National Museum Essay

National Museum, home to famous paintings, sculptures, and artifacts, displays not only a window to the past but also a tool to shape the future. There is no wonder why it is a go to place during Independence Day and other holidays for it is when Filipinos get the opportunity to better their understanding of why they are what they are today and realizing what their ancestors experienced before and during the reign of the Spaniards. A series of paintings and relics showed what pre-historic Philippines was like and how Filipinos were treated during the Spanish era. National Museum has been given the role to present and restore artifacts collected from the past, so the Filipinos are left to see them in their own perspective and decide how they

Unlike Spoliarium, this painting is tall and not wide has three main subjects: the friars, the guards, and, of course, Governor Bustamante. There are guards and friars fighting down the stairwell and a friar attempting to stab the Governor with a pointed object who was accompanied by two friars whose job was to twist the Governor’s arms. With no guards protecting the Governor, he falls down to the hands of his

They are an exceptional feat as a group of four which has been referred to as quadtych and the best way to appreciate them is from left to right. Each painting tells a narrative about the traditional healing practices from pre-colonial period to what Francisco thinks is modern during 1953. The painting, being full of colors, are saturated with shades of red, yellow, blue, and green which immediately catches the attention of the viewer. The first painting shows the healing practitioners such as the babaylan of pre-Spanish Philippines who are performing an invocation with her hands against a great spirit figure or an anito. This situation may be found unusual in the modern world where a female is a highly respected figure who is able to take the lead of performing the rite. The second and third painting makes a transition to modern medicine by assigning monk scholars as healers and opening the first Philippine General Hospital respectively. Lastly, the last artwork is close to where medicine has progressed to this day which includes combination of new technology, production of vaccines, use of x-ray machines, laboratory analysis, and so on. The sequence of the paintings follows a type of progression that follows textures created from the plot of each respective