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Sunday, April 26, 2009

hola, patria

"Luzon" (2008), pastel sa papel, 9" by 12"



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Salamat sa
Philippine Children's Choir from Mandaluyong sa kantang "Dasal" ("Prayer").

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Sunday, April 5, 2009

il magnifico


The single desire of his heart rose out of love and sorrow: to do something about Lorenzo, a theme that would express the totality of talent, courage, width and depth of knowledge; the human understanding of this man who had undertaken to lead the world into an intellectual and artistic revolution. 

An answer was slow in coming: answers always were. Yet it was only by sticking doggedly to the task that he could arrive at a conception that would swing open the doors of his creative force. His thoughts kept returning to the fact that Lorenzo had often spoken of Hercules, suggesting that the Greek legend did not mean that his twelve labors were to be taken literally: the capture of the Erymanthian boar, the defeating of the Nemean lion, the cleaning of the Augean stables by running a river through. These feats perhaps were meant as symbols for all the varied and near-impossible tasks with which each generation was faced.

Was not Lorenzo the incarnation of Hercules? Had he not gone forth on twelve labors against ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, narrowness, intolerance? Surely he had set a Herculean pattern in founding universities, academies, art and manuscript collections, printing presses, in encouraging artists, scholars, poets, philosophers, and scientists to reinterpret the world in vigorous modern terms, and to extend our reach to all the fruits of the human intellect and spirit.

Lorenzo had said, "Hercules was half man and half god, sprung from Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. He is the everlasting symbol that all of us are half man and half god. If we use that which is half god in us, we can perform the twelve labors every day of our lives."

-Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961)