Our shared heritage

Fernando Amorsolo’s 1944 masterpiece, ‘Atardecer,’ is one of 16 artworks currently on exhibit at the UP Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural HeritageAs the Lopez Museum and Library (LML) commemorates its 65th anniversary, it not only reflects on its storied legacy but also marks a significant milestone in the museum’s engagement with the public. The exhibition “The Patrimony of All: Ang Panublion Sang Tanan” hosted by the University of the Philippines Visayas Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage in Iloilo represents the institution’s first-ever loan of artworks to a Philippine museum outside Metro Manila. This historic gesture extends the reach of significant works from the nation’s artistic heritage, making accessible the paintings of Juan Luna, Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo and Juan Arellano—figures whose oeuvres shaped late 19th and early 20th century Philippine visual culture.

In the curatorial text, Dr. Patrick Flores articulates his concept for the show.

“Inspired by the words of the quintessential patriot Jose Rizal, the exhibition lives by the promise of the Filipino artistic talent being the ‘patrimony of all.’ Rizal exalted Luna and Hidalgo in Madrid in 1884 when both painters were conferred high honors at an international exposition. ‘Genius knows no country,’ Rizal exclaimed; it is the inheritance of everyone, present in nature and the birthright of both people and homeland deserving the fullness of freedom. This exhibition presents a survey of works from exemplars in Philippine art from the late nineteenth century to the early part of the twentieth. Juan Luna, Félix Resurrección Hidalgo, Fernando Amorsolo, and Juan Arellano painted what they saw and felt around them but also conversed with what was being imagined elsewhere in the world. Around Academic Realism and Impressionism, they layered their distinct visions of colonial allegory, the native sunlight, and the dreamwork of the primeval and the future.”

By invoking Rizal’s assertion that artistic genius transcends borders and belongs to all, the exhibition situates these works within a broader discourse of national inheritance and cultural patrimony. Yet, beyond their symbolic significance, these paintings also function as tangible links to the past, bridging the artistic aspirations of their creators with the audiences who have encountered them over time.

Canonical works

For Iloilo, a region endowed with institutions dedicated to historical and material culture, this exhibition is particularly momentous. While its museums preserve vital narratives of heritage, the opportunity to encounter canonical works of Philippine art has been limited.

“The Patrimony of All” offers viewers in the region an unprecedented engagement with the visual legacies of artists integral to the shaping of Filipino identity. Here, the presence of the original—its materiality, its aura—becomes a crucial factor in experiencing the art. In an age increasingly dominated by digital reproduction, when the virtual is substituted for the real, the encounter with the physical object is imbued with a sense of immediacy: the tactility of brushstrokes, the nuances of layering and the luminosity of pigment form an unmediated dialogue between viewer and artwork. The paintings that have been beheld across generations are artifacts of continuity, bridging the past with the present.

Each artist included in the exhibition offers a distinct lens through which to navigate the nation’s evolving conception of itself. Hidalgo’s allegorical compositions represent the social and political upheavals of the colonial period as poetic visual narratives. The works confront contemporary audiences with the reality that political turmoil has been a constant throughout Philippine history. His painting “Per Pacem et Libertatem” commissioned by the US government for the infamous 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair serves as a stark reminder of the nation’s complex and often fraught entanglements with global powers. The work underscores the enduring negotiations of sovereignty that continue to shape the Philippines’ geopolitical position, whether in relation to the US, China or others that seek to assert their influence in the region.

Aligned with LML mission

Luna, most known to Filipino audiences for his dramatic and monumental “Spoliarium,” is represented in a more intimate mode, capturing scenes of everyday life in Europe. Like many Filipinos throughout history, he keenly observed the culture into which he was transplanted, adapting in ways that allowed him to assimilate. His work recalls the experience of being a foreigner—an encounter familiar to many Filipinos today, whether as migrant workers, expatriates or individuals navigating life in an unfamiliar cultural landscape.

Amorsolo, whose work celebrated the rural, conceived of Philippine identity as rooted in the provincial.

His sun-drenched pastoral scenes, often thought of as nostalgic idealizations, remain relevant today as reminders of the country’s natural heritage, which persists beyond the congested urban centers. In places like Iloilo, such landscapes are not mere vestiges of the past but part of everyday life, underscoring the need to safeguard them alongside material cultural heritage.

Arellano’s impressionistic landscapes reflect the synthesis of foreign influences and native sensibilities, mirroring the experience of Filipinos who study or work abroad and later return home, infusing not just creative practices but various facets of contemporary life with the perspectives they have gained elsewhere.

Ultimately, the exhibition aligns with the LML’s mission of cultivating in the Filipino people an awareness of a common history and sense of shared destiny. By bringing these works beyond the confines of Metro Manila, “The Patrimony of All” enacts a gesture of inclusivity, reinforcing the idea that national heritage is not confined to institutions but is the inheritance of all Filipinos. In doing so, it affirms the museum’s role not only as a custodian of historical material but as a participant in the shaping of national consciousness.

Installation shots of ‘The Patrimony of All: Ang Panublion Sang Tanan’ featuring the section on Juan Luna

The section on Fernando Amorsolo

The Juan Arellano and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo sections

Hidalgo’s ‘El Asesinato del Gobernador Bustamante y su Hijo’ (1900), whose final, much larger version hangs in the National Museum of the Philippines ‘Per Pacem et Libertatem’ by Hidalgo: This is the study for a much larger artwork that was hung in the Ayuntamiento in Manila but was destroyed during the bombing at the end of World War II ;