Recuerdos de Filipinas – Felix Laureano

“I have in the harp that guides my song
the languid enchantment of the sound of the sea,
the intimate notes that draw forth the tear,
those which for a time make one feel sad
and later rejoice.”
(Visaya poem)

“Tipos Indios”. (Indio-Bisaya Types). Felix Laureano

There are some books that have a unique value. Not only for their content but also for what they represent; and I believe that if you have these books, they should be shared and told.

This is the case of the photographic book “Recuerdos de Filipinas” by Felix Laureano.

A book now unavailable, out of print but which is about to go to its third reprint.

I have the immense honor of having received this book from whoever edited it, as a personal gift, the last copy in her possession: my dear friend Felice Noelle Rodriguez.

We met many years ago in Rome, where she worked at the Asia Pacific Group of the UN Women's Group.

Passionate about Filipino culture – she was an associate professor of the Department of History at the Ateneo de Manila University – Felice Noelle was my guest, for some years, during my courses in Photography as Cultural Mediation, just to tell the story and the culture of the Philippines.

It was during those lessons of hers that she showed the book, and I was delighted.

Therefore, before leaving Italy forever, as a great sign of our friendship, she gave me the last copy that was left to her, besides the own one.

I feel in constant debt to her for this gesture.

And, as the law of the gift teaches, what you receive must be circulated.

 

We are talking about the first photographic book in the history of the Philippines, dated 1895.

How important Laureano was in the history of photography in the Philippines is also written in the fundamental book “Photography in Southeast Asia – A Survey” by Zhuang Wubin. In this magnificent book, Wubin historically reconstructs the advent of photography, and its developments up to the present day, in all the countries of Asia.

Well, speaking of the Philippines, it is written that Felix Laureano is probably considered the first photographer of the Philippines.

With a particularity, namely that of being a Filipino himself, and therefore able to portray the daily life of his people, with a different intent than the photographers-anthropologists of the time.

As written by Felice Noelle:

Laureano “took pictures of people where they toiled, where they lived with their family and friends”, hoping to “depict his subjects in the context of their lives. In this sense, he “differed from that breed of anthropologist-photographers who used the technology of photography rather than art to affirm the inferiority of the native race”.

 

“Una Boda” (A Wedding). Felix Laureano

Not much is known about Laureano, in the same book by Wubin there is mention of his uncertain date of birth in about 1860 in Patnongon, in the province of Antique, who had a photographic studio in Barcelona and lived for a long time in Iloilo, in western Visaya.

In fact, more information can be found about Laureano's life in the research carried out by the Canadian historian Francisco G. Villanueva. Villanueva, originally from Iloilo, began his research on Laureano in 2010.

From Villanueva’s documentation, we learn that Laureano was born in Patnongon, Antique in 1866, the son of a wealthy businesswoman and a Spanish friar. He and his six siblings grew up in Bugasong, where their father was the parish priest.

He was 17 when he attended school at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1883. He stayed there for two years.  Not much is known after Ateneo, said Villanueva, until he opened a photo studio in Iloilo in 1886. He could have worked as an apprentice under one of the master photographers in Manila.

Laureano was 21 when he participated with 40 photographs at the 1887 Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid where he received an Honorable Mention. In 1892, he returned and visited Iloilo, but he went back to Barcelona that same year. Before then, he had participated in the 1888 Universal Exposicion de Barcelona where his works received Honorable Mention. He traveled in Europe, studied the latest photography developments in Paris, and attended the 1889 Universal Exposicion where the Eiffel Tower was launched.

Back in Barcelona, he received a citation at the Exposicion National de Industrias Artisticas and was singled out by the newspaper La Vanguardia. Between December 1892 and 1901, Laureano opened three photo studios there. Laureano could have known the ilustrados of the Reform Movement because La Solidaridad congratulated him for the opening of his studio in 1893.

In 1895, Laureano published ‘Recuerdos de Filipinas’ in Barcelona, a folio of 37 photographs, each with an accompanying essay. This is considered to be the first photo book by a Filipino. The book and his other photographs were exhibited in the Exposicion Regional de Filipinas, in Manila that year.

