Selfies with the dead?

Nora Ignacio, the superstar of Ermita antiques dealers, once showed me a charming painting of San Jose and the Santo Niño typical of religious art in Spanish Philippines. What caught my eye was the Niño garbed in a thin embroidered garment, somewhat like piña. Was this painting from the Philippines, or Mexico?

When she noticed that I was studying the painting closely, Nora declared: “It’s by Simon Flores.” When I asked why she thought this to be so, she pointed at some floral ornaments and said: “Ayan, o, may mga flores.” I laughed and referred her to two known works by Simon Flores preserved in the National Museum of the Philippines: “Alimentado pollos” and “Dead child.” Of course, if the painting in the antiques shop was really by Simon Flores, then Nora and I had hit the jackpot.

Simon Flores de la Rosa (1839-1902) is a name recorded in Philippine art history, and his works are much sought after because they are so rare. His two genre paintings, or scenes from daily life, show a woman feeding chickens (National Museum) and a woman teaching her child how to read (Vargas Museum); these are windows to the Philippines a century ago.

He painted some very impressive portraits that captured not only the likeness of the sitters but also the clothing, ornaments and settings that give us a view of the lives of upper-class Filipinos in the 19th century, and how they wanted to be remembered. He painted a pair of family portraits of the Quiason family of Pampanga; one is in a private collection and the other is in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The latter depicts Don Cirilo Quiason y Cunanan and his wife Ceferina Henson y David with their two elder sons Aureo and Jose, painted in San Fernando, Pampanga, in 1875. According to the historian Serafin D. Quiason, his ancestor Jose was painted as an innocent toddler with his genitals proudly displayed. When Jose grew into adulthood, fed up with all the ribbing from relatives and visitors who gazed on the portrait, he burned the painted genitals with his cigar. Later, the hole was repaired by painting clothes on the toddler. But according to conservators, there is no burn hole in the painting.

The work by Simon Flores in the National Museum that draws mixed reactions was painted in 1902, the year of his death, and depicts what most people initially think is a sleeping child. Dressed in his/her Sunday best, the child with rosy cheeks lies on a couch decorated with cut flowers. However, if you take more time to contemplate the painting, you will realize that the “sleeping” child is actually a corpse on a bier. This is a type of painting known at the turn of the century as recuerdos de patay, literally “souvenirs of the dead.”

There is an unconfirmed rumor that this Simon Flores painting of a dead child measuring 61.5 x 86 cm is nothing compared to a larger canvas, a life-sized  recuerdo de patay of an old woman, which is definitely not the sort one would hang in the living or dining room. These morbid paintings seldom circulate in the art and antiques market because there are few takers. Death in any form, even when raised to the level of art, does not sit well with Filipinos, which explains why some recuerdos de patay challenge the artist to go one step further by making the dead appear “alive.” Painting from an actual photograph or direct from the corpse, the artist must be imaginative enough to “open” the subject’s eyes and turn death into life, at least on canvas.

Due to the time and expense in having oil portraits of dead relatives done, these large recuerdos de patay are quite rare. When photography became popular in the Philippines in the late 19th century, it became faster and more economical to have recuerdos de patay. Photographs were readily reproduced and distributed to relatives and friends. As a matter of fact, one of the most famous postcards at the turn of the century was a set called Postales Rizal that included a solo of Jose Rizal’s skull.

Even newspapers and other publications had recuerdos de patay on their pages. Renacimiento Filipino covered heroes of the Philippine Revolution from illness to death. In 1911, a whole issue was dedicated to the funeral of Teodora Alonso, including pictures of her still alive but terminally ill, and numerous shots of her corpse in the coffin. Enterprising photographers sometimes documented the last moments of heroes and VIPs on their deathbed. Renacimiento Filipino also carried a historic photo of Emilio Jacinto on a bier, reminiscent of a now-almost-extinct ritual in Nueva Ecija where the bereaved relatives prop the cadaver in a sitting position in the coffin for one last group picture with loved ones before burial.

In the picture, Jacinto lies in state with his rifle tucked in his right arm. Beside him is a line of women and behind them a row of uziseros looking bored. The only woman who genuinely appears to be in mourning is a certain Catalina de Jesus from Pampanga. She stares sorrowfully at Jacinto whose child she bears in her womb.

From oil portraits to photographs, Filipinos have various ways of dealing with death and remembering the dead. Recuerdos de patay raised mourning and memory to the level of art. It isn’t far-fetched to imagine that in the 21st century, some people will take selfies during wakes.

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