Now Playing

So Nice, So Smart
Kimya Dawson


i was quiet as a mouse
when i snuck into your house
and took roofies with your spouse
in a nit and out a louse
and lice are lousy all the time
they suck your blood drink your wine
say shut up and quit your crying
give it time and you'll be fine

you're so nice and you're so smart
you're such a good friend i hafta break your heart
tell you that i love you then i'll tear your world apart
just pretend i didn't tear your world apart

i like boys with strong convictions
and convicts with perfect diction
underdogs with good intentions
amputees with stamp collections
plywood skinboards ride the ocean
salty noses suntan lotion
always seriously joking
and rambunctiously soft-spoken
i like boys that like their mothers
and i have a thing for brothers
but they always wait til we're under the covers
to say i'm sure glad we're not lovers

you're so nice and you're so smart
you're such a good friend i hafta break your heart
tell you that i love you then i'll tear your world apart
just pretend i didn't tear your world apart

i like my new bunnysuit
i like my new bunnysuit
i like my new bunnysuit
when i wear it i feel cute

I'm Champ Bear!

Which Care Bear Are You? (Pictures) You Are Champ Bear! Champ Care Bear is a real sports star. He's great at every sport, but he's even better at sharing the real prizes of sports fun, fitness, friendship and learning to be your best. He even shows this with his symbol. A golden trophy with a star. Personality-Emotion Quizzes

I really wanted to be Bedtime bear but I'll take it. LOL

Oh the Planner!

Starbucks 2009 Planner--There will be three designs to choose from this year (Red, Blue and Black). Kinda sad to see no brown there but it's fine. I'm looking to get one for my mom, too. This thing starts tomorrow. =)

See this link.

Now Playing

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Rufus Wainwright

cigarettes and chocolate milk
these are just a couple of my cravings
everything it seems i like's a little bit stronger
a little bit thicker
a little bit harmful for me

if i should buy jellybeans
have to eat them all in just one sitting
everything it seems i like's a little bit sweeter
a little bit fatter
a little bit harmful for me

and then there's those other things
which for several reasons we won't mention
everything about them is a little bit stranger
a little bit harder
a little bit deadly

it isn't very smart
tends to make one part so broken-hearted

sitting here remembering me
always been a shoe made for the city
go ahead, accuse me of just singing about places
with scrappy boys faces
have general run of the town
playing with prodigal songs
takes a lot of sentimental valiums
can't expect the world to be your raggedy andy
while running on empty
you little old doll with a frown

you got to keep in the game
maintaining mystique while facing forward
i suggest a reading of 'a lesson in tightropes'
or 'surfing your high hopes' or 'adios kansas'

it isn't very smart
tends to make one part so broken-hearted

still there's not a show on my back
holes or a friendly intervention
i'm just a little bit heiress, a little bit irish
a little bit tower of pisa whenever i see you
so please be kind if i'm a mess
cigarettes and chocolate milk

Blah blah

I'm hooked.

Just about the point you're convinced that perfection doesn't exist, a person comes along and makes you reconsider.

Just like the concept of perfection itself, it is never truly comprehensible. You approach it with logic but somewhere along the way, you lose all rationality and you engage in a dangerous pursuit of subjectivity and pick up a myriad of constructs while you're at it. When you're face to face with perfection, you really just have a couple of choices.

You can choose to explore it, enumerate the hundreds of ways it became (and retains the quality of being) perfect.. Looking it straight in the eye, you almost can touch understanding. You become an unstoppable set of interrogation looking for retort and it will be too late once you realize it's just futile. You have been consumed by the very concept you we're looking to recover.

Or you could always look from afar, a safe amount of distance from it and enjoy its beauty. Not demanding anything from it, you aestheticize on it's existence gingerly noting every structural component that warrants its incomparable, almost superhuman quality. The distance keeps you safe but the distance also keeps you detached.

Once in a while you encounter a person whose existence can be a good argument for perfection itself. Whether you find yourself consumed or detached, perfection is one concept you will never fully understand nor fully get over. I would just accept that.

