What was it like?

What was it like in the middle of the 19th century? What did Manila buildings look like? What did the people do? How were they dressed? Much information on these and other points can be obtained by examining the paintings of Jose Lozano (of Sampaloc and San Miguel) whose best work was done from about 1840 to the 1860s. His paintings are discussed and reproduced in a "coffee-table" book entitled Jose Honorato Lozano. Filipinas 1847 by Jose Ma. Cariño (Ars Mundi, Philippines, 2002).

Until 1990, Lozano was considered a minor, unimportant painter. After 1990 that judgment has had to be revised. As Mr. Cariño says, he may well have been the most important visual chronicler of Philippine life and culture in the 19th century.

Until 1990, his only paintings known were the kind called letras y figuras (which we might translate as pictured letters, or better, pictures forming letters). The medieval monks who were copying the Bible or the Psalter illustrated with miniature painting the first letter of each chapter. Lozano extended the practice to all the letters of a person’s name or all the letters of a word. He did this with great ingenuity and with a sense of humor. Two of his works have found their way to an American museum in New England.

After 1990, however, four albums have been discovered in European collections which contain a very different type of painting. They portray places, buildings, flora and fauna, men and women doing different things. One of those albums was sold at auction in London for 2,650 British pounds (about US$700,000). Three of the albums are in private collections. The largest (76 paintings) and perhaps the most important portrays the Philippines in 1847 and is now in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid.

The importance of these albums cannot be overestimated. We see Manila and suburbs as they were in 1847: the Plaza Mayor of Intramuros, with the Governor’s Palace on one side and the Ayuntamiento on the other and the old Manila Cathedral at the far end, before it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1863 and subsequently rebuilt in a different architectural style. The Aduana. The Intendencia. The Teatro de Binondo. The churches and plazas of Binondo and Quiapo. A hospital. A tobacco factory, The façade and interior of a stone house. The outside and inside of a cockpit.

How were the people dressed? The costumes are shown in meticulous detail: men and women of different stations and walks of life, in different occupations. The habits of the five orders of friars. The gowns of the "colegiales" (the resident students) of Santo Tomas. San Juan de Letran, and San Jose.

We see Antipolo, with the pilgrims on their way to the church, some on foot, some on horseback, some in hammocks carried on men’s shoulders. We see how a prisoner was treated. How a condemned man was led blindfolded to the garrote where his neck would be crushed. We see men playing sipa; serenading a young woman; dancing while someone plays the harp, how the "buyo" and betel chew were prepared; how the fighting cocks were trained; wayside food stalls; people on horseback; the man astride the horse, the woman sidesaddle. Different kinds of fish traps. Men and women in their Sunday best at a banquet, squatting on the ground at a low table laden with food. The funeral of a child. Chinese vendors or carriers with heavy loads. Milkmaids with the milk jars on their heads. Rice pounded with pestles or with maces.

In short, almost every aspect of Philippine life is depicted in these paintings, done with meticulous attention to detail. They are better than photographs. As such they are an important source of information for historians and social scientists.

Mr. Cariño, an official of the Philippine Embassy in Madrid and himself a collector of Philippines’ 19th century art, has written the main articles in the book. Additional articles on specific subjects have been contributed by three other authorities on Philippine art: Remigio David, Santiago Albano Pilar, and Sonia Pinto Ner. To Mr. Cariño and the other contributors and to the publisher, our grateful thanks for a very interesting and important book. It is distributed in the Philippines by the Filipinas Heritage Library of Makati.