Fig. 29 Galo Ocampo, Brown Madonna, 1938 Photo: UST Museum Collection

A few years after Rising Philippines, Galo B. Ocampo advanced his fusion of local iconography and modernist style by reimagining the Madonna and Child as unmistakably Filipino. Depicted with Filipino features, traditional dress, and surrounded by native vegetation, Ocampo roots this iconic Catholic image firmly in the local context, omitting any reference to Spanish evangelization. The background features pre-colonial architecture, while the foreground includes calla lilies, reinterpreted to reflect Filipino sensibilities. Even the painting’s bamboo-like frame extends this localization. Ocampo further emphasizes this Filipino identity by replacing the traditional Latin Ave Maria with its Tagalog counterpart, echoing Paul Gauguin’s Ia Orana Maria. While Ocampo’s socio-political aims differ from Gauguin’s, his modernist approach aligns with the effort to create a distinctly Filipino visual language, making the work both a nationalist assertion and a reflection of his modernist identity.