‘Genius knows no country’

The old University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts used to be in a grand house on a street once known as Calle San Sebastian because of the landmark San Sebastian Church that stood on the Tanduay side of this long street. Calle San Sebastian is now R. Hidalgo, which is quite appropriate because this street is now named in honor of the great 19th-century Filipino painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo whose ancestral home used to stand down the road a stone’s throw away from San Sebastian Church and the Tanduay Fire Station.

Once E. Aguilar Cruz took me on a sentimental journey down this street, which had seen better days. As he stood in front of the former UP School of Fine Arts recounting its glory days, he could, in his mind’s eye, see what it looked like in its prime while all I could see was a sad structure subdivided into “accesorias.” Aguilar Cruz told me his real artistic education consisted of watching “Don Fabian” paint inside the main room of the house. He could remember desk, easel, palette and paint where I could only see divided rooms rented out to bedspacers who hung their laundry out to dry alongside mosquito nets. It was a heartbreaking visit made light only when Aguilar Cruz said he dropped out of UP Fine Arts when he grew tired of learning to paint by copying a succession of ketchup bottles and stuffed birds.

The UP School of Fine Arts building was taken down piece by piece and reconstructed in Bataan, in a place called Casas Filipinas de Acuzar that I hope to visit sometime. Some people disagree with this intervention, insisting that heritage should be kept on site and allowed to deteriorate by itself like an aging society matron without plastic surgery. Others are of the opinion that the Acuzar collection of old houses is like a nursery where withered plants are preserved for replanting in the future. Friends who visited Acuzar recently were impressed and said they were told the story of the UP School of Fine Arts and how a house made famous by Fabian de la Rosa, Fernando Amorsolo and other artists later degenerated into a “sex den”—a “torohan.”

In 1879 Resurreccion Hidalgo wrote Rizal to describe what it was like to be a student in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid:

“We entered the school with a certain diffidence and, why deny it, with a little fear, but upon seeing the work of the students here we lost all our fear. On the other hand, we were greatly disenchanted because we had wanted to have as classmates people who have more mettle than the ones now attending the school if only to serve as stimulus to us.

“Our professor in the class of Ancient Painting and Draper from 8 to 10 in the morning is Mr. Espalter; in that of Coloring and Composition from 10 to 12 in the morning, Mr. Federico Madrazo; in that of Pictorial Anatomy from 1 to 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Ignacio Llanos; and in that of (Painting from Nature) from 6.30-8.30 in the evening, Mr. Carlos Ribera.

“They are all very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study there (in the Manila Academy of Drawing and Painting) under Mr. Agustin Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here, not more, not less, with the difference being that (in Manila) you paint and draw much more comfortably than we do here, because there you have the entire hall at your disposal, while here we can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always quite poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form.”

What is significant in the above is the fact that the Manila School of Fine Arts in the 19th century was of the same caliber, perhaps even better, than that in Madrid. They had talented and more challenging classmates in Manila. They had equally good professors, more space, more elbow room and better looking models. Little wonder that in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” would be awarded a gold medal, and Resurreccion Hidalgo’s “Virgenes cristianas expuestas al populacho” (Christian virgins exposed to the mob) won a silver medal. Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo were the pride of the Philippines at the time, Filipinos who made good internationally.

The Filipino community in Madrid gathered in the Hotel Ingles to celebrate the triumph of Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo. Many speeches were made to rounds of applause and toasting, the most memorable of these brindis or toasting speeches was that by Rizal who declared that “genius knows no country.”

It is a simple idea: genius or talent is recognized anywhere regardless of race, origin, or skin color. A simple idea that became subversive because it challenged the idea that people of the Philippines would not amount to anything without the faith and education brought by Spain. Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo winning medals in Madrid besting their classmates and professors was an epiphany.

There is a lot of talent in the Philippines and it’s a pity we whine and complain all the time until we are reminded, forcefully, by the example of Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo in the 19th century of Charice and Pacquiao in our times.

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