(Un) Indie Film: Rethinking Independent Cinema

Independent Cinema is seeing a great deal of interest nowadays precisely for it’s name—independent. This claim sure has a lot of problems for it is not inherently clear as to what one means when referring to it. It should only mean that there is a profound interest in anything that goes beyond the ordinary. There is an obsession for anything that tries to break out of the system and this may be good or bad for Philippine cinema. We’ll attempt to crack into these possibilities.

The question of independence deserves a more elaborate theoretical framework—we’ll not attempt it here. The task at hand is to identify sites of contestation in the label independent and possibly see the reason for the need for such.

It is important to understand that independent filmmaking essentially started with Manuel Conde’s effort to break out of the studio system. While he did it successfully, it is unclear if he was aware he was being “independent” or if he’d even appreciate the label. It is possible that he didn’t even care. He just wanted to make films and found more freedom outside the studio system. In any case, the label is understandably a postmodern construction for the era is addicted to labels and is multifarious.

It’s also interesting to look into the dichotomy of art as art and art as catalyst for social change which I think should not be mutually exclusive at all. For the sake of discussion, this dichotomy has the very essence of why independent films exist. It is in defying the extremity of either pole that filmmakers wanted to break out of. But it is this dichotomy that positions the form in an awkward situation where the art is reduced to merely just being for art’s sake or for social change. Although potentially powerful, the dichotomy must be rethought.

Also within the postmodern take is the blurring of tasks. Because the technology of independent filmmaking is more fluid in terms of its production process, a one-man film (a definite impossible task of the past) is now possible. The obscure relations and forces of production in the independent film process is consistent with the postmodern discourse of democratization of art and how to effectively permeate cultural dimensions within the globalized world. Between these lines, we see a consistent pattern of present world cultural systems that rely on exchanges and assimmilation. It is, thus, important to look into film without the burden of the label and with a watchful eye.

The critic is then interrogated. How do you valuate a film based on such relations of production? If there is a blurring of tasks, if there is democratization of art, how does one set the standards? The role of the critic in valuation is to identify consistencies and relevance in such works. No art is independent from the subject and the subjectivities that translate through the artwork should be examined apart from the formal production and exclusivity. The aestheticization should be born out of the experience and not the system of production although the latter would definitely play a part in the judgment.

The star system cannot be neglected by any attempt to breakout of the mainstream. The cultural potential is just too powerful. This is why independent films still subscribe to it (although indirectly) to fuel interest and be recognized. It is crucial for any attempt at divergence to recognize the potentially useful in the current system and integrate this to the newer form. It is this rationale that may explain why independent films’ popularity is still dependent on big names and big names dependent on independent films. This relationship is symbiotic and is essential.

It seems to me that an unspoken importance in independent filmmaking is the need to exploit the gay discourse. The need is logical. It is controversial (to stir interest), it is “empowering (for justification),” and it is “relatively accepted (to sell).” If anything in independent cinema is pretentious, this would definitely be it. The obsession to record a person kissing (or more) of the same sex in a film that formally claims its deviance to the mainstream does not empower the homosexual but associates the gay discourse to secondary status. What it does is further isolate the gay argument to a state of irrevocable immorality and unacceptability while overshadowing this with the label “independent.” The homosexual is then reduced to a mere marketing tool and entertainment with his “unusual ways.”

In more ways than one, the concept of independent cinema in the Philippines (or any country for that matter) is a contestable one. It is not merely technology determining the relations of production but more of intersubjectivities being reduced to a monolithic one. The art form must be relieved of this label if film in the Philippines is to be truly independent.

Philippine Cinema After Martial Law

Films in the Philippines after martial law took on a new turn as the country searched for its identity in light of its new-found “freedom.” To understand film during this period, we look into the 1989 Lino Brocka work Orapronobis (Pray for Us). The intention is to situate this film within the post-Marcos dictatorship discourse and relate the film’s content to the present political situation.
It is imperative for us to look into the political arena, especially in this period, for the films after Marcos’ dictatorship can reveal much about the relations of production and consumption of the form as they are (the films) direct products of the lifting of PD 1081 and the consequent curtailment of freedom that the artists experienced during that time. In essence, this period promised a widening of parameters as to what films may contain. How the filmmakers responded to it and explored these parameters would sure be interesting to identify.

