You can take a Pinoy out of the countryside, but you cannot take the countryside out of him. That is by way of paraphrasing a once well-known advertising slogan in America.
Well on the way through the second decade of the 21st century, when our urban developers have been creating business and commercial districts with their skyrocketing edifices of glass, steel, and stone, and our very souls struggle daily through the traffic gridlock and the choking pollution, we now hunger for a way of life that nourished us during our childhood.
Indeed, with the relentless inroads of urbanization, that corner in a field, where once stood a lush and beloved mango tree of our childhood, is now a gleaming fast food joint. But since what is done cannot be undone, we can at least escape away from it, if not physically, then in spirit…That is exactly what artist Paul Dimalanta has done.
Like a welcome breath of fresh county air, the art of Dimalanta sweeps us back to that lost Eden—that vanished countryside of open sunny fields and lakes, the heat wafted away by continuous breeze, the becalming green grass and verdant vegetation, with the sight of that heavy lumbering carabao chewing cud all day long. Aaah, bliss!
Though now engaged in a thriving business of his own, Dimalanta, an artist at heart, has kept those images and memories ever alive in his art. As a visual chronicler of the countryside, the artist is fortunate in having retained that essential gift of treasuring the more meaningful things in life—call it innocence—his spirit never succumbing to weariness and cynicism. All these are clearly manifested in his recent works where, with affectionate regard, he limns with linear delight and accuracy, farmers and fishermen coming home, mothers washing clothes in a stream, with their children busy helping out or, exhausted, falling into sweet slumber. (Interestingly, many works show a child asleep, recalling for us those long somnolent afternoons in the province.)
Soon our spirits are adrift into Dimalanta’s visions of pastoral idyll—this is Amorsolo countryside revisited, Botong Francisco’s rustic Angono folk resurrected.
The wonder for us all, now emotionally fraught and mired in the despair and darkness of much contemporary art, is the sheer “imperishability” of this emotional appeal that, like an umbilical cord not wanting to let go, connects us to the very wellspring of our essence as a Filipino. No veneer of Western sophistication, no fear of social or intellectual snobbery or artistic ostracism, can wean us away from our attachment to these classical themes of Philippine art.
With resounding pride, the late Vicente Manansala, long contentedly domiciled in the hills of Binangonan, happily painting away, and not yet proclaimed National Artist, thundered to this writer-interviewer: “I am not an intellectual! I am a peasant! I paint from the heart!”
No doubt, that is a sentiment that has found resonance and relevance in the art of Paul Dimalanta. Painting from the heart, he has heeded the words of the revered Mang Enteng. No, you cannot take away the countryside from the Pinoy.
“Calauag,” Paul Dimalanta’s solo exhibition is currently on view at ArtistSpace in Ayala Museum until Dec. 4. The museum is open from Mondays to Sundays, 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Admission is free.