Carlos V. Francisco (1912 - 1969)
Moriones Festival
signed and dated 1966 (upper left)
oil on canvas
48" x 34" (122 cm x 86 cm)

PROPERTY FROM THE ARCH. AND MRS. JORGE RAMOS COLLECTION

PROVENANCE Commissioned by Alejandro R. Roces from the Artist; Subsequently acquired from the Collection of Alejandro R. Roces by Arch. Jorge Y. Ramos Listed in the handwritten roster by Salvador Juban, Carlos “Botong” V. Francisco’s assistant, of Botong’s works from 1959 to 1969.

LITERATUREManuel D, Duldulao, The Philippine Art Scene.Vera-Reyes Inc. 1977. Full-color illustration onpage 255; and catalogued in the captiondescription, also on page 255.

Born before the War, Jorge Y. Ramos was a child of Old Manila. He would receive his first education at the Burgos Elementary School in Sta. Mesa from 1945 to 1949, moving on to the Mapua Institute of Technology for high school at its campus on Doroteo Jose in Sta. Cruz and finishing in 1953.. He would enroll at the University of Santo Tomas college of architecture, then helmed by Victorio Edades, and each year would reap a gold medal for excellence in design, graduating in 1957. Ramos would receive a scholarship to take an architectural tour of Japan. He would receive various commissions after his return, including the design of the Executive Branch Building of the Philippine Government, Quezon City, Philippines; the home of Sen. Alejandro Almendras in Greenhills, San Juan; the Samson Boats Showroom and Factory in Parañaque; the Mr. Horilleno Residence on Katipunan Avenue, White Plains, Quezon City; and the Carmelo and Bauermann Printing Press and Offices on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Makati. Arch. Ramos would depart to pursue a master’s degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1960. He would join the American firm Kemp, Bunch and Jackson Architectural Office in Jacksonville, Florida; working on such projects as the Jacksonville Civic Auditorium, the Barnett National Bank, the Walt Disney World master plan in Orlando, and the Deerwood Golf and Country Club, among others.In 1963, he would return to teach as a professor of design in his beloved UST; but would soon be busy with many projects including the vice-governor’s office for Benigno Aquino Jr.; the residence and offices of Pedro Cojuangco at Hacienda Luisita; the interiors of the Ang Tibay Shoe Store on Escolta, Manila; duties in Malacañang Palace as decorator for special events; the design of more private residences for the Castañeda, Tiaoqui, Bautista, and Ferrer families; the First United Bank interiors; the Karilagan Finishing School, the Manila Bank Building and the Clavecilla Building; the Central Azucarera Tarlac Building on Ayala Avenue; and the homes of Atty. Napoleon Rama and Jose Cojuangco. By the 1970s, he would be responsible for the design of the Heart Center and the Lung Center; the Quiapo Mosque; the Baguio Convention Center; the Paoay Golf and Country Club; the Luna Brothers Museum in Laoag; McArthur’s Landing Park; the Lungsod ng Kabataan (Children’s Hospital); the Kidney Center, and the renovation of the Philippine General Hospital, to name a few. His many awards included recognition as Cartier Architect of the Year, 1979; Passive Solar Design Award for the Government Service Insurance System Headquarters Building at the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, 1982; Key to the City of Los Angeles for The Patronage of the Arts and Architecture Los Angeles, California,; Owens-Corning Excellence in Design and Energy Conservation, New York City, 1983; City of Manila, Architect of the Year, 1983; and University of Santo Tomas’ Outstanding Thomasian Alumnus Award in Architecture, 2001.He would be a member of the Board of Trustees of UST College of Architecture; as well as the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He would also endow the College of Architecture with a perpetual scholarship grant. Arch. Ramos would also be involved in various international projects in Asia and the Middle East.When you talk about provenance — or the record or chronology of a piece of art — there is none more powerful and as rare as having the face of the owner painted into it. Not that this work’s impeccable and distinguished provenance needs it, but it also appears in a handwritten list made by Botong’s dependable assistant, Salvador Juban, of works made during his term from 1959 to 1969, the year of the maestro’s untimely death. The roster, still preserved, contains the entry, “Moriones (Anding).” For such is the case with the work Moriones or Moriones Festival painted by Carlos “Botong” Francisco — and the fellow who commissioned this piece, his friend and ally in the business of making Filipino culture bigger and more outsize, ever more symbolic of all things good about the Philippines, Alejandro “Anding” Roces (1924-2011) One can see Anding Roces himself standing at the top right, as an all-seeing witness, dapper and mustachioed, dressed in a formal shirt and holding just the hint of the outline of a panama hat. Both men were symbol-makers, master iconographers whose vision intersected in the subject of the Filipino fiesta. Roces, the man who had singlehandedly propelled the shift from our independence day from the American Fourth of July to June 12, was a believer in the power of such symbols. He also believed that the Filipino fiesta was a portal to the Filipino soul. In it lay our history but also our national character, cradling our hopes, dreams, foibles and intentions — and therefore our destiny. Both men also believed that to be successful players on the international stage, we need not look further than to ourself, to be nothing more than ourself, and to be true to that self Moriones was painted in 1966. It was a new age of Filipinism, whose stage was set by not least of all, Anding Roces who was Secretary of Education from 1962 to 1965 and Botong, who was enjoying a second wind as the nation’s leading maker of heroic figures. At the time this was created, Botong had been painting for a good thirty years, he was fundamentally established, certainly revered. (A decade