antiquated contemporary history. Both tours taught me one thing: history is a tool that, stealing from James Joyce, “shall forge in the smithy of my soul, the uncreated conscience of my race.”
San Agustin Museum
INTRAMUROS—I experience the same nostalgic feeling every time that I visit Intramuros, a city within the walls that became the social, cultural, political, educational, commercial, and the ecclesiastical center of Spain’s empire in the East. It is like being transported back into a time of grandeur and of such cultural and historical significance.
A repository of Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, and Spanish artifacts and religious arts, the San Agustin Museum was a monastery used as a vestry, library, refectory, infirmary, classroom, and living quarters. Unfortunately, the monastery was destroyed by the British forces in 1762, the American forces in 1898, and the Japanese and the American forces in 1941. Its halls were restored and it was converted into a museum in 1973.
Upon entrance at the old porter’s lodge, I saw a 3 400-kilogram bell that was taken from the left belfry of the San Agustin Church in 1927 after an earthquake tore it down in 1863. Adjacent to it is the sala recibidor, formerly a classroom that houses the Luis Maria Araneta Ivory Collection and an Eighteenth Century wooden retablo, which was plated in gold.
From the sala recibidor, the four corridors at the ground floor of the museum display oil paintings that portray saints and celebrities of the Augustinian order. I entered the San Agustin Church that holds the distinction of being the oldest stone church in the Philippines and the only surviving edifice in Intramuros during the World War II. It was built by Juan Macias, a soldier and architect, from 1587 to 1606. Its vaulted dome and ceilings were built in predominantly baroque architecture and were painted by two Italian artists—Dibella and Alberoni—who created an illusion of wooden carvings. I also visited the crypt of Governor General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, Fundador de Manila and the lone conquistador interred in the country.
Also at the ground floor is the sala de la capitulacion that displays statues, church artifacts, and episcopal paraphernalia. In earlier times, it was used as a vestry where Augustinian monks dressed up for liturgical celebrations. It was where Governor General Fermin Juadenes drafted the terms of surrender of the City of Manila to the Americans in 1898. Marked by a frescoed wall and a large wooden door of Aztec-inspired influence, the old sacristy displays statues, paintings, candlesticks, China chest drawers, and grammar books and dictionaries written by Augustinians. A large polychrome Seventeenth Century altar with 22 gold niches, the original retablo of the San Agustin Church carved by Juan de los Santos in 1650, caught my attention.
Augustinians used the sala refectorio as a dining room, and it is where they said their graces before and after meals. In 1939, the prior of the monastery converted a part of the refectory as a mausoleum for Augustinians and other prominent Filipinos. It also houses the Pagrel Collection and the Araneta Collection of Filipino art and liturgical treasures. A monument for those who died during the Japanese occupation stands at the middle of the burial chamber and if you look around, you may find the tomb of Juan Luna y Novicio of the world-famous Spoliarium.
The escalera principal is made up of 44 pieces of piedra china brought from Canton, China, in 1780. A round stone dome covered with light bricks and with six rectangular windows topped the stairways that are draped with Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century oil paintings.
The four corridors at the second floor were restored with white plastered walls, following the Mexican influence of its original structure burned in 1945. At the right side resides the Claustro de San Pablo that displays old paintings and scale models of the Father Manuel Blanco’s Garden and the San Agustin Church and Museum. Numerous paintings of churches built by Augustinians from 1565 to 1898 adorn the San Agustin Hall, which was the old living quarters of major superiors, the prior of the monastery, and other Augustinian Order officials.
At the oratorio, I saw a big lectern with cantorals, 68 choir seats carved in molave with fine inlays, and the Eighteenth Century Pipe Organ. Church vestments highlighted the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century garments worn by officiating priests in various liturgical occasions. Those were embroidered with gold and silver threads, and some boast with hand-painted designs. They were all imported from Spain and China and were preserved to prevent further deterioration.
Ayala Museum
AYALA CENTER—It has been years since I last visited the Ayala Museum. I sighed as I entered its glass and concrete structure along De la Rosa Street in Greenbelt Park, City of Makati. The three-storey edifice—where paintings, dioramas, exhibitions, boat gallery, books and sketches encased in glass, and other collections are housed—gives this uptight, modern, and somewhat formal feeling. If not for its marker displayed outside, one could conclude that it is just another building constructed in the contemporary architectural design, boasting an excellent interior and exterior.
Envisioned in the 1950s by the late artist Fernando Zobel de Ayala y Montojo, the Ayala Museum became a reality in 1967 as the project of the Ayala Foundation Inc., which was then known as the Filipinas Foundation Inc. The museum moved to its new building designed by architect Leandro Y Locsin Jr. and his architectural firm. It was formally dedicated as the Ayala Corporation’s gift to the Filipino people on its 170th anniversary on Sept. 28, 2004.
After paying a PhP35 entrance fee, I made my way up to the second floor using the stairs where 60 exquisitely handcrafted dioramas of wood carvings from Paete, Laguna, were displayed. The diorama experience narrates our country’s history in creative details dating from the primitive period to the recognition of the Philippine Independence by the United States of America on July 4, 1946. A one-of-a-kind boat gallery showcasing models of different vessels that plied on Philippine seas and contributed to the development of the Philippine maritime trade and colonial economy is also exhibited on the same floor. Murals on the floor were put onto view the height differences of some national heroes and former presidents, allowing visitors to compare their statures with them.
Two flights of stairs up, on the third floor, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century masterpieces of internationally famed Juan Luna y Novicio, first great Filipino painter Damian Domingo, National Artist Fernando Cueto Amorsolo, and distinguished abstractionist Fernando Zobel de Ayala y Montojo.
Having been educated in Europe’s fine arts academies, Luna’s predominantly European-themed masterpieces such as the Lady of the Racetrack and the La Marquesa de Monte Olivar aptly demonstrate realism in balance, symmetry, and proportion. Domingo, a Chinese mestizo from the affluent and powerful Domingo-Casas clan, was widely known for his 31 watercolor paintings and for founding the first private art school in Asia in Tondo, Manila, in 1821. He was the director of the Academia de Dibujo, the first visual arts school in Asia that taught the principles of the Western perspective. Amorsolo’s renditions infused with shimmering sunlight, and his smiling images of dalagang bukid defined his impressionistic style of painting. His famous painting, the Early Sulu Wedding, is a work of a genius. Another luminary in Philippine art, Zobel’s sketches and paintings depict abstraction especially in his El Balcon III and his Paisaje Sordo in 1965. Zobel’s pioneering experimentation on non-objectivism and his achievements as an artist, patron, and teacher have profound influence on generations of Philippine artists. He established the Museo de Arte Español in Cuenca, Spain, where he blossomed into an eminent abstractionist. All of these collections form the core of the museum’s anthology that chronicles the rich tapestry of Philippine art and culture.
Though I may not have been able to encapsulate the beauty of what I had seen inside using my camera, the memories of the tour will never leave me. The picturesque dioramas, boat models, and century-old paintings will never lay forgotten. Once more, I became proud of my heritage—a culture so rich and so colorful—enduringly preserved in the present-day times at the Ayala Museum.
