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The "world of the text"
I would like to go deeper into the notion of the "world of the text." A painting, through what is unique to it, brings about in the
viewer an experience, a sensation similar to that felt by the artist. What the viewer experiences is a singular feeling not unlike the
painter's singular feeling upon recognizing that the work succeeds in expressing his unique experience. What accounts for the success of
the painting? The artist, who grapples with the problem of conveying a unique feeling is able to respond with a unique gesture
commensurate to the unique feeling. One can understand this better by relating it to the artist's unique style. Why is it that after
a while, we are able to immediately recognize an H. R. Ocampo, a Luz, an Ang Kiukok painting? Each one of them expresses the singular
feeling which the artist alone at that very moment is experiencing. Now, if the artist has been successful in expressing his unique
feeling, nowhere is this unique feeling accessible except in the work of art. His work embodies the emotion which has since gone.
Ricoeur calls this emotive feeling which the work of art successfully expresses "mood." "Mood" is a unique way of inhabiting the world
here and now. It is this possibility which the artist offers to the viewer through his work.
Through the work of art, the incommunicable experience of the artist becomes communicable to others. What is astonishing is that there
is something universal in the singular. In Ricoeur's words, the unique work of art "iconically augments" the incommunicable experience of
the artist. What is communicable in Hernando R. Ocampo's 53-G (Beefsteak) (1953) and 53-Q (Sarimanok) (1953) is the appropriateness of the
means used to create these works which do not represent real things in the world but which express the unique feeling experienced by Ocampo
at a particular moment.
The universality to which the work aspires to do justice is only possible by its taking the route of singularity. In modern abstract
art or nonfigurative painting, it is the immediate'singular experience which is conveyed beyond the known conventional rules of composition.
The universality of the work of art goes beyond its formal rules of Composition. Already in a figurative painting, there is a surplus in
relation to these conventional rules agreed upon which forces us to admire the painting above the rest. One can say that abstract art
frees what is already the true aesthetic aspect of figurative art which remains veiled by the function of representation. It is perhaps
when the concern with internal composition alone is detached from the representative function that the manifestation of a world takes
place. Once the work goes beyond representation, the work expresses the world in a different manner. The work presents a new world; it
unfolds a new way of becoming human.
Strange as it may seem, we begin to see a painting when we see what is not seen-the world of plenitude in Manansala's Still Life with
Green Guitar (1952), the world of elegance and symmetry in Luz' Carnival Forms I ( 1956) and City (1959), the world of childhood and
naivete in Medalla's My Sister at the Sewing Machine (1956), the world of exuberance and spontaneity in Zóbel's Castilla VIII (1960).
Bibliography
Torres (Emmanuel), "The Fifties: The Rise of Neo-Realism," in Art Philippines, edited by
Juan T. Gatbonton et al. (Manila: The Crucible Workshop, 1992), pp.117-169
Torres (Emmanuel), Philippine Abstract Painting (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994), III - 69 p.
Kalaw-Ledesma (Purita), The Biggest Little Room (Manila: Kalaw-Ledesma Art Foundation, 1987), 173 p.
Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2001), 1189 p.
Ricoeur (Paul), Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Forth Worth, Texas: The Texas Christian University Press, 1976), xii-107 p.
Ricoeur (Paul), Time and Narrative, Vols. I - III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, 1985, 1988).
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Lopez Memorial Museum » Artscene: Zero-In: Private Art, Public Lives: Refiguring Modern Philippine Art
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