FELIX RESURRECCION HIDALGO: A QUIET ARTIST IN THE LIMELIGHT

UNEDITED SAMPLE FEATURE ARTICLE
By Vladimir Paat Villegas
IV – Sir Isaac Newton


When Juan Luna won the gold medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition, a Filipino painter shared with him the limelight by securing the second place. It was non-other than Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo (“The Consumate Artist”, 1996).

He was born in Binondo, Manila on Feb 21, 1855 as the third of the seven children of Eduardo Resurreccion Hidalgo and Maria Barbara Padilla (“Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo”, 1996; Ocampo, 2008). He was reared by an upper-class family as showed by a commissioned portrait by Antonio Malantic, one of the most famous portrait painters those times (Ocampo, 2008). The portrait, finished in 1859, was named Narciso Hidalgo and his grandson; however, it was now known better as Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and his grandfather (Ocampo, 2008).

There were no presented records of his early education, but there was a presumption of either a private tutor was hired or his mother, who formerly attended the Escuela Municipal de Manila (now known as Ateneo de Manila University) was the one who first taught him. All that was known was that he finished with a Bachelor in Philosophy at the University of Sto Tomas in 1871. He, as not well known, was implicated in a student demonstration that gained significance that followed the “Terror of 1872”. It was a period of grim which wiped out a whole generation of prominent people, as described by the historian O D Corpuz, which started at the martyrdom of the Gomburza (Ocampo, 2008).

This terror then let Hidalgo retire to his studio and devote his life to painting. He then enrolled in the Manila Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura (Manila School of Drawing and Painting), which was run by Agustin Saez. It was said that Juan Luna also studied here briefly and, according to different books, either left or was expelled for Saez was a good but not a kind of a nice teacher (Ocampo, 2008).

Here, he was trained very well. At first, he had an inferiority complex of being a probinsyano and was disappointed with the school and his classmates. But later, he told that “We lost our fear upon seeing the work of students here. We were greatly disenchanted on the other hand because we would like to have people who have more mettle as our classmates than the ones attending now for they would have served as stimulus to us (Ocampo, 2008).”

Hidalgo then won the second place when Domingo Vidal y Soler held a contest for the frontispiece of Manuel Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas. He would have probably won the contest if Saez did not compete with his own students. The frontispiece he made was not that extant, but a reader will find plates done by him upon going through the work (Ocampo, 2008).

The disappointment he had with his formal schooling was made up by living in the capital and being exposed to the Museo del Prado. He said: “I do not want to tell you about the museum because I have no more time. I will only tell you that it contains the most valuable collection of paintings, more than 30000, that is found in Europe. One leaves that building with a headache and despair in the soul because one is convince of the little he knows, that one is not even an atom compared with the colossi of art (Ocampo, 2008).” [Italics Mine]

It was also said that he must have even shown his talents earlier in Mania for some of his works were sent to the 1879 Philadelphia Exposition. With not much more to learn or to escape the “Terror”, he went to Spain and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. It was also the same school where other Filipino artists like Esteban Villanueva, Manuel Zaragosa, Melecio Figueroa, Juan Luna, Jose Rizal, among others enrolled in (Ocampo, 2008).

No documents could be found now in the academy regarding Hidalgo but he himself was the one to provide the information in his letter to his friends on Oct 15, 1879. It then reads: “Our professor in the class of ancient painting and drapery from 8 to 10 is Mr Espalter; in that of coloring from 10 to 12, Mr Federico Madrazo; in that of pictorial anatomy from 1 to 2, Mr Ignacio Llanos; and in that of natural from 6:30 to 8:30 in the evening, Mr Carlos Ribera (Ocampo, 2008).” [Italics Mine]

He then added; “They are very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study [in Manila] with Mr Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here. The only difference is that there you draw and paint much more comfortably because you have the entire room. Here, we can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model, who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form (Ocampo, 2008).” [Italics Mine]

He also advised Rizal and Anson: “Do not lose your courage and follow the advice of our dear professor, Agustin Saez, and in that way you will advance greatly in such a difficult study that of painting (Ocampo, 2008).”