Orapronobis

Lino Brocka was commissioned by foreign producers to make Orapronobis (1989) for the Cannes Film Festival. This, of course, gave international stature for Brocka as a director and is a clear indication of the international thrust that the film industry was geared towards during this period (and up to today). This attempt is situated inside the globalization discourse of borderlessness. This may be (I’m not too sure) the first time that Filipino filmmakers went out to actively search for support and recognition from international community. The film industry, much like any other industry in the Philippines, is too dependent of foreign funding and recognition. This becomes a problem when a cultural product as potent as film depends its production and judgment in the hands of the west. As it is situated in those terms, so shall the product be in those terms.

However, Brocka’s Orapronobis is a cutting-edge take on a Filipino experience. It exposes the human rights issues of the post-Marcos era in an ironic turn of events as the country is supposed to have been “liberated” from oppression. The main importance of this film is the recognition that the EDSA revolution of 1986 was a shift not from a bad political situation to a good one, but a turn of leadership from one representative of the ruling class to another.

The film is also characterized by the intelligent use of appeal to emotions that lends a hand to the demonization of the anti-communist discourse. The attempt at realism and details is superb and helps in the appreciation of the underground movement’s importance in the resolution of human rights issues and how the military can play the vicious villain.

The universality of the human rights issues discussed by the film may be intentional as the film is geared towards a global eye. It is strategic, in this sense, for the film’s local take on a historical perspective and the ambivalent global appeal pins down the film’s acceptance and celebration.

To Question the Canon: The First Golden Age of Philippine Cinema

Cinema in the Philippines the years directly after the war, as some references account, is the first golden age of Philippine Cinema:

“…The 1950s was the so-called first golden age of Philippine cinema, mainly because at this time, the Big Four studios (LVN Pictures, Sampaguita Pictures, Premiere Productions and Lebran International) were at the height of their powers in filmmaking, having employed master directors like Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero and Cesar Gallardo and housing the biggest stars of the industry that day…

…In addition, the stars of these productions also won international awards …

…During this era, the first award-giving bodies were also established (wikipedia)...

…Critics now clarify that the 50s may be considered one “Golden Age” for the Filipino film not because film content had improved but because cinematic techniques achieved an artistic breakthrough in that decade… (http://www.aenet.org/family/filmhistory.htm) ”

These accounts mention several reasons why the 50’s was a great period for Philippine cinema. The studios, the directors, international awards, establishment of award-giving bodies, and artistic breakthroughs all point to this period as an important one. This labeling of periods in film history as golden raises a flag to anyone who wants to understand what merits artistic excellence to pass for such taxonomy. What does it mean for the artist (director, etc.)? What does it mean for the artwork (film)? What does it demand of the film industry?

To answer these questions, we look into two films made during the “first golden age of Philippine cinema”—the 50’s. Anak Dalita (1956) by Lamberto Avellana is an exposition on poverty and hard-edged realism on the life of a Korean War veteran who returns home to the Philippines and gets involved in a smuggling conflict. Biyaya ng Lupa (1959) by Manuel Silos, on the other hand, is a film which explores the intricacies of rural life as tied to land. It starts out with a hopeful young couple getting married, having kids, eventually experiencing bankruptcy, their daughter getting raped, and being haunted by a village goon. The film ends positively when the goon is killed and with a bountiful harvest.

The intention is to look into these films and attempt to discover how the establishment of these films as “great” influences the audience by means of representation as well as position the critic in viewing such.

The Measure for Greatness

Any artist peddling an artwork in the art market is judged by how he/she measures up to the standards set by the canon. A film canon is the limited group of movies that serve as the measuring stick for the highest quality in the genre of film. It is the prime interest of this article to scrutinize the canon and rationalize its existence.

Why is there a need for greatness through the canon? Practically, more often than not, when one watches a film, the aesthetic reflex is to associate the experience to a previous one stripping the current experience off of autonomy thus basing satisfaction through what one had before. This practice of “comparing” in the part of the person experiencing the film is dangerous if we consider how exactly the canon is established.

