Arts in the Philippines
in the Philippines reflect a range of artistic influences on the country's culture, including indigenous art. Philippine art consists of two branches: traditional and non-traditional art. Each branch is divided into categories and subcategories.
Overview
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the cultural agency of the Philippine government, has categorized Filipino arts as traditional and non-traditional. Each category has sub-categories.- Traditional arts:
- * Ethnomedicine – including the arts of hilot and the arts of the albularyo and babaylans
- * Folk architecture – including stilt, land, and aerial houses.
- * Maritime transport – boat houses, boat-making, and maritime traditions.
- * Weaving – including back-strap loom weaving and other, related forms of weaving.
- * Carving – including woodcarving and folk non-clay sculpture.
- * Folk performing arts – including dances, plays, and dramas.
- * Folk literature – including epics, songs, and myths.
- * Folk graphic and plastic arts – including calligraphy, tattooing, writing, drawing, and painting
- * Ornaments – including mask-making, accessory-making, ornamental metal crafts
- * Textile art – including headgear weaving, basketry, and fishing gear
- * Pottery – including ceramics, clay pots and sculpture
- * Other artistic expressions of traditional culture – including non-ornamental metal crafts, martial arts, supernatural healing arts, medicinal arts, and constellation traditions
- Non-traditional arts:
- * Dance – including choreography, direction, and performance
- * Music – including composition, direction, and performance
- * Theater – including direction, performance, production design, lighting and sound design, and playwriting
- * Visual arts – including painting, non-folk sculpture, printmaking, photography, installation art, mixed-media works, illustration, graphic arts, performance art, and imaging
- * Literature – including poetry, fiction, essays, and literary or art criticism
- * Film and broadcast arts – including direction, writing, production design, cinematography, editing, animation, performance, and new media
- * Architecture and allied arts – including non-folk architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and urban design
- * Design – including industrial and fashion design
Traditional arts
Ethnomedicine
Ethnomedicine is one of the oldest traditional arts in the Philippines. Traditions are performed by medical artisans and shamans. Practices, grounded on the physical elements, are an ancient science and art. Herbal remedies, complementing mental, emotional, and spiritual techniques, are also part of many traditions as well. The category was added to the GAMABA in 2020.Folk architecture
Folk architecture in the Philippines varies by ethnic group, and structures are made of bamboo, wood, rock, coral, rattan, grass, and other materials. They include the hut-style bahay kubo, highland houses with four to eight sides, the coral houses of Batanes which protect from the area's harsh, sandy winds, the royal torogan and palaces such as the Darul Jambangan, the residence of the sultan of Sulu before colonization. Folk architecture also includes religious buildings, generally called spirit houses, which are shrines to protective spirits or gods. Most are open-air, house-like buildings made of native materials. Some were originally pagoda-like, and are now rare. Other buildings have indigenous and Hispanic motifs. Many bahay na bato buildings are in Vigan, a World Heritage Site. Folk structures range from simple, sacred stick stands to indigenous castles or fortresses.Maritime transport
Maritime transport includes boat houses, boat-making, and maritime traditions. These structures, traditionally made of wood chosen by elders and crafters, connected the islands. Although boats are believed to have been used in the archipelago for thousands of years, the earliest evidence of boat-making has been carbon-dated to 689 AD: the Butuan boats identified as large balangays. In addition to the balangay, indigenous boats include the two-masted double-outrigger fishing armadahan, the avang trading ship, the awang dugout canoes, the balación sailing outrigger boat, the bangka, the bangka anak-anak canoe, the salambáw-lifting basnigan, the bigiw double-outrigger sailboat, the birau dugout canoe, the buggoh dugout canoe, the casco barge, the single mast and pointed chinarem, the rough-sea open-deck chinedkeran, the djenging double-outrigger plank boat, the garay pirate ship, the guilalo sailing outrigger ship, the falua open-deck boat, the junkun canoe, the motorized junkung, the outrigger karakoa and lanong warships, the lepa houseboat, the ontang raft, the owong lake canoe, the open-deck fishing boat panineman, the double-outrigger paraw sailboat, the salisipan war canoe, the tataya fishing boat, the motorized tempel, the dinghy tiririt, and the outrigger vinta. From 1565 to 1815, Manila galleons were built by Filipino artisans.Weaving
