-
ity" because of its syncretic
aspects. Moreover, the members
of what are called the cultural
communities constitute a size-
able part of our national popula-
tion. In view of our culture's
pluralist character, rather than
thinking in terms of homogeniz-
ing and assimilating the various
cultures into one, it is necessary
to respect and appreciate these
diverse contributions to the large
body of our national culture. For
the culture of a society is, after
all, not one, but many, reflecting
different, even conflicting, social
conditions and interests. What is
important is that those in posi-
tions of authority not measure
these different cultures in terms
of the dominant culture with its
ingrained chauvinist attitudes
and biases.
Our traditional artistic
expressions derive from an
aesthetics different from that of
the West. To begin with, the
traditional arts grew out of the
bosom of the pre-colonial Baran
ganic societies, highly communal
in nature and based on kinship
ties. They continued as a domi-
nated culture in the feudal
system of large landed estates in
the Spanish colonial period.
These arts are linked to religion
and ritual, as well as to daily oc-
cupations. Linked to religion am
ritual, they express world views,
the most ancient of these being
animism in which the natural
world and the spirit world are in
continuous interaction. Linked
to daily occupations, they give
evidence of the simple technolo-
gies of rural life and answer the
continual need for implements
and vessels of different kinds, at
the same time that they show the
innate artistic sense of design
applied to objects of use, an
authentic unity of form and func-
tion. It is also their practical use
that contributes to their commu-
nal character. The finely wrought
vessels of wood or bamboo with a
multitude of shapes correspond-
ing to different uses and that
answer communal needs imply
shared occupations with their
own traditional lore. Originally,
these material expressions of the
potter's or basket weaver's art cir-
culated in a community to serve
occupational purposes and were
not considered as commodities to
be mass-produced and sold.
Studies have been made
of the aesthetics of indigenous art
with the goal of coming up with a
summary of indigenous qualities.
Such qualities have often been
identified as the predominance of
curvilinear lines and shapes as in
the okir designs found in different
variations and forms all over the
country, the use of bright colors of
high saturation in all kinds of
combinations, and/or the horror
vacui sense of space in which the
entire space is covered with
figures. And indeed, efforts have
been made to give psychological
explanations for these qualities.
But such a typography has its
hazards because the Philippine
traditional arts have a diversity
that eludes facile conclusions.
While it is to be admitted that
there is indeed a penchant for
curvilinear lines, this is true for
woodcarving and drawing or
painting on flat surfaces, for the
style, curvilinear and organic or
rectilinear and geometric is also
relative to the medium used. In
all forms of weaving, whether tex-
tile, mat or most of basket weav-
"Our
traditional
artistic
expressions
derive from
an aesthe-
tics differ-
ent from
that of the
West."
Carlos "Botong" Francisco developed a modern idiom using the folk and the familiar.
ing, rectilinear and geometric
forms necessarily predominate
because the weaving technique
for the different materials in-
volves working with right angles.
There is, likewise, a clear pen-
chant for bright colors, but then
again, this is true primarily of
the art of the lowland folk and it
is relative to the available of
dyes. Commercial dyes in bright
colors are accessible to the
lowland folk, but people who are
more isolated produce their own
dyes from plant and mineral
sources and thus have a different
chromatic code. The remarkable
T'boli weave made of abaca fiber
is in dark colors and Ifugao blan-
kets play on sharp contrasts of
black and red. It is the decora-
tive penchant which covers entire
surfaces with figures and motifs
which all productions seem to
share. An important example of
this is the San Isidro Maytime
festival in which the entire
facades of houses are covered
with kiping, thin and leaf-shaped
rice flour wafers in bright color
glazes, along with sheaves of
grain and first fruits of the season
side by side with folk art such as
fine buntal hats, slippers and
even papier mache figures.