Institutions (effectively the state) are the backbone of the canon. The groups of people legitimized by the state to endow an object the name “art” set the criteria by which artists must commit to. This commitment by the artist is driven by the need to sell and the institutions provide this to the artist by giving him/her labels, awards, grants, and the most basic – a good review. The credibility of the canon is fueled by these and the institution’s very existence relies on the canon. This give-and-take relationship between the institutions and the canon shapes aesthetic practice and judgment leaving the audience without a critical take and such dissociated (mis)representations normalized.

Anak Dalita and Biyaya ng Lupa

Anak Dalita is set in post-war Manila. It capitalizes on the effect of war to the city as a backdrop for a story of poverty and illegal mishaps. The context in which the film was set is the rebuilding of Manila after the Pacific War. The film discussed poverty and illegal activity recognizing its presence in society and also critiquing it by exposing injustice associated with it. Technically the story was well written, the actors played their parts well and the director obviously explored the cinematic
potential enough.

The point of highlight in Anak Dalita is the representation of poverty. Its aestheticization in the film demanded a certain amount of responsibility in the part of the artist (director, etc.) in making identification with reality possible at the same time catering to the whims (and standards) of the canon. This indebtedness to the canon creates a certain density in the treatment of the film. Such representation, as outlined by the moral code of the existing order, is permeated throughout the film and is translated into normalcy which gives the artist an irrevocable prediction of the viewer’s world conception and order.

Biyaya ng Lupa represents rural life and the false hope that comes with it. Although the film actually leaves a positive mark to the audience, the film is grounded on an urban-centric premise. The contradiction between (and against) city life and life in the countryside is always a discourse on which is preferable and by representing the latter, the film takes a position in the binary and in effect bestows a certain amount of justification to prefer either. The discourse of duality in perceiving happiness as belonging to either is weak for it reduces happiness to just a matter of location when in fact there are a variety of factors that contribute to subjectivities.

These representations comprise the canon. It shaped (and continues to shape) Filipino films using the same binaries and discourses that comprise Filipino subjectivities as well. It is, therefore, dangerous to put an artwork (in this case, film) in an ivory tower when the relations of art production and consumption lie in the hands of a specific few. Subjectivities are created through art and the canon makes sure this is sustained. It is important to interrogate the canon and locate the specific sites of contention where it reduces the human to inessentiality, if not forget about it altogether and look at art as is and finally stop demanding anything from it.

Sources:

"Cinema of the Philippines." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 16 Oct 2008, 15:18 UTC. 19 Oct 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cinema_of_the_Philippines&oldid=245680443>.
“History of Philippine Cinema.” Onlineessays.com. 16 Oct 2008, 15:18 UTC. 19 Oct 2008
"Film canon." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Oct 2008, 22:25 UTC. 19 Oct 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Film_canon&oldid=244459850>.

The Lesser of Two Evils: On Philippine Cinema During the Japanese Period

Film as cultural product in the years 1941 to 1946 in the Philippine setting can be best scrutinized through the lens of the Japanese occupation inside the theme of the Pacific War between Japan and the US. The concept of war and its relation to any cultural product is always interesting as we try to understand the implications of imperialist conflicts to the local culturality of “art” events.

When the Pacific War broke out with the offensives of Japan to the US (Pearl Harbor), it was necessary for Japan to integrate the Philippines within its plans through any means necessary in its attempt to secure hegemony. It saw enculturation vital to the promotion of the myth of “Asians for Asians.”

Imperialist Wars

The concept of war as integral in the development of societies (and the state) in the era of monopoly capitalism is important in looking at art in a manner suitable for any analysis that tends to go beyond the exclusive visuality of film for if we dare go the latter direction, we leave a big chunk of the more definitive query. It, therefore, necessitates a seamless linking of war in the imperialist sense and the cultural product as it is experienced by its consumer. It is also a point of interest to expose the reality that the Japanese propaganda, through the film Dawn of Freedom, intended to create in its intent to realize its imperialist mission.

