I was reminded of a term I’ve seen before but never fully grasped during an art history lecture by Andrew Moisey on staffage in photography: the coulisse (pronounced koo-LEES). Developed by Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin in 17th-century Rome, it refers to the dark “wing” of trees or architecture placed on one side of a landscape—like a stage curtain—that frames the view and guides the eye toward a luminous, open distance. This compositional device shaped European art for centuries, and it traveled much farther than we tend to realize.

You can see the coulisse clearly in Filipino painting: Félix Resurrección Hidalgo’s Landscape (1875, Museo del Prado) uses a sweeping dark tree mass on the right to frame the reflective, luminous water at the center. Inscribed “ESTUDIO DEL NATURAL… DISCIPULO DE D. AGUSTIN SAEZ,” the oil on canvas (34 × 54 cm) is an early natural study from Hidalgo’s Manila training, depicting a rural riverbank with a bahay kubo and a fisherman working in shallow water.

A large vertical cluster of trees forms the right-hand coulisse, rising from the lower corner and creating a dense, shaded screen that contrasts strongly with the bright midground. This curtain-like shape directs the viewer’s eye toward the illuminated clearing and the bend of the river. A smaller counter-form appears on the left: the shaded bahay kubo, its fence, and adjacent vegetation, which together create a balancing vertical mass typical of classical landscape structure derived from Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin.

The foreground is defined by a darker strip of soil and water where the fisherman bends over a basket trap, marking the near plane of the composition. Behind him, lighter midground vegetation and the reflective river establish depth. The bahay kubo, rendered with short directional strokes for the thatch and repeated vertical marks for the fence, anchors the left side and enhances spatial recession. In the background, a progressively lightened treeline and soft sky create atmospheric perspective.

Light enters from the upper left, brightening grasses, a small sandbank, and patches of open water, while leaving both coulisse masses in shadow. Reflections on the river shift from dark near the trees to bright at the clearing. Tropical vegetation—palm-like fronds and dense lowland foliage—reinforces the Philippine setting. The inscription referencing Agustín Sáez situates the work within Hidalgo’s academic formation, where compositional devices such as the coulisse, repoussoir elements, and staged recession were emphasized even as the subject matter came directly from local rural life.

Another strong example of the coulisse in nineteenth-century representations of the Philippines appears in Adolphe Hastrel de Rivedoux’s La vie quotidienne le long de la rivière Pasig (c. 1869), where he uses dark vertical screens of vegetation to frame Manila’s busy riverfront.

Adolphe Hastrel de Rivedoux was a 19th-century French engraver and painter, watercolourist, lithographer, and former artillery captain in the navy. Well known for his travels and his writing, he is best known as an artist who drew many watercolors. He traveled the world for twenty years and took advantage of his military missions to draw and paint landscapes, scenes of daily life, human types, and costumes (Société de Géographie 1875).

Hastrel’s La vie quotidienne le long de la rivière Pasig (c. 1869) presents a highly detailed view of Manila’s urban riverfront during the late Spanish colonial period. The scene is anchored by the Puente de España, depicted with its characteristic multiple arches and central movable span, which connected Intramuros with the commercial district of Binondo. Behind the bridge rise the long façades of government and administrative buildings that lined the river, including structures consistent with the Aduana, with regular arcades, hipped roofs, and rhythmic windows matching mid-19th-century engravings of the district. The river is rendered as a major artery of movement: boats lie moored beneath the arches, and a dense cluster of masts indicates the presence of oceangoing and inter-island shipping. Hastrel’s training as a naval officer is evident in the precision of these architectural and nautical details.

The foreground is occupied by a large, diverse group of figures engaged in everyday activities. Men and women in baro’t saya, pañuelo, tapis, and camisa de chino mingle with Europeans in frock coats and hats, illustrating Manila’s multiethnic social fabric. Several figures handle cargo—crates, baskets, and bales—suggesting riverine trade, while others converse, watch the river, or supervise children. Poses vary naturalistically, and Hastrel differentiates social types through costume and posture, consistent with his long-standing practice of recording “types et costumes” during his global travels. This ethnographic precision situates the work as both a documentary image and a visual survey of Manila’s residents.

Hastrel frames the view with dark vertical vegetation on the right, functioning as a coulisse that guides the viewer into the brightly lit river and architectural skyline. A counterbalance appears on the lower left, where tropical plants and a thatched hut mark the river’s edge. These repoussoir elements—common in European topographical painting—structure depth while documenting the coexistence of indigenous riverside dwellings and the stone-built colonial city. Nearly half the canvas is filled with a pale sky of broad, soft cumulus clouds, which enhances the spatial clarity of the river, bridge, and buildings.

My final example comes from the early twentieth century, when Fabián de la Rosa adapted the coulisse to a distinctly Manila setting. His Landscape (1919), an oil on canvas measuring 53.5 × 78 cm and signed “F. de la Rosa / Manila 1919,” depicts a view of Intramuros marked by the thick stone defensive wall stretching across the middle ground and the familiar red-roofed structure and dome rising behind it. De la Rosa frames the composition with two large foreground trees whose dark trunks and intertwined branches form a pronounced coulisse on the right, directing the viewer’s eye toward the illuminated open field at the center. The grassy terrain is built up with short, broken strokes of green and yellow, and a diagonal footpath leads toward the wall, reinforcing depth. Vegetation drapes over sections of the fortification, while the softened tones and lower contrast of the background buildings create atmospheric recession. Above them, a broad sky with layered clouds governs the distribution of light, producing the balanced tonal structure characteristic of de la Rosa’s plein-air Manila views.

De la Rosa was well prepared to use the coulisse. In 1908 he traveled to Europe as a pensionado through a scholarship from the Germinal Cigar Factory, attending the Académie Julian in Paris and training in Italy, where he painted views such as his landscape of the Villa Borghese. His exposure to European academic landscape construction—especially the Claudian formula of framing trees and staged recession—shaped the compositional discipline visible in his Philippine works.

These painters adapted a European device to local conditions—tropical glare, dense vegetation, and humid atmosphere—producing landscapes that are Claudian in structure but unmistakably Filipino in mood. Their training at the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura, where students copied Baroque works by Murillo, Ribera, Cano, and Guido Reni, grounded them in a visual system that emphasized repoussoir masses, staged recession, and framed openings. Within this academic foundation, the coulisse remained a durable compositional tool: transplanted from Baroque Rome to colonial Manila, it reappears in 19th- and early 20th-century works by Hidalgo, de la Rosa, and others, adapted to tropical light and local scenery. It would be interesting to trace how a device invented in the 17th century continues to shape the way landscapes are framed today, from academic painting to photography and film.