Given these, artists have
tried to paint using these quali-
ties of indigenous art as they saw
in these the key to achieving na-
tional identity in art. Some may
have indeed been successful, as
Carlos Francisco was who used
these qualities in the develop-
ment of a modern idiom in the
'50s. A number of younger artists
have followed suit. There is,
indeed, a point here in develop-
ing a style which grows out of
indigenous aesthetics and has a
familiar appeal to the folk and
larger population. Yet, this
direction has its limitations. For
one, even in the interest of na-
tional identity in art, one cannot
envision the homogenization of
contemporary Philippine art as a
desirable nor feasible goal. Stylis-
tic homogeneity would only lead
to boredom and stagnation. There
would be some outstanding
works, to be sure, but the rest
would be tired and uninspired
productions.
Another problem is that
working within the perceived
qualities of indigenous aesthetics
would limit the expressive and
semiotic potential of the artist as
he would be invariably choosing
curvilinear lines and forms,
bright colors and a composi-
tional space entirely covered with
figures. It seems that it would
also be a project difficult to sus-
tain. Different kinds of lines,
colors and compositions have
their own semiotic potential: the
meaning of bright colors, for
example, is different from that of
dark hues; curvilinear lines
convey a different set of mean-
ings from those conveyed by
rectilinear lines. Curvilinear
lines convey grace, suppleness,
sweetness and harmonious
interplay; rectilinear lines convey
discipline, order, formality, on
the whole. Compositions covering
the entire visual field convey a
sense of abundance of bountiful
harvests and celebration, a love
of ornament, of flourishing life.
What would happen is that the
artist would confine himself to
certain sets of meanings but
would lack the resources to con-
vey a larger range of meanings,
intellectual and emotional. This
also means that the artist will be
unable to cover the large and
highly varied and nuanced field
of contemporary experiences but
will be confined to what these
indigenous artistic qualities can
convey.
In the case of the Philip-
pines, a discussion of indigenous
aesthetics lays a heavy emphasis
on the qualities of these elements
in the traditional arts because
the Philippines, unlike other
Asian countries, does not have an
indigenous figurative style. In
China and India, for instance,
their distinct figurative style
plays a large part in the artistic
identity of their countries. But it
seems that the arts of these
countries may suffer a greater
tension between tradition and
modernism because tradition can
be constricting when dealing
with the large area of contempo-
rary consciousness and experi-
ence.
In this respect, it is often
the Mexican artists, particularly
Siquieros, Orozco and Rivera
who are pointed out as models in
achieving national identity in
contemporary expression. But a "A significant
study of their works shows that
each of them was stylistically
aspect of tradi-
distinctive in the modern sense, tional art is the
in fact, they were highly innova-
tive painters. It thus would seem symbolic, as it is
that the quest for national
identity in art does not lie in rich in symbols
style, nor even in form alone, but
in other areas which we shall
conveying social
explore. and cultural
Indeed, indigenous artis-
tic traditions grew out of an values."
earlier social context of primitive
communalism developing into
feudal relations. In view of this,
there are two ways of looking at
the traditional arts. Some view
them as artifacts and relics of the
past which have managed to sur-
vive up to the present as beauti-
ful anachronisms, residues which
will be effaced in the course of
time. Others view them as
constituting the body of the
national-popular culture and the
deepest level of expression under-
lying our art in the country today.
The first view may have
been detrimental to the indige-
nous arts because one views them speak of preserving these arts
with regret and helplessness, when one does not look into the
thinking that as relics of the past real conditions in which they are
they are inevitably doomed to produced. For if they have shown
extinction and therefore no effort an alarming decline in the past
no matter how great can be decades it is because of an in-
effective enough to prevent this creasingly aggressive encroach-
from happening. It is the latter ment of exploiters into the rural
view which I consider the more communities: big logging compa-
valid. For how would one explain nies which denude their ancestral
the continued survival of much of lands, mining speculators, armed
the traditional arts, folk and groups protecting their interests.
