Protagonists and/in Paintings: The “Light” collection of the Vargas Museum

Protagonists are characters whose presence is the very reason why there is a story to tell. When there is a plurality of perspectives, that of the protagonist is often the first layer. In describing the artworks in this article, I focused on one character–the one I believe is the “hero” of the scene. These paintings …

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Felix Hidalgo, Juan Luna, and the Manila shawl

Three paintings have drawn my attention from the many artworks and artefacts on display at Ayala Museum’s “Intertwined: Transpacific, Transcultural Philippines” exhibition. Two of them were painted by Juan Luna, the other one by Felix Resureccion Hidalgo. I wrote a blog four years ago about the artworks of Luna and Hidalgo at the National Museum …

ESCOLTA: Queen of the Streets

With the increasing popularity of lifestyle hubs around the metro (most of which are owned by the Ayalas), I would consider it a rare occasion to have convinced some friends to ditch highly air-conditioned malls for a day and join me in threading the labyrinthine alleys of Escolta in Manila. Considered as the New York …

Luna and Hidalgo: 19th Century Filipino Art Virtuosos

In his 1884 speech, Dr Jose Rizal flattered his fellow Indios Bravos Felix Resureccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna by calling them people who ‘imbibed the poetry of nature’. Rizal even took the extent of saying they ‘illuminate two extremes of the globe’ with their world-class artistic gifts. Indeed, Luna and Hidalgo are brands of Filipino …