Compelling does not quite capture the contribution of this book, Bugasong to Barcelona, on the life and works of Felix Laureano. It is great work of recuperation and recovery as accomplished by the writer Francisco G. Villanueva, who is described by Ana Maria Theresa Labrador as having written a ‘meticulous, well-written and scrupulous publication.’
To quote another scholar, Maria Araceli Garcia Martin, of the Biblioteca Nacional de España, ‘Bugasong to Barcelona immerses readers in the cultural effervescence of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.’
Felix Laureano was born on November 29, 1866 in Patnongon, Antique. His father was a friar from Zamora, Spain. His biographer mentions how he was admitted to Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1883, where he was assumed to have been exposed to the then new arts and technology of photography. It is said he probably worked as an apprentice in a photography studio. In the said period, Spanish photographers Francisco Pertierra and E.M. Barreto were among those who dominated the scene.
The late 19th century saw the rise of expositions, exhibits and competitions. The book notes how the era was a witness to the ‘peak of imperial European nations scrambling to acquire territories in South America, Africa, and Asia’ and ‘encouraged investments in faraway lands usually by the process of exoticization of the natives and their culture.’
Laureano benefited from the technology and advancement of the period. At the age of 21, he participated in the 1887 Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid where he received an Honorable Mention. The next year, his work gained a similar acclaim. From hereon he extended his stay in Spain, where it is written he gained more experiences.
Being part of the growing intelligentsia, we expected Laureano to focus mainly on the ruling class and yet if there is a great curiosity about this book, it is that we find in the collection images of the quotidian, the ordinary and everyday occurrences.
Marvel at the cover, which is part of the collection of ‘Costumbres’ or Genre. It shows two young boys comfortably atop a carabao, behind them is a cart-‘en la carroza y en los lomos y ancas del carabao’-with five more children. It is a vanished scene, one that perhaps we will never see again in farms, or anywhere.
In that set, we find even rarer images like the wedding procession, where a young bride is shown on a caleche or calesa on the way to the church. The carriage is drawn by two horses and behind them follow a small orchestra. The next page shows a photograph of a ‘Sinulog’ or ‘Moro-moro,’ a plein air photograph that appears in Recuerdos de Filipinas.
Classic is the imagery of a cockfight in another photograph, one of the prints that appears in the Biblioteca Nacional de España. And yet nothing beats in rarity the image of a corrida or bullfight right in Iloilo. The photo essay notes how there had to be ‘enough corrida aficionados to warrant the construction of the city’s bullring made with bamboo.’ The said paragraph is also worthwhile to note how it has been appropriated by Manila-centric writers claiming it to have taken place in Manila.
In Recuerdos de Filipinas, Laureano even went so far as to identify a man as having effeminate ways. He is shown with three other women washing clothes along the river of Bugasong. The essay indicates how this could be the first mention of a ‘gay’ character in a historical document.
Laureano did not stay only in Antique; he ventured out to take photographs of the Puerto de Manila and the Luneta de Manila. He has very clear photographs of the arrabales such as Paco and Santa Ana as he articulated visual documents of the 19th century landscape in the Philippines.
With the devastation brought by the bombing of Manila during World War II, the extant photographs of the Manila Cathedral and the San Agustin Church, to take massive examples, are wondrous memories of the grandeur of Intramuros. The Calle Real de Intramuros comes alive with its wide street that appears to stretch beyond any imagined wall. And yet nothing can take away the lambent charm of the quiet Calle Real de Iloilo where the stately shadows of the buildings loom over the tiny calesas plying below. Laureano has not spared anything-he has covered them all, including the Los Ultimos de Filipinas, the Defensores de Baler, a reference to the last 54 Spanish soldiers who defended themselves in the San Luis Obispo de Tolosa church against the Philippine revolutionaries in 1898.
To celebrate Felix Laureano, however, is also to honor the writer behind the biography and he is Francisco G. Villanueva, a lover of history and scholar who labored over archives and libraries to bring back both the memories and moments of an artist.
I thank Dr. Vic Salas, a dear friend, who gave me this book Bugasong to Barcelona.