The great Greek philosophers introduced to us the basic theoretical principle of mimesis in the creation of art. “Art imitates life,” they say; and indeed, some of the world’s finest works of art and literature have been inspired by actual people, stories and events. This principle is no stranger to Philippine art.
During the pre-colonial times, tribesmen carved animals on wood, drew hand paintings in caves and etched language characters on leaves, branches and stones. But art, just like anything else, evolves with its community. Philippine art has developed throughout the centuries, mirroring the sensibilities and sentiments of the Filipino people.
Today, one of the sources that we look at to give us glimpses of Philippine daily life are Jose Honorato Lozano’s mid-19th century paintings. Unknowingly, he devised a style and technique inherently Filipino. Called letras y figuras, Lozano’s depictions are formed around the alphabet. Human figures, animals, plants and other objects are contoured to appear as letters that spell out particular names of places, people, or simply words and phrases.
Born in the early 19th century, Lozano was the son of a lighthouse keeper at Manila Bay and grew up in Sampaloc, Manila. He is currently known as one of the pioneering visual chroniclers of Spanish-era Philippines, taking inspiration from Damian Domingo’s tipos del pais paintings. His detailed watercolour paintings that immortalise the way of life in his era is considered one of the rarest treasures of galleries, museums and auction houses today.
The pictorial representation of these paintings may be traced back to costumbrismo, a Hispanic art form that may be a literary or a pictorial interpretation of local everyday life, customs, traditions and mannerisms. In his book Jose Honorato Lozano: Filipinas 1847, art historian and former Philippine ambassador Jose Maria Cariño conjectured that Lozano may have been trained by Chinese painters, to explain why his style of costumbrismo appears similar to Sinitic techniques.
