Jose Garcia Villa
 Poet, critic, short story writer, and painter, Jose Garcia Villa was a consummate artist in poetry and in person as well. At parties given him by friends and admirers whenever he came home for a brief visit, things memorable usually happened. Take that scene many years ago at the home of the late Federico Mangahas, a close friend of Villa's. The poet, resplendent in his shiny attire, his belt an ordinary knotted cow's rope, stood at a corner talking with a young woman. Someone in the crowd remarked: "What's the idea wearing a belt like that?" No answer. Only the faint laughter of a woman was heard. Or was it a giggle perhaps? Then there was one evening, with few people around, when he sat down Buddha-like on a semi-marble bench under Dalupan Hall at UE waiting for somebody. That was the year he came home from America to receive a doctor's degree, honoris causa, from FEU. Somebody asked: "What are you doing?" He looked up slowly and answered bemused: "I am just catching up trying to be immoral." Sounded something like that. There was only murmuring among the crowd. They were not sure whether the man was joking or serious. They were awed to learn that he was the famed Jose Garcia Villa. What did the people remember? The Buddha-like posture? Or what he said?That was Villa the artist. There's something about his person or what he does or says that makes people gravitate toward him. Stare at him or listen to him.Villa is the undisputed Filipino supremo of the practitioners of the "artsakists." His followers have diminished in number but are still considerable. Villa was born in Singalong, Manila, on 05 August 1908. His parents were Simeon Villa, personal physician of revolutionary general Emilio Aguinaldo, and Guia Garcia. He graduated from the UP High School in 1925 and enrolled in the pre-med course. He didn't enjoy working on cadavers and so he switched to pre-law, which he didn't like either. A short biography prepared by the Foreign Service Institute said Villa was first interested in painting but turned to writing after reading Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio." Meanwhile, he devoted a good part of his time writing short stories and poems. Soon he started exerting his leadership among the UP writers. His ideas on literature were provocative. He stirred strong feelings. He was thought too individualistic. He published his series of erotic poems, "Man Songs" in 1929. It was too bold for the staid UP administrators, who summarily suspended Villa from the university. He was even fined P70 for "obscenity" by the Manila Court of First Instance. With the P1,000 he won as a prize from the Philippines Free Press for his "Mir-i-Nisa," adjudged the best short story that year (1929), he migrated to the United States. He enrolled at the University of New Mexico where he edited and published a mimeographed literary magazine he founded: Clay. Several young American writers who eventually became famous contributed. Villa wrote several short stories published in prestigious American magazines and anthologies. Here is a partial list of his published books:
On 07 February 1997, Jose Garcia Villa died at a New York hospital, two days after he was found unconscious in his apartment. He was 88. The Department of Foreign Affairs said Villa, popularly known as the "comma poet," died at 12:37 a.m. (New York time) of "cerebral stroke and multilobar pneumonia" at the St. Vincent Hospital in Greenwich. He is survived by his two sons, Randy and Lance, and three grandchildren. Interment was scheduled on Feb. 10 in New York, the DFA said. It added that Villa had expressed the wish to be buried wearing a barong. Though he lived in New York for 67 years, he remained happily a Filipino citizen. |
JOSÉ DEL CASTILLO
(14.10.1737-5.10.1793)
The biography of José del Castillo (Madrid, 14.10.1737-Madrid, 5.10.1793) shows that the artist, being in his youth one of the most appropriate painters for becoming a leader of the artistic movement of the Illustrious Absolutism, ends up performing secondary work, paintings for tapestry and some religious works of art, which was not the field where he could best display his talent. Jose del Castillo is a perfect example of how an unhappy destiny can influence on the professional life of a painter under the regime of that time. Surely the unhappy destiny, in point of fact, does not explain anything and we will have to find out the real reasons why one of the most promising careers in painting of the eighteenth century in Spain was crushed. Probably it was a combination of two unsuccessful elections, from our point of view, that excluded the figure of Jose del Castillo from the elite group of artists of that time.
Out of those two reasons, the first one was due to a change in the artistic likings of the Royal Court in Madrid at that time. Jose del Castillo was a favourite student of Corrado Giaquinto, a painter at the Court of Fernando VI and one of the most eminent representatives of the European baroque. Nevertheless, after the death of Fernando VI and with the contract of Carlos III de Mengs, the court likings turned to the limited and strict Neoclassicism that bohemian painters introduced as a real dictatorship of the likings in the Royal Court of Madrid. The outlook of Jose del Castillo contradicted the new tendencies and that was the reason why he did not have an access to the elite group of the court painters. In spite of the frustration and his incapability to adapt himself to the fashion and become a rather respectable and important painter who could defend his viewpoint and understanding of the art, Jose del Castillo earned his living by the paintings for tapestry, by making different decorations for the Royalty (without being admitted to the group of court painters), and by doing some additional work ordered by politicians and the clergy, which helped him to get enough money to feed his big family but not to get a good position among his fellow painters.
The second reason that accounts for his unsuccessful career consists in the fact that he made mistakes when choosing the patrons who were to prove his talent to the King. After he had failed to join the group of the court painters, Jose del Castillo was trying very hard to get the protection of the Earl of Floridablanca, First Secretary at that time, and with the help and support of that important person to achieve his aim. But he did not know that the most important group of the court painters was formed by the brothers Bayeu and Goya and because of their Aragon origin they were supported by the so-called “Aragon Party”, the leader of which was the Earl of Aranda in Madrid. He was a sworn enemy and a rival of Floridablanca in the control of the monarchical policy in the second half of the reign of Carlos III and during the reign of Carlos IV until Manuel Godoy’s accession to power. The political dispute developped on the level of painting as well and it was going on in two different times an on two different levels, the political and the artistic ones.
