The Life Art and Times of Damian Domingo

Before Juan Luna or Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo were winning acclaim in the salons of Europe, there was a Filipino master in Tondo who earned his reputation among Spaniards and countrymen alike. Damian Domingo painted official portraits and religious tableaux, and his albums of colorful tipos del pais immortalized the diverse costumes and lifestyles of the early nineteenth-century Philippines. All these bore his distinctly Filipino style, drawn from experience as a self-taught artist--experience which led to a career as a pioneering art teacher and director of the first Philippine art academy. Now, for the first time, Damian Domingo and his milieu are brought to life in a full-length, lavishly illustrated art book. The artist's surviving masterpieces are reproduced in lush detail, along with selected works from his contemporaries, descendants, and successors in the art world. With engaging prose and exhaustive research--including Domingo's last will and testament and rediscovered self-portrait--Dr. Luciano PR Santiago sheds new light on a man who laid the foundations of Western art in the Philippines.