FAR EASTERN UNIVERSITY

HIGH SCHOOL
Humanities and Social Sciences Department
Nicanor Reyes Sr. St., Sampaloc, Manila

CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINE ARTS FROM THE REGIONS

UNIT 2 LESSON 1 (CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS & PAINTING)

Fine arts require of the artist the mastery of use of material, medium, technique, and
craftsmanship. Material designates the physical elements of art, such as paint, stone, clay, or metal.
Medium is a characteristic way of using materials for an artistic purpose. In the case of architecture
and sculpture, these are considered art genres, not a medium. Technique is a personal way of using
a medium or a material. Craftsmanship is the skill of doing what can be done in a medium and the
ability to do it.

Zambea artist, Brendale Tadeo, exhibits his talent and skills in technique in his
mixed media painting. The frame is shaped like a bubble conversation and the canvas is
painted brown on which the figures are painted black. The subject matter reminds us of
Leonardo's da Vinci's drawings of flying machine.
Pangasinan artist, Joe Datuin, has extreme creative and technical control of his
material for sculpture. His knowledge can be done in a medium and the ability to do it best
describes his craftsmanship that brought Dancing Rings to fame when it received the
grand prize for sculpture at the 2008 Sport and Art Olympic in Beijing, China.
Because the materials used for painting are flexible, durable, and inexpensive,
painting attracts many temperaments, and because almost any theme can be treated
through this genre, painting is the most popular among the fine arts.
Every art-making process is dictated by the artist's style. Style has many meaning. It can
mean the art produced in a particular period. It can also refer to
the art of a nation or a region within a country. The growth of a
single artist's way of working can be referred to as "evolution of
style". Style or art, therefore, can be thought of as a group. The
uniting element may be visible in the use of the elements of arts
or organization of design. As such, style may be discerned not
only by how it looks like but also based in the quality of the
painting.

Example: Elmer Borlongan's Driver's Lounge

We describe the stylistic tendencies that are manifested in an

artwork. Stylistic changes are apparent in stylistic tendencies, which are
attributed to the creative inventions of artists working at certain time
and in specific places.
Pacita Abad developed trapunto painting, a technique of stitching
and stuffing her painted canvas to give a three dimensional sculptural
effect.
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In the case of Brenda Fajardo, she maintains

her style in tarot card series through which she takes
local historic and mythical storied and renders them
in paintings of contemporary sociopolitical
relevance.
There are 4 styles that are based on stylistic
tendencies a. OBJECTIVE ACCURACY; b. FORMAL
ORDER; c. EMOTION; and d. FANTASY
A. THE STYLE OF OBJECTIVE ACCURACY
In objective accuracy, the artist can do art by being a detached observer or by
employing a selective eye.
The Artist as Detached Observer
The artist here presents himself/herself as somebody who
selects, arranges, and represents reality without his/her identity
revealed.

Cebu artist Jose Mari Picornell exhibits the attitude of

objective detachment in his painting. Picornell's thick and
brightly colored hues enliven the old houses.
The Artist as Selective Eye
He/She must "know" the subject as well as "see" its surface as empty rather than
simple and significant. Every work represents the end result of a process of observation
and simplification.
Cebu artist Felix Catarata painted The Laughter with
selective eye. There are 12 happy children, most of them
engaged in something productive like painting, playing music
and selling while the younger ones are mere observers. What is
common is their shared laughter.
I AM A SPECTATOR. I DON'T JUDGE. I PAINT.
-Felix Catarata
DEVICES FOR OBJECTIVE ACCURACY
How does one achieve objective accuracy?
1. Correct drawing
2. Control
3. Focus
4. Color
5. Perspective
1. CORRECT DRAWING is the most common device. It takes
mastery acquired through formal studies and serious practice to
make beautiful artworks. Learning how to draw accurately teaches
the artists to see and to understand what he/she is looking at. You
must learn to distinguish between imitation of surfaces and
informed representation.
In Marvin Natural's Remembering Past Mistakes, the artist
shows the human figure in correct proportion.