ethnic, such as the textile tradi- The traditional arts
tions, the oral traditions of chant constitute the body of national-
and epic narrative, the folk song- popular culture kept alive by the
patterns. No doubt, the task of lowland peasants in the rural ar-
preserving and retrieving these is eas and the cultural communities
a formidable challenge which in less accessible areas, the
must be met. And then, as has unHispanized or unChristianized
been said earlier, it is artificial to Filipinos, such as the Maranaws
and Tausogs who have defended
Islam religion against Christian
colonization, and the many
animist groups, such as the
Cordillera groups, T'bolis, the
Tagbanuas, and the Mangyans,
all over the archipelago. For
them, in fact, these are living
traditions; that must be kept
alive. And as living traditions,
they are not static, but possess a
dynamism that adapts to
historical change and permits
their transformation in the
historical process.
It is, in fact, this process
of transformation with which
contemporary artists are most
concerned in the interest of revi-
talizing the indigenous traditions
into the context of contemporary
life and art. And for urban
artists, painters and sculptors
this is not an easy matter. For
there is the need to recognize
their original contexts in their
communities and at the same
time draw them into the body of
our living national culture to
which different groups contribute.
In this process of transformation,
they assume both a local and a
national character. There is
always needed a respect for their
social and cultural significations,
for their dimensions of meaning
and value. Because of this, they
cannot be reduced to mere decora-
tive objects and design motifs and
appropriated without under-
standing into contemporary art
forms.
A significant aspect of
traditional art is the symbolic, as
it is rich in symbols conveying
social and cultural values. These
symbols form part of world views
and ideologies. But their original
world views and ideologies neces-
sarily encounter and interact
with the world views and ideolo-
gies of our present day and also
necessarily show the effect of
these encounters which may
change or modify the original
world views of which the symbols
are a part. These indigenous arts
imply values and have an axiol-
ogical aspect; because of this,
competing social groups may
want to articulate this body of na-
tional-popular culture into their
discourse. The Marcos years, for
instance, made use of the tradi-
tions to make appeals for unity in
the name of the cultural heritage.
On the other hand, the national-
popular culture must be recog-
nized as indeed belonging to the
people and not be exploited to
further the selfish interests of
elites.
Alternative Materials
There are other concerns
particular to Philippine and
Asian contemporary art. One has
to do with medium and materials.
In recent years, urban artists
have realized the need to move
away from dependence on im-
ported Western art materials,
such as oils for paintings on can-
vas. But this has not been easy,
because it is precisely this de-
pendence on materials produced
by giant Western industrial cor-
porations that has crippled local
initiatives to produce them. A
solution has been the trend in the
use of traditional and indigenous
materials' which are readily acces-
sible because found in the envi-
ronment. This has challenged
native ingenuity in the discovery
and use of materials hitherto
ignored and disregarded for artis-
tic purposes. Thus, there has
been the use of sawali panels,
bamboo, coconut bark, treated
shells, abaca and burlap in
collage or combined with painting
and drawing. These indigenous
materials and mediums have
their own significations different
from those of the West. Often or-
ganic, they convey the forms,
textures and odors of the tropical
environment and renew the links
between art and nature. They
communicate a sense of the place,
climate and material conditions
from which they were produced
and thereby remove the sense of
mystification and alienation from
art in the ordinary viewer that
arises from the consistent use of
highly specialized and expensive
therefore elite materials, like oil
on canvas. Another result of this
exploration into alternative mate-
rials is the encouragement of
more artists from the grassroots,
because art-making becomes an
accessible and democratic activ-
ity. Of course, a good number of
artists have continued working in
oil, and that is their choice,
although the exclusive use of
academic oils and watercolors
while rejecting efforts to discover
and explore alternative art mate-
rials, will eventually smack of
conservatism in this time of
mixed media and collages and as-
semblages of all sorts of materi-
als. But oil painting, however, is
not a form to be simply discarded
as Western and colonial in the
interest of developing a national
art. One prefers to think that
easel painting, which was intro-
duced by the Spaniards in the
late 18th century and which de-
veloped considerably in the 19th,
has been in the course of time,
with artistic practice and experi-
ence, appropriated into the
national culture to serve the
interests of Filipino artists.