Weaving is an ancient art form, and each ethnic group has a distinct weaving technique. The weaving arts include basket weaving, back-strap loom weaving, headgear weaving, and fishnet weaving.Cloth and mat weaving
Valuable textiles are made with a back strap loom. Fibers such as cotton, abaca, banana fiber, grass, and palm are used in Filipino weaving. There are a number of types of woven cloth. Pinilian is an Ilocano cotton cloth woven with a pangablan, using binakul, binetwagan, or tinumballitan styles. Bontoc weave emphasizes the concept of centeredness, key to the culture of the Bontoc people. The weave begins with the sides, followed by the pa-ikid, fatawil, and shukyong. The sinamaki weaving then begins, incorporating a tinagtakho, minatmata, and tinitiko. The last is the center, with the kan-ay. Kalinga textiles contain geometric designs; one motif is a lozenge pattern known as inata-ata. Piña is considered the finest indigenous Filipino textile. Aklanon textiles are used in national costumes. Hablon is the textile of the Karay-a and Hiligaynon peoples. Tapestry woven by the Yakan people uses the bunga-sama supplementary weft weave, the siniluan warp-floating pattern, the inalaman supplementary-weft technique, and the pinantupan weft-band pattern. Blaan weaving depicts crocodiles and curls. The Mandaya use a mud-dye technique. Meranaw textiles are used for the malong and other Maranao clothing. T'nalak is a Tboli textile. The oldest known ikat textile in Southeast Asia is the Banton cloth, dating to the 13th to 14th centuries.Unlike cloth weaving with a loom, mats are woven by hand. They are woven in cool shade, and are kept cool to preserve their integrity. An example is the banig of Basey, where its weavers usually work in a cave. Fibers include banana, grass, and palm.
Basketry
Baskets have intricate designs, styles and forms for specific purposes, such as harvesting, rice storage, traveling, and sword storage. Basket weaving is believed to have arrived with north-to-south human migration. Some of the finest baskets made are from Palawan, in the southwest. Materials vary by ethnic group, and include bamboo, rattan, pandan, cotton tassels, beeswax, abacá, bark, and dyes. Basketry patterns include closed crossed-over underweave, closed bamboo double-twill weave, and a spaced rattan pentagon pattern. Products include the tupil, bukug, kabil, uppig, tagga-i, bay'ung, lig-o, and binga. Weaving traditions have been influenced by modern demands.Woven headpieces are common, and cultures use a variety of fibers to create headgear such as the Ivatan vakul and the snake headpiece of the Bontoc. Woven fish traps are a specialty of the Ilocano people. Broom weaving is another tradition, exemplified by the Kalinga people.
Relics
The Philippines has Buddhist artifacts with Vajrayāna influence, most of which date to the ninth century and reflect the iconography of the Śrīvijayan empire. They were produced from the Agusan-Surigao area on Mindanao to Cebu, Palawan, and Luzon.The Agusan image is a, 21-karat gold statuette found in 1917 on the Wawa River near Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, Mindanao, dates to the ninth or tenth centuries. The image is commonly known as the Golden Tara, an allusion to its reported identity as an image of a Buddhist Tara. The figure, about tall, is of a female Hindu or Buddhist deity sitting cross-legged and wearing a headdress and other ornaments. It is on display in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. A bronze statue of Lokesvara was found in Isla Puting Bato in Tondo, Manila.
An image of the Buddha was moulded on a clay medallion in bas-relief in the municipality of Calatagan. It reportedly resembles iconographic depictions of the Buddha in Siam, India, and Nepal: in a tribhanga pose inside an oval nimbus. Scholars have noted a Mahayanic orientation in the image, since the boddhisattva Avalokiteśvara is also shown.
Another gold artifact, from the Tabon Caves in the island of Palawan, is an image of Garuda, the bird who is the mount of Vishnu. The Hindu imagery and gold artifacts in the caves has been linked to those in Oc Eo, in the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam. Crude bronze statues of the Hindu deity Ganesha were found by Henry Otley Beyer in 1921 in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, and in Mactan, Cebu. The statues were produced locally. A bronze statue of Avalokiteśvara was also excavated that year by Beyer in Mactan. A gold Kinnara was found in Surigao. Other gold relics include rings, jewellery chains, inscribed gold sheets, and gold plaques with repoussé images of Hindu deities.