Like Juan Luna, who left Madrid for Rome to work with Alejo Vera, Hidalgo joined the company of Spanish painters in the Eternal City. It was there where was immersed in the history and stories of ancient Rome, thus producing the painting Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho (Christian Virgins Exposed to the Mob). It won a silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, where Juan Luna won the gold medal for Spoliarium. From then on, he would always be a quiet shadow to Luna. From then on, Luna and Hidalgo became the first international Filipino painters (Ocampo, 2008).

The roads then led them to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, a commemoration of the glories of the French Revolution. Through this, they saw the Eiffel Tower. Hidalgo, with Luna, even established ateliers in 65 Boulevard Arago in a building called Cite Fleury, which stands still and is rented out exclusively to artists, painters, and sculptors. The building could be located; however, no one knows which apartments they occupied (Ocampo, 2008).

There were two other known paintings of him – the Assassination of Governor Bustamante (Church Against the State) and La Loba Negra (The Black Wolf) (Ocampo, 2008).

The first one was requested by Antonio Ma Regidor. It depicted the rousing of Governor Bustamante from his sleep in the year 1719 after he had Archbishop Francisco de la Cuesta of Manila thrown into jail. The Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians came out from their convents carrying crucifixes and shouting “Long Live the Church! Long Live King Philip V!” He then ordered the discharging of the artillery from the fort upon knowing that a mob would come, but the cannons were aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort. The mob then climbed up, dragging down the governor in ropes as if he is to be exorcised and breaking his right arm and a saber blow on his head caused him to fall like one dead. His son who tried to intervene was also killed that night (Ocampo, 2008).

That was the story of his painting narrated by an eyewitness, but when Regidor asked him to paint the scene, his imagination wandered. The crowd was depicted as a pack of furious religious identifiable by their distinctive habits, most prominent being Dominicans whom Hidalgo knew in the University of Sto Tomas (Ocampo, 2008).

The story of the first painting then spawned the second painting, which was once attributed to Fr Jose Burgos, which was available in manuscript doubted by scholars and translated from the original Spanish into English by the ex-Jesuit Hilario Lim. The story was however intriguing because the black she-wolf murdered friars at night as the avenging widow of Bustamante. The painter then later clarified that the painting referred not to Burgos, but to Jose E_____ Marco of Negros, whose forgeries were so successful that aside from La Loba Negra, he created Kalantiaw, a lawmaker predating the Spanish conquest (Ocampo, 2008).

Hidalgo then died on Mar 13, 1913 in Sarrea, Spain (“Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo”, 1996). His work, the Assassination, was exhibited twice in the last century: in 1974 at the National Museum and in 1989 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila (Ocampo, 2008). Today, it was covered with scaffolding as it undergoes restoration and cleaning (Ocampo, 2008).

N B This article was written using the American Psychological Association documentation format. List of resources is available upon request



REFERENCES

(1996) Felix Ressureccion Hidalgo. In V S Almario, et al (Eds), Filway’s Philippine Almanac (pp 71, 124) Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Filway Marketing, Inc

(1996) Juan Luna: The Consummate Artist. In V S Almario, et al (Eds), Filway’s Philippine Almanac (pp 71, 124) Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines: Filway Marketing, Inc

Ocampo, A (2008, October). France in our heroes’ eyes Looking Back Retrieved October 1, 2008 from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Ocampo, A (2008, October). A gifted painter now almost forgotten Looking Back Retrieved October 3, 2008 from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Ocampo, A (2008, October). The education of Hidalgo Looking Back Retrieved October 8, 2008 from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Ocampo, A (2008, October). The mob of 1719 Looking Back Retrieved October 10, 2008 from the Philippine Daily Inquirer.