Post by RayAdillO on Sept 29, 2008 3:43:12 GMT -5
Here's a very interesting article concerning Vicente Dizon whom I personally consider as the father of Philippine military art.
I never knew he actually beat Salvador Dali in an open competition, that's amazing. I wonder if the painting he did in the photo below survived. He must have made dozens more of such battle scenes which we will probably never see.
THE surrealist painter Salvador Dali, best known for his masterpiece The Persistence of Memory, lost to a Kapampangan painter in an international painting competition held in the US in 1939.
The world-famous Spanish painter (Dali) and the Kapampangan Vicente Alvarez Dizon both submitted entries to the International Competition on Contemporary Art at the Gallery of Science and Art at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, California. It was sponsored by New York's International Business Machines Corporation (now known for its acronym, IBM). It drew entries from 79 countries.
Another contestant was the French master Maurice Utrillo.
Utrillo's entry, "Church of St. Aignan at Chartes" did not even make it to the finals. Salvador Dali's painting, "Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape" was awarded second prize. First prize went to the Kapampangan's entry, "After the Day's Toil," a rustic scene showing a farmer's family on their way back from the field.
It was a stunning victory for Filipinos, but it wasn't the only one. A few weeks earlier, another Filipino painter, Fernando Amorsolo, also won first prize in another IBM-sponsored art competition, held at the World Fair in New York.
Those were golden years, the 1930s, the decade before the global conflagration that was World War II. Fairs and carnivals were being held everywhere, like the Golden Gate Exposition on the US West Coast where Vicente Alvarez Dizon won, and the World Fair on the East Coast where Amorsolo won. In the Philippines, there was the Manila Carnival, which started beauty pageants in the country. In Pampanga, there was the Pampanga Carnival in 1933, which remains unparalleled even up to this day. Every town was given a pavilion where their arts and crafts were put on display, and the municipal governments pulled all stops to outdo each other in design and product innovation.
In those times of prosperity, artists like Dizon and Amorsolo naturally thrived. But Dizon was the first to note the irony that the Philippines was a country of many art geniuses and no art aficionados. While artists of world-class caliber like Dizon and Amorsolo mushroomed, the appreciative masses were nowhere to be found. Thus, Dizon suggested that art appreciation be made a part of the curriculum in public schools. "In this way," he wrote, "an aesthetic sense and appreciation for the arts will be awakened in the early life of our youth."
He wrote two books on the subject matter, Living as an Art and Art Education and Appreciation, which was used as a textbook at the National Teachers College.
Dizon said that aside from education, a cohesive museum system should be established in the Philippines so that local museums are not mere storage of art works but dynamic exhibit areas so that people from all walks of life could truly understand and appreciate art. The public, especially the poor, he said, needed "an institution, a civic center -- a museum where they may go during Sundays or their free hours, instead of going to gambling houses and dancing saloons."
Nothing much has changed since the 1930s. Filipinos still prefer to spend all their weekend hours in the mall.
Museums and art galleries are visited only by the high-brow, high-heeled cultural set and by schoolchildren on field trips who are in a hurry to get to their next stop, you guessed it, the mall.
Vicente Alvarez Dizon was born to Kapampangan parents in Malate in 1905. At 16, he was already a paid illustrator for prewar magazines like Graphic, Free Press, Woman's Home Journal and Liwayway (where he illustrated the stories of Lola Basyang).
He won first prize in an art exhibition held at the Manila Carnival of 1927. The following year, he graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Fine Arts, where he was head caricaturist of the Philippine Collegian. After graduation, Dizon immersed himself in research on indigenous costumes. He executed 39 watercolor paintings he collectively entitled "Filipino Costumes 1500-1935." His work earned him the recognition of his peers as well as a scholarship from Yale University in Connecticut, where he eventually graduated with the degree Bachelor of Fine Arts after only one-and-a-half years (instead of the usual three).
Lord Barnby, president of the London University, also offered him the then huge sum of US$10,000 for his paintings of native costumes, which Dizon declined.
While at Yale, Dizon became the first Filipino artist invited to become a member of the National Geographic Society of America in recognition of his historical costume paintings, and won first prize in Major Bowes' Amateur Hour program over NBC by playing musical instruments.
When he returned to the Philippines, he taught at the National Teachers College and at the Mapua Institute of Technology; he was also a member of the committee tasked to reorganize the UP School of Fine Arts.
The vastly talented Dizon introduced finger painting in the Philippines, which he propagated throughout the country through lectures and demonstrations. He was also known for his "chalk talk" lectures copied by many today, in which someone from the audience is asked to sketch any form or line on the blackboard and the artist would transform it into a meaningful figure.
But "After the Day's Toil" continues to be Dizon's greatest legacy. After the competition, the painting went on a world tour of IBM offices, including the one in Ermita, Manila, before going on permanent display at the IBM Gallery of Fine Arts in New York. In 1968, IBM unloaded some of its art collections to American art galleries. The Dizon painting went to Hirschi Adler Gallery in New York, which sold it to an anonymous collector. It has since disappeared from public view.