While Japan had a seemingly noble (not to mention self-initiated) task of liberating the Asian region of the North American-European domination, this task can only be seen as fraudulent and preposterous when viewed from the scheme of the political and the economic implications that the war was all about. Vladimir Lenin in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism* explains: “on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies and spheres of influence of finance capital (9).” It is in this context that Philippine cinema is poised to highlight the more overt intentions of propaganda than anything else.

Dawn of Freedom

The film Dawn of Freedom by Abe Yutaka and Gerardo de Leon (1944) is born out of these imperialist wars. The context in which it was formulated accounts for the intense use of attempts at identification with its audience although for whom this identification is intended for is unclear. To crack if the film was created for a Filipino or a Japanese audience is not in the interest of this piece. It is, however, a central interest to ascertain characteristics of the audience that this artwork negotiates with and what it persuades this audience to appreciate. To do that, we look into the themes (or the premise and contradictions of which) of the film.

The film contradicts itself in many levels. The film’s premise is the myth “Asians for Asians.” This regional reference was the guiding policy of the rhetoric used by Japan in translating justification for intra-regional colonization and in general, the war. Because of the previously mentioned, the context is not so much a regional matter of the west versus the east as it is a territorial and economic conflict between two imperialist countries. The film fashions an amicable image of a Japanese soldier which would be entirely outside the realm of reality if you ask any Filipino who was there (fighting or being harassed) during the war.

Bottomline: Preference

These inaccuracies in representation imposed a new type of reality to the audience that Japan intended to root the cultural potential of their quest into. The question of whether this reality was acceptable or even effective to the audience is a totally different story. It’s important to see, however, the overt utilization of film to create this reality and the imperialist attempt to culturally colonize the minds of the Filipinos.

The reality presented by the film themed “Japan is not the enemy” is also an attempt at conversion of preference from an American mindset to a Japanese (Asian) one. It is, essentially, a choice for the Filipinos between two imperialists—a position any Filipino should never want to take.

*Lenin, Vladimir. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Progress Publishers. Moscow. 1975

Art History Vs Art History: A Critical Essay on Patrick Flores’ "Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art"

Complete Title: Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art
Author: Patrick Flores
Publish Date: 1998
Format: PaperbackPublisher: Office of Research Coordination, University of the Philippines [and] National Commission for Culture and the Arts
Pages: 393 p.: ill.

“The task of Philippine colonial art history is to theorize on the various aspects of the construction of Philippine colonial art studies and evaluate its effects on multiple audience ethnographies which comprise the public of the canon. (105)”

Indebted to neo-marxist theory, British cultural materialism, semiotics, and structuralism, Patrick Flores’ book Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art situates itself within the new art history which itself took root from the new history of the third generation of the Annales School since Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora coined the French term nouvelle histoire in the 1970’s among others (Burke, 2).

Flores’ discourse, in line with this tradition, asks “the question for art historians…not ‘what do pictures mean?’ but ‘what do pictures want’ (xv)” which reconsiders “covert intentions, functions and agenda within a synchronic history of competing social forces (ix)” as opposed to “what paintings as pictures overtly convey or communicate (ibid.)”.

The book is a critique of art historians within the milieu of “traditional” historiography (which merely gathers and measures) encouraging the recovery of fluctuating receptions and interdisciplinarity in art historical writing and criticism. Flores explored the viability of the concept of colonialism in the post-colonial text as ambivalent―both peaceful and violent. He discarded the dichotomy of form and content that has long governed traditional art studies, revealing the nature of painting as commodity in the process.

Shifting the ground of traditional art historiography further, Flores’ rhetoric persuades art history to deconstruct itself by interrogating its stock premises. One salient interrogation of this type is the dependence of art history to economy which he regarded as simplistic and overdeterministic. In turn, he endeavored to create a comprehensive colonial art history by doing an extensive research on the Academia exposing neglected facts in previous historiography. One such fact is the Mexican influence to colonialism since the Philippines was not directly under Spain but by the viceroyalty of Mexico of New Spain until 1815. Recognition of such complexities is to be the basis of a truer account of art history.