His works began to be published in 1896, and until the end of that century, his photographs appeared in La Ilustracion Artistica, La Ilustracion Espanola y Americana, and Panorama Nacional.  Two of his colored photos were published in an 1899 issue of Album Salon, the first Spanish illustrated magazine in color.

The descriptive essays on his eight pictures on 23 November 1896 were preceded by an explanatory note, probably by the editor, which said that with the attention of Spain focused on the ‘remote archipelago’, it was appropriate to include in the issue ‘some pictures depicting typical scenes and customs, convinced that our subscribers will welcome seeing them.’ These did not have photo credits, but the editor informed that ‘these are taken from photographs provided by Mr. Felix Laureano’.  The whole composition occupies more than one page of the weekly paper.

 

“Bano de Mar” (Bath in the Sea). Felix Laureano

Of this book, I was struck by the introduction written by my friend Felice Noelle.

“A photograph allows us windows into the past, letting faded moments through the lensman's prints.

While absorbed in photo research for The World of 1986, the Ateneo de manila's modest way to marking the Revolution's centennial, I chanced upon Felix Laureano's Recuerdos de Filipinas. Leafing eagerly through his album, roughly some 32 x 24 cms in dimension, I was drawn to the pensive faces, riverboat, churches, and other scenes from a hundred years ago.

The images simply held me in their grip.”

As if a window had suddenly opened revealing scenes from a century ago. Felice Noelle writes, and I understand her very well, because if it is true that every photograph always carries part of the past in which it was taken in its DNA, ancient photos, in addition to bringing that past-present time, also carry part of history with them. And if for me, as an Italian, they have a great charm, I can well imagine the emotional load for a Filipina.

Those images tell of the same blood and flesh of her people. And not as an anthropologist who has come from distant lands to document the life of indigenous peoples, but as someone who talks about his own people and family.

Of which Noelle Rodriguez is a part; that's why this book has an added value, as a gift.

It is impossible to summarize here the content of the book, because as it has been said previously, the photographs are almost a pretext for Laureano to his impetuous writing, rich in details and information, on dances, rituals, songs, habits up to the description of traditional clothes.

“Acopiando Lena” (Gathering firewood). Felix Laureano

As Felice Noelle writes again:

“In this book images give flesh to words. Reciprocally, the accompanying texts make the black-and-white stills throb with movement and glow with color.”

It is a pity that this book cannot be found but, luckily, Felice Noelle told me that the third reprint with Laureano's biography is coming soon.

His testimony is important not only to the Filipino people, but also to all those who love Asia, and are interested in knowing what those countries were like a century earlier.

To find, as I have often written, that there is not much different from what the lives of our grandparents and great-grandparents were like.

Just one last note.

I cannot resist.

Although I loved this book and Laureano's passion very much, the last photo-story made me smile, called “The Mestiza”, which is the term by the woman born of two different nationalities is called – generally from a Filipino mother and European father, or in any case a foreigner.

Where in the whole book Laureano does nothing but celebrate his people, his land in all its social, cultural, gastronomic, folkloristic manifestations, when he has to conclude the book, celebrating the beauty of the Filipino woman, he chooses the “mestiza” woman, of not pure blood.

“The mestiza! She evokes the sum of all enchantments that the Archipelago can cast; she is the synthesis of all beauty contemplated and admired in the Philippines. Mestiza!”

Laureano writes.

Everyone draws their own conclusions.

It's impossible to ignore the fact that Laureano owes a lot to Spain, where he worked and which gave him honors and titles.

What transpires is that, without taking anything away from his deep love for the Philippines and his people, a certain subjection to Western values was already in place in Laureano. Right in the end, right on the beauty.

How to lay the foundations, a century earlier, for a sense of inferiority towards one's roots and appearance that will lead the singer Heber Bartolome to say, in one of the most famous folk songs OPM (Original Pilipino Music) entitled “We are Filipinos”, “Don't feel ashamed if your nose is pinched.”

“La Mestiza”. Felix Laureano

Felix Laureano: “Recuerdos de Filipinas” (Cacho Publishing House, 2001)
Zhuang Wubin: “Photography in Southeast Asia – A Survey” (Nus Press Singapore, 2016)
Information on Laureano's life is taken from: "Felix Laureano: First Filipino Photo-Journalist"

Italian Version