In an earlier post about Pilipino, I found at that site my favorite painting by a Filipino artist. I first saw it in a coffee table book many years ago at a friend’s house. It is entitled “Tampuhan”. It appeals to me because of the composition and theme: the yesteryear way of formal dressing, the highly-polished hardwood floors, balcony posts, capiz windows, lots of warm light. The pair seems to be in an uncommunicative mode. Juan Luna was one of those artists whose genius-mind was way off. The poet Marne Kilates has written a lovely poem about this painting, with the first two parts quoted below:
Was it a time of grace, of smooth
And even things? How long ago
Was it, how far away that seldom
We make a visit, even in our dreams?
Sun on the floor of a varnished afternoon
Before Christmas, lace on the pasamano,
Curve of elbow under gossamer sleeve,
Hand as delicate, missing its abanico...
If Juan Luna were to paint this in Manhattan circa 2009, the setting would probably reflect a minimalist taste for furniture and housing material: glass, metal, black would abound. The woman would be curled up in a highback asymmetrical three-legged scrap iron chair with a pink stone base, dressed in a lacy-coutured Ann Taylor shirt, Vince black jumpsuit from Bloomingdale's, a Louis Vuitton slingbacks and an i-phone (instead of an abanico) in her hand. And the man would be wearing his Yankees baseball cap over his skin-shaved bald head, modeling an Armani shorts, Tommy Bahama's shirt, Nike chinelas, and his ever-present Blackberry packed in his sidebelt. The dude is more interested in the three Argentinian chicks across that brownstone building on East 12th Street.
Oh well, times do change. But the churning emotions that the Maria Clara (1895) and the Marie-Claire (2009) ladies, respectively, would probably be still the same. There. That sounds deeper than Nagtatampo!
Along these lines, share your favorites! Paintings, pets, grandkids, books, whatever. With or without links to our yesteryears!
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