Form as Mode of Production

Central to Flores’ theoretical basis is the concept of form as a mode of production. Overtly a neo-marxist concept, he coins Eagleton and Berger to situate art within the political economy. He quotes Eagleton:

“Oil painting creates a certain density, lustre and solidity in what it depicts; it does to the world what capital does to social relations, reducing everything to the equality of objects. The painting itself becomes an object – a commodity to be bought and possessed; it is itself a piece of property, and represents the world in those terms (54)”

This establishes the nature of the visual rhetoric as not merely a reflection of material and style, but a reflection “of social relations between artist and audience with which that technique is bound up (ibid.)”. This visual knowledge, he argued, is manufactured by a semiotic technology and can be applied to view the baroque (and painting) as not merely style and form. This argument revives the perceived dominant style of colonial painting (baroque) from an overdetermined analysis and appreciation.

Flores materialized this concept of political economy within the site of Philippine experience by citing the attempt of the government to acquire colonial artifacts (including paintings) in the name of “heritage.” This attempt, he analyzed, is situated in a historical context that fastens art to the question of national identity proving that art is programmed in narrative settings. The book attempts to relieve art of this burden.

The author further explores the post-colonial ideological formation by citing Bordieu and Williams in his attempt to explain cultural reproduction as generative rather than replicative. This discussion is mainly intended to place colonial art within a specific sphere of ideology-producing mechanism using Bordieu’s concept of habitus and Williams’ constituting subjectivities. It provides for a rational understanding of how colonial art achieved its complexity by arguing that cultural ideological production is not replicated but generated leaving the latter ideology in art more complex than the one it was born out of.

Still within the attempt to understand cultural ideological formation in the post-colonial milieu, the author criticized Zeus Salazar’s Pantayong Pananaw as subjecting art to orientalization and other-ing through “fetishized and fetishizing constructions of institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, and doctrines accruing to the category ‘native’ (65)”.

In weaving these post-colonial theories, the author clarified the usage of the term post-colonial as non-diachronic but referring to repercussions of colonialism from the very first colonial contact to the present. This clarification is important in appreciating where the author is coming from and in understanding the amount of development that post-colonial theory has gone through in the light of achieving clearer perspective (read: sanity) for the reader.

The author handled the sites of transgression in colonial painting history by establishing that mimicry is not necessarily a form of silent subjugation but a form of resistance. He did this by rationalizing the relationship of the indigenous and the colonial. He argued that the representation of transgression in history (especially in religion) endows the indigenous an inferior character as that of the colonial and by subjecting colonial paintings to this kind of analogy, art history betrays the previous.

The specific nature of colonial exigencies was discussed by the author using the backdrop of a feudal society. He gave premium to social and organizational make-up to construct colonialism. The set-up of towns, forced labor in the name of the church, and urbanization gave function and effect to hispanization.

Institutions of Colonial Art

In discussing and constructing colonial art, the author recognized the assumptions and current ideological configuration of the audience he is writing for:

“When we lay claim to colonial art, we address a determinate field: a set of representations of colonial art regulated by structures and practices of colonial art history in the Philippines. We locate the museum system as one of the main sites of encounter.(106)”

It is this recognition that the author presented eight museums that house colonial artifacts: Intramuros Administration, Central Bank of the Philippines, San Agustin Museum, University of Santo Tomas Museum, Burgos Museum, National Museum, Vargas Museum, and Ayala Museum (ibid.). This listing is integral not only in establishing the sources of the corpus of the study but, more importantly, in tracing the sites of ideological construction that concerns colonial art

Damian Domingo and the Academia

Fundamental in the author’s discussion of ideological construction of art in the colonial period is his exposition of the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura that is long credited as the first art institution of the Philippines. Gathering extensive data, the author rendered the (re)history of the school that exposed the following findings and issues regarding history of education of art in the country:
The early schools run by friars taught art within the catholic subscription. These schools started canonization and the dichotomy between art and craft.

