Victorio Edades

Victorio C. Edades (December 23, 1895 –

March 7, 1985) was a Filipino painter. He
led the revolutionary Thirteen Moderns,
who engaged their classical compatriots
in heated debate over the nature and
function of art. He was named a National
Artist in 1976.
 Victorio C. Edades

The Sketch, 1928, Oil on canvas, 96 x 117 cm

Born December 23, 1895

Barrio Bolosan,
Dagupan, Pangasinan,
Captaincy General of
the Philippines

Died March 7, 1985

(aged 89)
Davao City, Philippines

Nationality Filipino

Education University of
Washington, Fondation

Des Ecoles D'Art

 Des Ecoles D'Art
Americaines De
Fontainebleau

Known for Painting

Notable work "The Sketch", "The

Builders", "Interaction",
"Fontainebleau, August
1937", "The Model and
The Artist"

Movement Modernism

Awards

National Artist of the

Philippines

Biography
Victorio Edades was born on December
23, 1895 to Hilario and Cecilia Edades. He
was the youngest of ten children (six of
whom died of smallpox). He grew up in
Barrio Bolosan in Dagupan, Pangasinan.
His artistic ability surfaced during his early
years. By seventh grade, his teachers were
so impressed with him that he was dubbed
"apprentice teacher" in his art class. He
was also an achiever from the very
beginning, having won awards in school
debates and writing competitions.

After high school, Edades and his friends

traveled to the United States. Before
enrolling in Seattle, Edades incidentally
made a detour to Alaska and experienced
working in a couple of factories.
Nonetheless, he moved on to Seattle and
enrolled at the University of Washington
where he took up architecture and later
earned a Master of Fine Arts in Painting.
The significant event that stirred Edades,
and made him as what he is known now,
was his encounter with the traveling
exhibition from the New York Armory Hall.
This art show presented modern European
artists such as Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse,
Picasso and the Surrealists. His growing
appreciation to what he saw veered him
away from the conservative academic art
and Realistic schools and thus he began to
paint in the modern manner. The two
former schools of thought were inclined
more towards idyllic subject matter, and
require a mastery of refined detailing.
What attracted Edades to the modernist
movement was its principle to go beyond
the idealistic exteriors propagated by
Impressionism and Realism. Modernist
thought encourages experimentation in
artistic expression and allows the artist to
present reality as he sees it in his own
way.

During his journey to America, he

participated in art competitions, one of
which was the Annual Exhibition of North
American Artists. His entry The Sketch
(1927) won second prize. When he
returned to the Philippines in 1928, he saw
that the state of art was "practically dead."
Paintings he saw dealt with similar themes
and were done in a limited technique that
mostly followed the works of Fernando
Amorsolo, the first Philippine national
artist and the most popular painter of the
time. He recognized that there was no
creativity whatsoever, and that the artists
of that time were merely "copying" each
other. So in December, Edades bravely
mounted a one-man show at the Philippine
Columbia Club in Ermita to introduce to
the masses what his modern art was all
about. He showed thirty paintings,
including those that won acclaim in
America. It was a distinguished exhibit, for
the Filipino art circle was suddenly shaken
by what this young man from Pangasinan
had learned from his studies abroad.
Viewers and critics were apparently
shocked and not one painting was sold.

Edades helped organized the University of

Sto. Tomas Department of Architecture in
1930 and was its acting head. In 1935, he
was appointed as Director of the UST
College of Architecture and Fine Arts,
which he organized under the wing of
Architecture. He was guided by the
existing American curricula when he made
the Fi Painting. On February 12, 1977, UST
conferred on Edades the degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, Honoris Causa.

Edades retired to Davao City with his

family. There he taught for a time at the
Philippine Women's College and resumed
his career as an artist. He died on March 7,
1985.

Artistic development
Early styles after his stint in architecture
already show his inclination towards
modernist technique. In The Market and
The Picnic, his choice of subject matter do
not take flight from pleasant daily scenery;
yet his brush strokes and observance of
non-proportionality in the figures made his
teachers consider him "very ambitious."
His earlier works already showed his
affinity towards the style of Cézanne and
other Post-Impressionists.

