A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)

Renowned as one of the Philippine’s leading artists in the late nineteenth century, Juan Luna (1857-1899) is often celebrated as the first Filipino to receive international critical acclaim. His monumental work 'Spoliarium' won the gold medal at the 1884 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes...

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Main Author: Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong
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Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172970
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1729702024-01-13T16:57:51Z A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895) Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong - School of Humanities M.L. Pattaratorn Chirapravati mlpattaratorn.c@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Literature::English Humanities::History Renowned as one of the Philippine’s leading artists in the late nineteenth century, Juan Luna (1857-1899) is often celebrated as the first Filipino to receive international critical acclaim. His monumental work 'Spoliarium' won the gold medal at the 1884 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid, a triumph that nationalists of the Propaganda Movement viewed as a sign of racial equality. Luna’s association with Filipino nationalist historiography, however, has resulted in a sanitisation of his biography and the scholarship on his artworks is dominated by political interpretations. Considering Luna’s peripatetic life, his aesthetics were constantly in flux. His artworks amalgamated academic painting techniques and that of the European avant-garde, attesting to how his works resist simple art historical categorisations. Shuttling between Europe and Southeast Asia, Luna occupied an intermediary position where his paintings catered to diverse audiences from the metropole and colony, capturing different facets of European and Filipino life. Given such a dynamic oeuvre, the connection between Luna’s positionality and depictions of how individuals dressed has yet to be studied. Drawing on a selection of his canvases, I suggest that Luna’s artistic practice presents a hybrid development between academic and avant garde art forms that synthesised Filipino and European paradigms. The deployment of dress in his works reveal how clothing facilitates the construction of masculine and feminine identities, reflecting and contesting social values. Though Luna and his subjects appear to have autonomy over how they present themselves, clothing is an ambivalent site of resistance and submission towards colonial authority and patriarchal power structures. Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Art History 2024-01-08T07:25:25Z 2024-01-08T07:25:25Z 2023 Final Year Project (FYP) Khua, K. J. X. R. (2023). A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895). Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172970 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172970 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Literature::English
Humanities::History
spellingShingle Humanities::Literature::English
Humanities::History
Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong
A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
description Renowned as one of the Philippine’s leading artists in the late nineteenth century, Juan Luna (1857-1899) is often celebrated as the first Filipino to receive international critical acclaim. His monumental work 'Spoliarium' won the gold medal at the 1884 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid, a triumph that nationalists of the Propaganda Movement viewed as a sign of racial equality. Luna’s association with Filipino nationalist historiography, however, has resulted in a sanitisation of his biography and the scholarship on his artworks is dominated by political interpretations. Considering Luna’s peripatetic life, his aesthetics were constantly in flux. His artworks amalgamated academic painting techniques and that of the European avant-garde, attesting to how his works resist simple art historical categorisations. Shuttling between Europe and Southeast Asia, Luna occupied an intermediary position where his paintings catered to diverse audiences from the metropole and colony, capturing different facets of European and Filipino life. Given such a dynamic oeuvre, the connection between Luna’s positionality and depictions of how individuals dressed has yet to be studied. Drawing on a selection of his canvases, I suggest that Luna’s artistic practice presents a hybrid development between academic and avant garde art forms that synthesised Filipino and European paradigms. The deployment of dress in his works reveal how clothing facilitates the construction of masculine and feminine identities, reflecting and contesting social values. Though Luna and his subjects appear to have autonomy over how they present themselves, clothing is an ambivalent site of resistance and submission towards colonial authority and patriarchal power structures.
author2 -
author_facet -
Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong
format Final Year Project
author Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong
author_sort Khua, Kelly Janine Xiao Rong
title A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
title_short A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
title_full A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
title_fullStr A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
title_full_unstemmed A brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of Juan Luna (1884-1895)
title_sort brush with savage beauty: fashioning identities in the art of juan luna (1884-1895)
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172970
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