1. The Academia de Bellas Artes was the first institutionalization of painting discrediting Domingo's academia as the first
2. Recognition of the Chinese connection in artists and themes.
3. The concept of authorship started with printmaking as the printmakers signed their works.
4. Architectural and framed/panel painting (includes icon painting) are the forms of early colonial painting.
5. The current taxonomy of style endorses a colonial continuity ultimately serving the Academy.
6. The edict of Charles III on May, 1785 was the beginning of secularization which started portraiture.
7. 6 forms that flourished during the secularization: Miniatures, Miniaturismo, Letras y Figuras , Tipos del Pais, Historical Scenes, Scientific Plates
8. Damian Domingo’s works constituted miniature portraits, religious paintings, and albums of costume, idylls, and regional milieu.
9. The style of the Academia was miniaturismo.
10. Artists were divided into 2 groups: those in the Academia who gained access to European techniques and aesthetics and those ''homegrown." Domingo is both.
11. The Academia made the guild painters lose value because of institutionalization.
    

Politics of Research

“All historical narratives contain an irreducible and inexpungeable element of interpretation.

What is at issue here is not, What are the facts? But rather how are the facts to be described in order to sanction one mode of explaining them rather than another
- Hayden White (97)”

The author successfully communicated to the reader his subject position and the politics of his research. This exposition is key to the presentation of a methodology that is relatively new. He also made clear that a research cannot be fully objective since a study is based on a premise and the premise (whatever it maybe) is inherently indebted to its structural configuration which, in nature, is subjective.

Art History as Art Criticism

In dealing with the colonial, the author consciously reviewed his strategy in approaching the artworks. Oblivious to the institutionalization of certain conceptions of colonial tradition, the author formulated “an art history that unmasks the traditionality of colonial art and grasps it as a contemporary text whose inscriptions represent the various moments of its relations and realizations (307)”. The author relocates colonial art from the past recognizing its undeniable presence in the present

Flores’ critique on diachrony resists ahistoricity, or the condition to regard the conditions of colonial painting as belonging to the past. Rather, because they are indeed in the present, he deconstructs the construction of their coloniality by employing a synchronic study.
He also critiques critics that employ strictly formalist approach in criticism:

“The kind of descriptive analysis pervasive in the analysis of Philippine colonial painting gives inordinate attention to elements of the visual arts: line, color, texture, composition, perspective, brushwork, and so on. Nothing much emerges from this form of ‘looking’ at art objects, as it just reproduces the object of analysis in more or less in own terms. (312)”

It is also a concern that with formalism, critics have a strong tendency to endow hasty symbolism for certain details promoting empiricism and uninformed criticism. Another concern is the dependence of artistic success to “verisimilitude, a kind of realism or illusionism that strives to be faithful to the ‘natural’ (314)”.

Lastly, the author questions the attribution of value to source and influence. The term “reminiscent of” for example must be sustained with a competent analysis of influence rather than being an easy exit for a baseless judgment. In line with these problems in criticism, the author proposes a hermeneutic code to assist in valuation for the purposes of criticism such as figuration, iconography, and reception. These codes would then aid in the attempt of the critic to communicate aesthetic values to an audience. Arnold Isenberg, in a 1949 Philosophical Review article said: “it is a function of criticism to bring about communication at the level of the senses; that is, to induce a sameness in vision, of experienced content (Feagin, 369)”.

New Art History

Veering away from presenting history as necessarily involving heroes and battles, Flores’ take on art history is sorely obliged by the theories of the Annales School and the History of Mentalities School that redefined the scope of history to include everyday objects. Especially important is historian Fernand Braudel’s idea of everyday life things as historical which makes sturdy the position of art in the scheme of historical things.

This indebtedness bestows upon Philippine art historiography the important task of ensuring transdisciplinarity—enclosing art history in an interrogative field, trying to go out of the already-existing art historical discourses and institutions, ultimately attaining the perfect unity of theory and history.

Sources:
Burke, Peter. 'Overture: The New History, its Past and its Future', in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. By
Peter Burke (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), pp. unknown
http://www.kowa.euv-frankfurt-o.de/iba_european_history/iba_european_history_text_p_burke_new_history.PDF
Feagin, Susan L. and Patrick Maynard (Editors). Oxford Readers: Aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press.
1997
Flores, Patrick D. Painting History: Revisions in Philippine Colonial Art. Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development, 1998.