The height of his artistic development is

his dynamic entry into Philippine art in
1928 with his solo exhibit at the Philippine
Columbia Club. Here he mounted his most
renowned work, The Builders. This work is
the sum total of all the other pieces
included in the show. They are a far cry
from the works of the first Philippine
national artist and most popular painter
Fernando Amorsolo and the other
classicists who painted bright cheery
scenes of flawless Filipinos and their
idealized daily routines. Edades, on the
other hand, presented figures in muddy
earth colors – yellow ochres and raw
sienna accented by bold black contours.
Subjects are distorted figures (those
whose proportions defy classical
measure), and Edades’ brush strokes are
agitated and harsh. The choice of his
subject also caused quite a stir to those
who viewed the show. He portrayed tough,
dirty construction laborers and simple folk
wrestling in dung and dust. Even his nudes
are nothing like Amorsolo's portrayal of the
Filipina at her best.

With the uproar Edades' ideas raised, he

knew that he cannot make a living out by
merely painting what he wished. So he got
by producing commissioned works,
particularly murals. He did murals for
prominent individuals (like Juan Nakpil)
and institutions. His later works are said to
be ‘flatter.’ His portraits and genre
paintings in Davao are not seen to be as
heavy or solid as his earlier phase with The
Builders. From Cézanne, Edades grew
more interested in the style of Utamaro of
Japan and other artists whose charm is in
color rather than solidity.

By introducing modern ideas into the

Philippine art scene, Victorio Edades
managed to destroy the conventions of
domestic art, and also got rid of the
clichéd ideology he believed stunted the
development of Philippine art. His
defiance to what the Conservatives
structured as ‘art’ was a conscious call for
real artistic expression. He attested that
"art is ever the expression of man's
emotion, and not a mere photographic
likeness of nature. Thus to express his
individual emotion, the artist is privileged
to create in that distinctive form that best
interprets his own experience. And the
distortion of plastic elements of art such
as line, mass and color – is one of the
many ways of expressing one's rhythmic
form." That was the reason why his
disproportionate figures are made that
way – for the sake of composition.

Through his continuous propagation of

modern art as shown in his works and
teachings, Edades proved that modernists
were not fooling people as Guillermo
Tolentino asserted. Dialectic-ally, Edades
explained that Modern Art is not anti-
Classicist. He said, "From the technical
point of view, Modern Art is an outgrowth
of Classical Art. Modern Art is the
interpretation of the Classical concept
conditioned by the artist's new experience
with the aid of improved means of
aesthetic expression." Not conforming to
the academic perception of art, he made
art available to the common man. Through
his determination to stand by his ideology,
he became a bridge between the past and
the present.

The Other Moderns

Galo B. Ocampo; Carlos V. Francisco
(National Artist, 1973); Vicente Manansala
(National Artist, 1981); Hernando R.
Ocampo (National Artist, 1991); Cesar
Legaspi (National Artist, 1990); Demetrio
Diego; Diosdado Lorenzo; José Pardo;
Ricarte Purugganan; Bonifacio Cristobal;
Arsenio Capili; Anita Magsaysay-Ho.

Readings/resources
Benesa, Leo. "Victorio Edades." 2002.
National Commission for Culture and
the Arts. April 13, 2004 [1] .
An excerpt from What is Philippine
about Philippine Art? and Other Essays.
Manila: National Commission for
Culture and the Arts, 2000. Reprinted
from Weekend, September 21, 1979, 4.
—,"Philippine Contemporary Art as a
Post-War Phenomenon." 2002. National
Commission for Culture and the Arts.
April 13, 2004 [2] . An excerpt from What
is Philippine about Philippine Art? and
Other Essays. Manila: National
Commission for Culture and the Arts,
2000. Reprinted from Verlag Neves
Forum, 1970.
Deocampo, Nick. "Edades: Victorio C.
Edades and Modernism in Philippine Art."
[Manila]: National Commission for
 Culture and the Arts Commission on
Galleries, [2004].
Guerrero, Amadis Ma. and Purita Kalaw
Ledesma. Edades: National Artist.
Makati: Published for Security Bank &
Trust Co. by Filipinas Foundation, c1979.
Ingle, Lydia Rivera. Edades: kites and
visions. Quezon City: New Day
Publishers, c1980.
Paras-Perez, Rod. Edades and the 13
moderns. Manila : Cultural Center of the
Philippines, 1995.

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