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2. The artist's CONTROL and handling of illumination helps in creating realistic images. The
amount of light an objective receives, the shapes of its shadows, the transition from light to shadow,
the source of light these are what artists learn to observe and control the medium that they use.
Jericho Vamenta exhibits skillful control of illumination as seen
in his Katuparan ng Hiling ni Elena, done in sgraffito technique.
Sgraffito is produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting
colors to a moistened surface.

3. FOCUS is achieved
through sharpness or softness,
distinctive or vagueness of form
and counter.

In Santiago Bose's Carnivores of Session Road we see

several elements in the pictorial frame: a collage of buildings,
human beings, McDonald's mascot, cars, and trees in the
background.
4. Color is a powerful instrument. It is mainly connected
with the description of the objects. The color of the objects
varies depending on the amount and source of light they
receive and on their location in space.

Color is rich in Imelda Cajipe Endaya's

Panimula. The dominance of blue, which represents
water, is disturbed by the red color, which represents
anger between forces. Colors are also used to form brown
and white lights that cover the entire frame. The human
being on the right side is in its natural color, brown.

5. PERSPECTIVE is the pictorial device that relates to the

artist's ability to create the illusion of deep space within the painting.

In Palamy Pe- Tudtud's Mga Pangandoy, we see cranes

- the large, long-legged and long-necked birds flying towards one
direction: the human heart. The human body appears in the
background which is defined by black outline. Life is indicated
by the tongues of fire rendered in red with some shades of white.
The most prominent in the painting are the cranes flying
towards the heart.
B. THE STYLE OF FORMAL ORDER

Formal order in contemporary art is associated with stability and permanence.

Formal order is exhibited by its qualities: (a) intellectual order, (b) biomorphic order, and
(c) aesthetic order.
C. THE STYLE OF EMOTION
Themes of emotion, feeling, and romance are common features in painting.
Romanticism and emotion are used in painting when the artist wishes to disclose personal
feelings in relations to love. Anxiety and despair in painting express disappointment,
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bitterness, disturbances or uncomfortable feelings and often look dark and chaotic. Joy and
celebration are displayed through vigorous, uncomplicated approach such as depictions of
movement and energy with the visual representation of the sun, sky, air, water and
mountains. Brushstrokes are used to express sparkle, freshness, and abundance.
D. THE STYLE OF FANTASY
Fantastic art originates in both logical and irrational
mental process, it presents no common set of visual
qualities. Fantastic works may be objectively accurate or
subjectively distorted. Certain works exhibit a logic based
on dreams, Utopian hopes and speculative vision and can
be based on myth, fairy tales, folk stories, magic, hybrid
man-animal creatures, etc. "Fantastic art thus manipulates
illusion and reality."

Illusionism is used in contemporary art to create fantastic images or substitute real objects
for the illusionistic treatment of reality.
Sulu artist Abdulmari Imao's Sarimanok is an example of fantastic art inspired by the
legendary bird of the Maranao.
ELISEO ART SILVA, Filipino mural painter

Eliseo Art Silvas career in art was fashioned since his birth.
He was christened the name Art and was trained by hisx
grandfather who designed the familys ancestral home and painted
murals of idyllic scenes on glass above doorways of their 19 century
two-storey ancestral house. He received formal training in art at
age 11 and was accepted into the Philippine High School for the Arts,
the school that specializes in training teenagers in the different art
forms.
The mural, Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Pamana (A
Glorious History, A Golden Legacy), which measures 145 x 25 f., is made of liquitex acrylic
paint and nova colors. It is located at the historic Filipino town, Los Angeles, California. The
mural was unveiled on June 24, 1995 at a ceremony that featured a typical Filipino fiesta.
The mural shows the highlight of Philippine history, traditions, customs and beliefs
and people important to the history of Filipino Americans, such as Philip Vera Cruz and
Larry Itliong, catalyst of the farmworkers Movement in California.
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Far Eastern University High School, Inc. | HUMSS Department | 2016-2017