Ang Dabawenyo

Metanarrative in Metamorphosis (Conclusion of a three-part series by Phillip Somozo. Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.)

Eve’s biting the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not original sin but the first disobedience. It is today something for her descendants not to be repentant of, but one worth celebrating.

So spoke the body language of more than 100 surrealists during the grand costume ball that opened the art exhibit and stage performance attributed to the 400th birth anniversary of John Milton, author of the greatest English epic poem, Paradise Lost. Read more »

(This is a contributed article by Phillip Somozo, the 2nd of a 3-part series. Click here for Part 1.)

Davao Surreal Artist features in New York Exhibit celebrating John Milton and Paradise Lost

Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo* were the first Filipino visual artists to achieve international recognition by virtue of their winning gold and silver medals, respectively, in international painting competitions in 19th century Europe, during years when Modernism was still swelling as a wave to eventually sweep the world. Luna, especially, did it as a form of propaganda disclosing imperialist Spain’s unjust treatment of its then colony, Las Islas Filipinas. Unknown to these two Philippine art icons, a trail of artist followers would form behind them a century later, in terms of desiring to be recognized internationally, this time as a way out of the difficult artist condition (whose condition is easy anyway?) in the Philippines. As result, a number of contemporary pinoy painters are now represented by established galleries in some of the world’s art centers. Whether they are financially better off now and happier is, of course, another question.

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(This is a contributed article by Phillip Somozo, the first of a three-part series.)

When British Renaissance poet John Milton wrote what is considered as the greatest poem in the English language, he was a frustrated political/religious writer and financially distraught. Worse, he had become blind. He retreated to a silent life and dictated Paradise Lost to a sympathetic acquaintance who wrote it down (Braille was not born yet) for him.

Milton’s epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden then went through history as the classic, literary masterpiece of the meta-narrative from which three of the world’s foremost religious traditions originate: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The notion of Original Sin is, thus, consequently embedded, this time with a poetic twist, in the modern Judeo-Christian psyche. The world, as we now know it, evolved not without a tug-of-war between the God-fearing and the non-believers.

Milton, despite his surliness and heretical religious views, became an icon representing the poet stepping into divine realms, joining visual artist Michelangelo before him and ancient philosopher Socrates, also blind, who must have found himself in interesting if not temperamental company. Read more »