or so later, the artwork would be acquired by another man who also participated in creating some of our country’s indelible landmarks, Architect Jorge Ramos, who designed the Heart Center, the Quiapo Mosque, and the Baguio Convention Center among many others.) Anding Roces would also singlehandedly bring to national — and one dares say international attention — the richness of the Filipino fiesta. In particular, he championed two : The Ati-atihan and the Moriones festival of Marinduque. He would thus earn for himself the title, the “National Hermano Mayor”, the term for the fellow who organizes the town fiesta and also foots the bill. Botong was honed by Victorio Edades in the making of magnificent murals. It was Edades who had introduced him to the works of the Mexican master Diego Rivera but it was Botong who would make the masterpieces all his own. This microcosm of the Moriones is an unusual work: First of all because it is easel size — a “grail” picture in its own right, elusive because Botong painted so few of these dimensions; and secondly, even more so because of its vertical composition, when most of Botong’s works sprawl horizontally. One can presume he did so to match the portrait he painted of Anding that he painted a couple of years earlier in 1964, which references not just the Moriones but all his other cultural passions. (These include the pintakasi cockfights, the ritual dances of the Tagbanua tribe of Palawan, and yes, Botong’s very own higantes from the fiesta of his own hometown of Angono.) In a valuable photograph of Anding Roces’ home, immortalized in The Philippine Art Scene (Manuel D. Duldulao, published by Vera-Reyes Inc, 1977) by one sees both of these astonishing works hanging on the same wall like book-ends. The caption reads: “Friendship with Carlos Francisco explains the reason why the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Alejandro R. Roces is strong on Botongs. The hallway shows Francisco’s Execution of Rizal, a study for a mural detail Flute, a portrait of Roces and Moriones, one of the artist’s few easel paintings.” In Moriones, one sees how Botong has been quite inventive in composing his cornucopia of images, a device he used to create perspective as well as a richness of metaphor. Famous for doing his due diligence in researching a subject, Botong had been tinkering with the idea of the Moriones for much of the 1960s : A watercolor sketch form 1962 and in the possession of the GSIS Museum is one of his earliest works on the theme. There is one other, dated 1963 in the collection of the United Coconut Planters Bank; and the pair of works made for Roces from 1964 and 1966. Botong was equally notorious at taking his time to complete a commission. The word moriones, theorized Roces, is believed to be derived from the name of “the visorless, high-crested helmets with turned-up edges” worn by Magellan and the Spanish conquistadors. It might also possibly be a corruption of “centurion”, the Roman officers who commanded a “century” or 100 men, he noted. The Moriones tells the story of one centurion : Longinus of the Holy Spear, the half-blind soldier who pierced Christ’s side at Calvary; where drops of the blood flowing from the Savior’s wound touched his eye and restored his sight. He would thus become a believer and sadly, be beheaded for his conversion. The oneeyed soldier’s mask fallen to the ground conveys that denouement The painting is brimming with many such details of the fiesta, first played out in the mid-1800s by the people of the town of Mogpog, where the observance is said to have been brought by a Jesuit priest from Mexico. Masks carved from coral wood are painted with the round eyes, long noses and full black beards imagined to belong to Roman legionnaires. Horse bristles, painted or otherwise, belts, swords and scabbards, armored breastplates of cardboard and cloth complete the entire passion-play’s illusion. There are many ‘masks’ to be found in this painting: There is Veronica standing at the top, holding the veil that would capture the imprint of Christ’s face; while other characters wear cloth kerchiefs to cover their faces as well. It was traditionally important to keep one’s anonymity in this fiesta; so much so that the practice of distributing numbers to be worn throughout the occasion was supposedly introduced at the time of the Revolution to distinguish the town’s devotees from Katipunan insurrectionists who would enter the town in disguise. (Botong may have found out about this tidbit from Anding’s research: there is a playful sketch of a morion with the letters ‘KKK’ written across his breastplate.) Traditionally, only the number of flowers on their helmets would disclose how many years they had pledged to participate in the proceedings, or how many wishes they longed to be granted. The number ‘2’ in the painting may be a cipher in reference to Botong’s ‘Banda Numero Dos’ which he put together to play at the town’s festivities. (Banda Numero Uno belonged to Levi Celerio, the other famous son of Angono and a fellow national artist.) The central morion is almost identical to the one in Anding’s portrait, both festooned in the stylized clouds of Chinese origin that can be found in ancient santos as well. The masks of several other devotees are strewn about as they kneel, their heads bowed in fervent prayer. They are “unmasked” — in a sense, uncovered, their Filipino-ness revealed. Anding would write in his landmark book Fiesta (Vera-Reyes Inc., 1980) that the Moriones was the event that represented the Filipino most of all: A “brown American hidden by a Spanish mask” said in his most jocular but truthful manner. Ultimately, this painting is about thanksgiving — because the Moriones devotees do not join s as an act of penance but in appreciation of favors received. It is also about trust and belief — as well as that equally elusive thing, the Filipino identity. It is as if both Botong and Anding say in one voice, that we all wear masks to survive in the world — but who is to say if underneath that mask — lies our authentic, true selves, the real Filipino.