Geronimo Cristobal

Author: admin

  • Felix Hidalgo, Un Rio

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    The enigmatic painter Felix Resureccion Hidalgo captures a river veiled in the quiet of early evening. The viewer’s gaze glides over the water’s surface, mirroring the way our eyes perceive the fading light by fluidly dissolving into darkness. The glow trembles in the foreground, absorbed by the landscape rather than resisted, as if the deepening…

  • Muhammadan Mysticism in Sumatra

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    R.L. Archer’s 1937 article, “Muhammadan Mysticism in Sumatra,” provides an early and detailed inquiry into the forms of Islamic mysticism as they emerged and took root in the Malay world. Drawing principally on Malay-language manuscripts held in Leiden and elsewhere, Archer situates these texts within a broader genealogy of Sufi metaphysics, while also attending to…

  • Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern

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    Through March 29MoMA, Floor 2, The Paul J. Sachs Galleries The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Lillie P. Bliss and the Birth of the Modern offers a long-overdue reconsideration of a figure whose impact on the institution—and on modern art in America—cannot be overstated. Much like the uprooted pine tree that symbolized the Armory Show, Bliss stood…

  • Idolizing Mary: Maya-Catholic Icons in Yucatán, Mexico (Amara Solari, 2022)

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    Amara Solari’s Idolizing Mary: Maya-Catholic Icons in Yucatán, Mexico examines the role of Marian devotion in colonial Yucatán, focusing on the Virgin of Itzmal. The book explores how Maya communities integrated Catholic iconography into their existing religious traditions, aligning with precontact notions of sacrality, ritual purity, and divine intercession. The study centers on the 1648…

  • Manila’s Monument to Queen Isabel II

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    The statue of Queen Isabel II is one of few public artworks that survive from the time of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. Located in front of Puerta Isabel II in Intramuros, Manila, this bronze monument has weathered the vicissitudes of Philippine history and the shifting tides of politics and empire. Commissioned in the…

  • Juan Adán Morlán (1741–1816)

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    Juan Adán Morlán (1741–1816) is one of the defining sculptors of Spanish Neoclassicism, a figure whose artistic achievements were often intertwined with personal controversies and professional disputes. Born in Tarazona, Aragón, and baptized on March 1, 1741, Adán’s early life was rooted in a family of carpenters. His father’s craft provided the young Adán with…

  • The Soldier’s Reward by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer

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    I just made a purchase request from the library for The Soldier’s Reward, drawn in by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer’s ability to unearth the deeply personal dimensions of a quarter-century of conflict. She reveals how war’s chaos was not just a matter of battlefield tactics but something that profoundly shaped the quiet rhythms of family life…

  • Pasig River (1948) by Miguel Galvez

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    The Pasig River (1948), an oil on canvas by Miguel Galvez, captures two fishing vessels moored along the riverbank—a quiet tableau of industry and resilience. Galvez depicts Filipinos easing back into the rhythms of labor and life, just three years after the devastation of war. The composition feels deliberate and balanced. The two boats, painted…

  • Lost and Found (1996) – Ode to Love and Loss

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    Lee Chi-Ngai’s Lost and Found (1996) is one of those delicate little films that dares to press on your heartstrings and doesn’t let go. It knows what it’s about—love, loss, and the refusal to surrender to despair—and delivers its message with an earnestness so determined that it’s almost disarming. Of course, you know where it’s…

  • Marca Demonio de las Comparaciones: Die anachronistische Substitution des Kris Joloano in Rizal und Amorsolo

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    Diese Studie untersucht die anachronistische Präsenz des Kris Joloano in José Rizals Noli Me Tangere (1887) und Fernando Amorsolos Marca Demonio, dem Etikett für den Ginebra San Miguel-Likör, das 1917 geschaffen wurde. Aufbauend auf Nagels und Woods Untersuchung von Anachronismen während der Renaissance positioniert die Analyse die neugierige Einfügung eines Kris Joloano als zeitliche Brücke,…

  • Pearls in Islamic Art from the Umayyads to the Ottomans

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    In Islamic art and culture, pearls symbolize divine light, purity, and paradise, and serve as markers of spiritual authority and sovereign power. Nacreous objects were central to trade networks across the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, integrating them into Islamic artistic and economic systems. Historical studies tell of their layered significance: as royal emblems in Late…

  • Galo Ocampo’s Brown Madonna

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    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…

  • Filipino Muslim Perceptions of Their History and Culture as Seen Through Indigenous Written Sources

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    Samuel K. Tan’s Filipino Muslim Perceptions of Their History and Culture as Seen Through Indigenous Written Sources examines the historiographical landscape of Filipino Muslim history, emphasizing indigenous written sources over colonial records. Tan highlights the limitations of oral traditions, which vary across ethnic groups, and critiques colonial sources for their biased perspectives that framed Muslims…

  • Cornell Anthropology Collection at Mapping Philippine Material Culture

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    The Cornell Anthropology Collection (CAC) houses an assortment of items from the Philippines, many of which were donated by returning veterans of the Philippine-American War in the early 20th century. These objects not only provide insight into the material culture of Mindanao but also reveal the complex history of military engagement and diplomatic exchange in…

  • Edades and the fabricated history of his Armory Show conversion to Modern Art

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    Nicola Kanmany John’s dissertation has critically examined the narrative surrounding the Filipino artist Victorio Edades’s Armory Show conversion to Modern Art. Edades is often regarded as the “father of Philippine modernism” and Kanmany John’s findings challenges the claim that a Seattle exhibition inspired by the 1913 Armory Show of New York fundamentally shifted Edades’ artistic…

  • Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in Shell (2007)

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    Cariño, José Maria A., and Sonia P. Ner. Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in a Shell. Manila: Arts Mundi Philippinae, 2007. In Pearl of the Orient: The Philippines in Shell (2007), co-authors Sonia P. Ner and Jose Maria “Jomari” Cariño bring to light an overlooked medium of 19th-century Philippine art—paintings and carvings on Pinctada…

  • Talking trees

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    The image of Alexander (Iskandar) encountering the wondrous talking tree in the Shahnama is a fascinating blend of myth, prophecy, and fantastical imagery. In this particular folio from the Great Mongol Shahnama, the tree takes on an even more vivid character under the hand of the Ilkhanid artist, who expands on Firdawsi’s original vision with…

  • La Perla de Lucban

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    This portrait, titled La Perla de Lucban (The Pearl of Lucban), is characteristic of the foto-óleo technique, where paint is applied directly onto a black-and-white photograph to bring depth and color to the subject. Created in 1891 by the Filipino artist Fabian de la Rosa, this piece captures Maria Isabel Nepomuceno de Ordoveza, who had…

  • The Ottoman Influence in Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring

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    This brilliant short visual essay on Things that Talk has resurrected a forgotten facet of one of Western art’s most iconic pieces, Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl earring. Most standard scholarship does not mention this except in a brief mention in Encyclopedia Brittanica and an indirect reference to Dutch trade in the far east in…

  • Poseidon’s poisoned gifts

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    On John Steinbeck’s The Pearl and the bizarre Pearl of Lao Tzu By the time John Steinbeck published The Pearl in 1947, his reputation as a chronicler of the dispossessed was well established. The Grapes of Wrath had cemented his place as a writer who could capture the harsh realities of those on the fringes…

  • Real Compania de Filipinas

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    The following article is a translation of Montserrat Garate Ojanguren’s “Real Compañía de Filipinas” published in Enciclopedia Auñamendi, 2024. The Royal Company of the Philippines was formally established in March 1785 and remained active until its dissolution in 1834, by decree on October 6. Before its official founding, several unsuccessful attempts were made to establish…

  • Damian Domingo’s portrait: A note on materiality

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    Fig. 1 Damian Domingo, self-portrait, gouache on oval-shaped ivory sheet, 6.1 cm x 4.8 cm, 1826. Source: Ayala Museum.  What is known of Domingo’s physical appearance comes from a miniature painted on an ivory sheet in 1826, which is also the oldest known self-portrait made in the Philippines. All catalogs and previous scholarship on the…

  • The Pearl-Diving Mermaid’s Transcorporeality: An Introduction

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    Louis Renard, mermaid, from Poissons écrevisses et crabs… (Amsterdam, Reiner & Josué Ottens, 1754), State Library Victoria, RARESEF 597 R29 Mermaids have long been intertwined with the imagery of pearls, frequently portrayed like Boticelli’s Venus as dwelling within bivalve shells or scouring the ocean depths for treasures. This connection casts mermaids, whose dual corporeality symbolizes…

  • Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History

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    Martin Mulsow’s Knowledge Lost: A New View of Early Modern Intellectual History offers a refreshing perspective on the era’s intellectual landscape, making it a compelling read for those interested in early modern studies. Unlike the often tedious task of writing reviews, the reviewer found this book both engaging and informative, a testament to its significance…

  • Malcañang Museum Mania

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    In the narrative of the Marcos family’s return to prominence, museums are regarded as having a lesser impact compared to other institutions. Enthusiasts of history acknowledge the long-standing involvement of the Marcos family in establishing and managing museums. Bongbong Marcos harbored aspirations of becoming an artist in his youth, a fact highlighted by a tour…

  • A Stun of Jewels

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    Heritage issues in recent archaeological discoveries on Siniyah Island Map of the Persian Gulf, ’Omān and Central Arabia part of Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia This essay considers discussions of heritage politics around the discovery of three archaeological sites in the United Arab Emirates. In 2022, an ancient Christian monastery dating…

  • The Wisdom of Uz

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    William Blake (1757 – 1827), There Was a Man in the Land of Uz (The Book of Job), 1821 This essay sets directions towards the writing of a material history of the Land of Uz, the setting of the Book of Job, by revisiting textbook historical and archaeological records of the Levant and relevant ancient…

  • The Kingdoms of Israel and Ophir

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    and the power of a fabricated diplomatic history             And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.                                                                                    — I Kings 9:28.            On July 30th of this year (2023), a most bizarre headline appeared in one of the leading news publications in the…

  • An Archaeology led by Strawberries

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    Atalay, Sonia. “An Archaeology led by Strawberries” in Archaeologies of the Heart. Kisha Supernant, Jane Eva Baxter, Natasha Lyons, and Sonya Atalay, editors. 2020. Springer, New York. xiv + 280. Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516), The Garden of Earthly Delights, central panel inside (left side), detail: People sit around a large strawberry, c.1490 and 1500 A…

  • Death and Mortuary Rituals in Mainland Southeast Asia

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    W. Higham, Charles F. “Death and Mortuary Rituals in Mainland Southeast Asia: From Hunter-Gatherers to the God Kings of Angkor.” Chapter. In Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World: ‘Death Shall Have No Dominion’, edited by Colin Renfrew, Michael J. Boyd, and Iain Morley, 280–300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,…