Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

Drawing a Saga: Professor Cañete Pens New Book on Amadeo Manalad and ‘The Philippine Saga’

Details

“Amadeo Y. Manalad: Drawing a Saga,” a book by Dr. Reuben Ramas Cañete, UP Artist and Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman, has been launched recently by Saga Publishing, Philippines.

In the book, Professor Cañete examines Manalad’s contributions that form part of "The Philippine Saga," an ambitious collection of 481  “illustrations, portraits, photographs, and maps” that collectively provides a grand sweep of Philippine history from the Pleistocene era to the Philippine-American war.

First published in serial form in The Evening News in 1947 and based on texts by the anthropologist, H. Otley Beyer and historian, Jaime de Veyra, the illustrations of the Philippine Saga were later compiled in a book.

"Drawing a Saga" reproduces Manalad’s 262 compositions, all of which Manalad remarkably completed in a month; sixty-seven are original while the rest are renditions of other artists’ work. The book also contains Professor Cañete’s discussion of the Saga’s historical and artistic merit; he examines the style, medium, and other formal elements of Manalad’s illustrations,’ which betray the influence of modernist art and Muralism.

He notes that “the ink wash renderings are equally vivid. Their strong sense of line, heightened by tonal contrast between black and white, with strategic uses of ink wash, creates an almost relief-like quality…” (23). And “his neo-classical use of line, stable pyramidal composition, balance, and symmetry would be unmatched in modern Philippine Art” (37).

Professor Cañete also looks at Manalad’s “post-war career from muralist to master illustrator” and highlights the political significance of his illustrations, which were commissioned as part of popular nation-building efforts in post-War Philippine society.

Professor Cañete has a Ph.D. in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines Diliman and specializes on political aesthetics, masculinity studies, and the preservation and promotion of local artistic traditions in Cebu and Bulacan.  At present, he is Assistant to the Dean for Research and Publications, and is a member of the Executive Council of the National Committee on Visual Arts, National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Visit his faculty profile.

Photo: Cover of "Drawing a Saga".

The Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. The Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website. For other news and upcoming events at the Asian Center, click here.