The signs of the first conflict can be traced back to 1786 when, after Cornelio Vandergoten’s death, Jose del Castillo aspired to the position of the artistic director of the Royal Tapestry Factory, the “Aragon clan” of Bayeu, in spite of the fact that Castillo was supported by Floridablanca, promoted Ramon Bayeu and Goya for the posts of directors of the Royal manifacture. Floridablanca was at the height of the power but he could not help Jose del Castillo and be his patron, and so the opportunity to enter the elite group of the Spanish painters was missed again.
The second and the definite battle of Jose del Castillo for obtaining recognition was also lost several months before his death in 1793. On the first of March 1793, Ramon Bayeu died, and Jose del Castillo hoped again to obtain the post of the Royal Painter. On the 6th of March of the same year he applied for for that position alongside with some other artists. Still his expectations that the petition would be considered favourably were, as it turned out, very far from the reality because his patron Floridablanca was made redundant in February of 1792 and his rival occupied the position, the Earl of Aranda, the most prominent of the representatives of the “Aragon Party”. Jose del Castillo who knew everything about all those changes in the political life and their consequences and impact on his career, resorted to the help of Eugenio Llaguno who could recommend him in the highest circles. The eleccion of Llaguno due to his prestige in the artistic and intellectual life of that time was successful, but from a political point of view, although he was not overshadowed by Aranda, he lost a lot while being the Secretary of the Committee of the government of Floridablanca. The final attempt of Jose del Castillo also failed when Carlos IV decided to leave vacant the position to which the artist aspired. Thus, a little before his death the hopes of Jose del Castillo were dashed completely and the failure of his professional life was definite.
Aurelio Alvero: traitor or patriot
by Grant K. Goodman Historians are traditionally fascinated by "neglected" figures as well as by what some would term "losers". Aurelio Alvero (1913-58) is, in my opinion, one who can be classified in both of these categories. Filipinos today probably have never heard of him or, if they have, most likely know him simply as a convicted traitor. Yet his brilliance is undeniable, and his burning if often erratic passions make him a person whose unfortunate fate continues to intrigue and attract me. Moreover, Alvero's undeniable literary prowess which led ultimately to a seemingly unquenchable if unfortunately quixotic political ambition reminds one of such a contemporary literary-political "loser" as Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa or even perhaps America's own Gore Vidal. While this paper cannot deal with Alvero's remarkable literary achievements in both English and Tagalog, it will attempt to record and to examine his peculiar political career. To some few contemporary Filipinos, Alvero is still seen as "the poet of the people", "the spokesman of all Filipinos with a vision", "an ideal nationalist committed to his country's cause". To most who know of him today, however, the verdict of the immediate postwar Philippine People's Court which found Alvero guilty of collaboration with the Japanese marks him as the prototype traitor who sold out his country to the enemy. His years in prison, 1945-47 and 1950-52, again despite their stunning literary productivity, have sadly reduced his repute among his countrymen still more. Aurelio Alvero, also known after 1945 by his self-generated pen name Magtanggul Asa, was born on 15 October 1913 in Tondo, Manila.(1) He was the son of Emilio Alvero y de Vera, painter, art-glass artist and interior decorator, and Rosa Sevilla y Tolentino, writer, social worker and educator and founder of the Instituto de Mujeres, one of the oldest schools for women in the Philippines. Alvero studied at the Centro Educativo y Instructivo and completed his primary education at the Instituto de Mujeres. He later graduated from the Ateneo de Manila high school and then went on to study law and education simultaneously at the University of Santo Tomas. He received the A.A. degree in 1933, the B.S.E. in 1935 and his law degree cum laude in 1937. Among his honours at university were the following: 1931-32 Gold Medal, Law Oratorical Contest Society Editor, The Varsitarian 1932-33 Silver Medal, UST Liberal Arts - Education Debate Assistant Literary Editor, The Varsitarian Editor, The Thomasian Rector Tamayo Gold Medal for Poetry 1933-34 Bronze Medal, Law Oratorical Contest Poetry Editor, The Thomasian 1934-35 Editor, The Spectrum Representative, Law Student Council Gold Medal, Law Bicentennial Oratorical Contest Laureate Crown and Gold Medal, Law Bicentennial Ode Contest President, Education Seniors' Association The above honours clearly identify Alvero as a superb orator, debater and poet. At the age of 21 he published his first book of poems entitled Moonshadows on the Water. In the preface John Jefferson Siler, Alvero's English professor at Santo Tomas, wrote: Here are some of the best lyrics written in the Philippines. There are several poems in this book that any English writer could feel pleasure in signing his name to.... I do not hesitate to say "1896" is one of the finest flowerings of lyric patriotism in the entire range of English poetry. Alvero's poetry was praised unstintingly by the critic Cornelio Faigao of the Philippines Free Press, as well as by such literary arbiters as Alfred Litiatco of the Graphic and Federico Mangahas of the Tribune.At various times Alvero taught English at San Beda College, and Tagalog and national history at U.S.T. meanwhile lecturing at the Instituto de Mujeres on whatever his mother might need from year to year. Along with his evident literary ability, Alvero nurtured his political concerns. He was one of the early founders of the Young Philippines, a fringe nationalist party of the 1930s. Interestingly, on 18 May 1934 that group sponsored a debate on the subject "Resolved That the Political Salvation of the World Lies in Dictatorship Rather Than Democracy", and one of the two speakers for the affirmative was Aurelio Alvero.(2) In 1937 Alvero entered electoral politics for the first and only time running for the post of Manila Councilor. Although he did not win the election, his idealism and oratorical skills seem to have made a lasting impression on his fellow Filipinos. In fact, it was Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon who subsequently appointed Alvero as a councilor of the city of Manila.
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