Subject, Content
and Meaning
Resuming the issue of
national identity, it is not so
much in style that the solution
lies, for style will always be of
personal domain, a reflection and
expression of individual psycho-
logical temperament and sensibil-
ity. Yet, before one can proceed,
the question nevertheless arises
as to why the development of na-
tional identity in art is of consid-
erable importance. It is of impor-
tance especially to countries of
the Third World like the Philip-
pines with a colonial past. The
development of a national iden-
tity in art is, in fact, a cultural ex-
pression of the economic and po-
litical struggle of the people
versus the power bloc of the
transnationals and their local
agents. While rejecting super-
power domination in the eco-
nomic, political and cultural
fields, the people are also engaged
in the positive effort of building
and affirming their own culture,
because, as we all know, culture
is an expression of a people's
spirit, of its legitimate desires
and aspirations. In fact, the
active quest for national identity
prevents the subjugation of a
people's consciousness by outside
interests inimical to theirs and
preclude the invisible tragedy of a
people's cultural alienation from
their spiritual mainsprings. It is
also part of the campaign and
movement for national sover-
eignty and independence that are
the marks of a truly modern soci-
ety in this part of the world.
There is, of course, the
view that national identity in art
will surface naturally because the
Filipino artist works in his par-
ticular natural and social envi-
ronment which will thus appear,
whether he will it or not, in his
work, or that the artist as Fili-
pino will intuitively express his
national identity in his works,
figurative or abstract. This is not
entirely untrue. However, this
view disregards the role of inten-
tionality. On one hand, some
artists may deliberately cultivate
a cosmopolitan style which
addresses a foreign First World
public and which seeks to insert
itself into Western art which the
artist perceives to be the "main-
stream" to which Philippine art
must work towards and link with.
In this case, Philippine
art becomes a mere appendix or
addendum in the history of
American or Western art, if it be
considered at all. This concept of
art can only lead to the formation
of surrogate cultural structures in
a country patterned after those of
a dominant power pursuing its
own distinct economic and politi-
cal interests and regarding such
societies as "penetrated" societies
in which its interests are assured
"Art cannot set
because of a congenial cultural itself apart from
superstructure that it has care-
fully built through the years. At human and social
its worst, the young Filipino
artist risks losing his originality meaning."
in producing what can be termed
"catalogue art" from the latest
American or European produc-
tions in Artnews or Artforum, a
situation which undoubtedly
serves foreign interests without
their even having to acknowledge
the existence and merit of local
productions in their aesthetic
terms. On the other hand, in the
artists' active quest for national
identity art becomes a political
choice in which his art assumes a
vital role in historical develop-
ment.

Subject matter, content
and meaning have to do with this
quest. The artist may reflect the
natural and social environment in
his work, but it is not enough to
be illustrative, for the work of art
must possess the dimension of a
vision of man and society that
goes beyond the empirical and
which is the mark of the best
realist art. In abstract art, the
motifs and design of indigenous
art are a rich source of content,
for abstract art also conveys
values, cultural and social. It
may foreground the qualities, ele-
ments and values of indigenous
art. And in general, the qualities
that it conveys, such as dyna-
mism, spontaneity or serenity,
among many others, will not only
have a purely personal import but
The
kiping: a
folk artistic
expression.
will be seen in the context of their familiar, even common, its unique
times, in its issues and ideologies. meaning derives from the original
Art derives its vitality
from the social life from which it
springs, and like other cognitive
fields and areas of human signifi-
cation, it engages with the issues
of its time. Because art bears an
axiological, value-producing and
value-conveying aspect, it cannot
set itself apart from human and
social meaning. It is, in fact, a
distinct, if not highly valuable,
form of human expression, com-
bining as it does thought and
feeling, the intellect, the emotions
and the imagination in expres-
sive, aesthetic form. It is pro-
duced by the total human being
and therefore must be of impor-
tance to the total human person
as individual and as member of
society in all its concerns and
aspirations towards achieving full
humanity in a free, just and truly
human order. And here we go
back to one of the first premises,
which is that art, while it enjoys
relative autonomy by virtue of its
distinct vocabulary and language,
its aesthetic concerns, yet since
art itself is produced under spe-
cific human circumstances and
conditions, and since these values
that art conveys are themselves
related, in the last instance, to
interests of groups, sectors and
classes, art as an area of cogni-
tion and a signifying practice is
situated within social and histori-
cal coordinates.