Dizon stayed in Angeles, marrying Ma. Ines Henson, sister of historian Mariano A. Henson. Among his children are local historians and painters Daniel Dizon and Josie D. Henson. He died Oct. 19, 1847 at 42.
www.sunstar.com.ph/static/pam...t.gallery.html
I never knew he actually beat Salvador Dali in an open competition, that's amazing. I wonder if the painting he did in the photo below survived. He must have made dozens more of such battle scenes which we will probably never see.
THE surrealist painter Salvador Dali, best known for his masterpiece The Persistence of Memory, lost to a Kapampangan painter in an international painting competition held in the US in 1939.
The world-famous Spanish painter (Dali) and the Kapampangan Vicente Alvarez Dizon both submitted entries to the International Competition on Contemporary Art at the Gallery of Science and Art at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, California. It was sponsored by New York's International Business Machines Corporation (now known for its acronym, IBM). It drew entries from 79 countries.
Another contestant was the French master Maurice Utrillo.
Utrillo's entry, "Church of St. Aignan at Chartes" did not even make it to the finals. Salvador Dali's painting, "Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape" was awarded second prize. First prize went to the Kapampangan's entry, "After the Day's Toil," a rustic scene showing a farmer's family on their way back from the field.
It was a stunning victory for Filipinos, but it wasn't the only one. A few weeks earlier, another Filipino painter, Fernando Amorsolo, also won first prize in another IBM-sponsored art competition, held at the World Fair in New York.
Those were golden years, the 1930s, the decade before the global conflagration that was World War II. Fairs and carnivals were being held everywhere, like the Golden Gate Exposition on the US West Coast where Vicente Alvarez Dizon won, and the World Fair on the East Coast where Amorsolo won. In the Philippines, there was the Manila Carnival, which started beauty pageants in the country. In Pampanga, there was the Pampanga Carnival in 1933, which remains unparalleled even up to this day. Every town was given a pavilion where their arts and crafts were put on display, and the municipal governments pulled all stops to outdo each other in design and product innovation.
In those times of prosperity, artists like Dizon and Amorsolo naturally thrived. But Dizon was the first to note the irony that the Philippines was a country of many art geniuses and no art aficionados. While artists of world-class caliber like Dizon and Amorsolo mushroomed, the appreciative masses were nowhere to be found. Thus, Dizon suggested that art appreciation be made a part of the curriculum in public schools. "In this way," he wrote, "an aesthetic sense and appreciation for the arts will be awakened in the early life of our youth."
He wrote two books on the subject matter, Living as an Art and Art Education and Appreciation, which was used as a textbook at the National Teachers College.
Dizon said that aside from education, a cohesive museum system should be established in the Philippines so that local museums are not mere storage of art works but dynamic exhibit areas so that people from all walks of life could truly understand and appreciate art. The public, especially the poor, he said, needed "an institution, a civic center -- a museum where they may go during Sundays or their free hours, instead of going to gambling houses and dancing saloons."
Nothing much has changed since the 1930s. Filipinos still prefer to spend all their weekend hours in the mall.
Museums and art galleries are visited only by the high-brow, high-heeled cultural set and by schoolchildren on field trips who are in a hurry to get to their next stop, you guessed it, the mall.
Vicente Alvarez Dizon was born to Kapampangan parents in Malate in 1905. At 16, he was already a paid illustrator for prewar magazines like Graphic, Free Press, Woman's Home Journal and Liwayway (where he illustrated the stories of Lola Basyang).
He won first prize in an art exhibition held at the Manila Carnival of 1927. The following year, he graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Fine Arts, where he was head caricaturist of the Philippine Collegian. After graduation, Dizon immersed himself in research on indigenous costumes. He executed 39 watercolor paintings he collectively entitled "Filipino Costumes 1500-1935." His work earned him the recognition of his peers as well as a scholarship from Yale University in Connecticut, where he eventually graduated with the degree Bachelor of Fine Arts after only one-and-a-half years (instead of the usual three).
Lord Barnby, president of the London University, also offered him the then huge sum of US$10,000 for his paintings of native costumes, which Dizon declined.
While at Yale, Dizon became the first Filipino artist invited to become a member of the National Geographic Society of America in recognition of his historical costume paintings, and won first prize in Major Bowes' Amateur Hour program over NBC by playing musical instruments.
When he returned to the Philippines, he taught at the National Teachers College and at the Mapua Institute of Technology; he was also a member of the committee tasked to reorganize the UP School of Fine Arts.
The vastly talented Dizon introduced finger painting in the Philippines, which he propagated throughout the country through lectures and demonstrations. He was also known for his "chalk talk" lectures copied by many today, in which someone from the audience is asked to sketch any form or line on the blackboard and the artist would transform it into a meaningful figure.
But "After the Day's Toil" continues to be Dizon's greatest legacy. After the competition, the painting went on a world tour of IBM offices, including the one in Ermita, Manila, before going on permanent display at the IBM Gallery of Fine Arts in New York. In 1968, IBM unloaded some of its art collections to American art galleries. The Dizon painting went to Hirschi Adler Gallery in New York, which sold it to an anonymous collector. It has since disappeared from public view.
Dizon stayed in Angeles, marrying Ma. Ines Henson, sister of historian Mariano A. Henson. Among his children are local historians and painters Daniel Dizon and Josie D. Henson. He died Oct. 19, 1847 at 42.
www.sunstar.com.ph/static/pam...t.gallery.html