Finally, this leads us to
the matter of form and content
which are traditionally taken to
constitute a work of art. Now,
these are not ingredients that
produce a work of art; they are, in
fact, categories that we have
borne with for the convenience of
art classes. While the subject
matter of a work of art may be
use of the elements, materials
and resources of art. So that it
would be possible to say that
there are interacting and inter-
penetrating levels in a visual
work, be it a print, painting,
collage, sculpture or whatever
visual form: the semiotic plane,
the mimetic plane and the
thematic plane. Studying the
semiotic plane of art requires
developing a high degree of
sensitivity to the use of the ele-
ments, the medium, the format,
and in general, the physical
aspect of the work as a visual
text. This is because the ele-
ments have a semiotic potential
or meaning-conveying potential
which arises from man's psy-

chophysical experiences and from
social conventions, and significa-
tions arise when these semiotic
elements of line, value, color,
texture, form and shape, composi-
tion in space, as well as the
character of the medium and for-
mat interrelate with each other,
confirm, verify each other, point
out contradictions with each
other, or bring out nuances or
refinements of meaning in the
visual text.
Likewise, techniques do
not exist in themselves and for
their own sake but because they
create effects that convey certain
meanings. The very physical
character of the medium, be it
paper, cloth, canvass, wood of
whatever kind, contributes to its
own significations. Handmade
paper with its deckle edge, for
instance, conveys the personal
touch that has a direct appeal
that manufactured paper does not
have, at the same time that its
organic quality, derived as it is
from the trees and plants of the
local environment, evokes the
fields and forests of its source. In
wood sculpture, the way that the
sculptor makes use of the natural
texture of the wood, its grains
and marks of time and weather
again enhances the meanings of
sculptural form.
"Asian artists face
the challenge of
creating contem-
porary aesthetics
proper to their
countries'
struggles."
The second, the mimetic
plane, which holds for figurative
art, deals with the manner of
presentation of the image itself,
and includes such matters as
figurative style, symbols and
symbolic systems used, relation-
ship of image to the viewer. The
figurative style in which human
figures are represented, for in-
stance, is not a mere matter of
convention or style, for it reflects
and conveys a world view, vision
of the world, or ideology. And
this area has been a continual
challenge to artists who have to
get away from the grip of the aca-
demic conventions of the classical
figure, transmitted through end-
less copying in schools and stu-
dios, since these convey an ideal-
ist platonic world view of un-
changing essences that find little
place in our present fast-changing
world. This flight from ac-
ademism has brought artists to
explore precolonial figurative
styles, medieval or folk ways of
representing the figure or develop
a heightened realism as an alter-
native to the classical undertones
of dominant art. In fact, the tra-
ditional figurative styles of the
different Asian countries, the
wayang figures of Indonesia,
Thailand and Malaysia have
recently been a rich source of
inspiration to artists of the region
who create in their work exciting
interactive situations between
traditional forms and conventions
of the figure with contemporary
idioms.
The third, the thematic
plane, resituates the work with
its themes, references and allu-
sions, direct or indirect, espousals
often highly mediated, to contem-
porary events and people and the
values and attitudes it conveys
through artistic form with respect
to these, in its particular time
and place. It is in the interaction
of these three planes or levels
that one draws out the full mean-
ing of the work.
Asian artists face the
challenge of creating contempo-
rary aesthetics proper to their
countries with their histories and
struggles, an aesthetics that will
fuse the post-colonial quest for
national identity with the wide
range of contemporary resources
and materials for an art that will
be truly national and of the
people.