Abueva: A handsome hunk of a book befitting the artist

Launched last November 8 at the Peninsula Manila was the long-awaited book on the life and works of National Artist Napoleon V. Abueva, written by our most notable art critic Cid Reyes and published by PMFTC Inc. for the Philippine Art Awards.

All too fitting was the venue, where one of this formidable artist’s major works, “The Sunburst,” has long served as the centerpiece artwork in the hotel’s main lobby.

And gorgeous is the large, elongated volume, making me so envious of my friend Cid, but at the same time so happy for him. After all, he deserves to execute something as monumental as this, especially since it honors and celebrates one of our most beloved, and earliest, National Artists. 

Chronicling the extensive creative career of “Billy” Abueva, who at 46 was the youngest to be conferred the title of National Artist for Sculpture, in 1976, the volume presents over 300 or nearly half of his known sculptural works. This Gallery Section and Chronology, admirably prepared by Armando Burgos and Mabi David, displays a sweep that is both impressive and illuminating.

Cid Reyes has written extensively on Philippine art and its esteemed personalities. He is known for his prolific output in art publications and newspapers’ art sections, and he has previously authored coffee-table books on National Artists Arturo Luz, BenCab, and J. Elizalde Navarro.

PMFTC Inc. president Chris Nelson with Irene Marcos-Araneta and National Museum director Jeremy Barns

Kudos must also go to the publisher, represented at the launch, as well as in the book by way of the Introduction, by PMFTC, Inc. president Chris J. Nelson.

He writes: “We chose to undertake this challenge... in consideration of our active participation in the promotion of Philippine art. By ensuring the credibility and reputation of our programs, including the prestigious Philippine Art Awards, we hope to contribute in the worthy effort of stimulating creativity and artistry in the country.”

In “Feat of Clay,” the book’s first section, Cid Reyes quickly establishes his worth as insightful chronicler. He reveals what many of us do not know, that Billy Abueva was actually christened Esabelio Veloso Abueva, born January 26, 1930 at the Philippine General Hospital as the fourth child of then Congressman Teodoro Abueva of Bohol and Purificacion Veloso of Cebu.

The name “Napoleon” he only assumed at the age of six, when as a student at the St. Joseph Academy in Tagbilaran, he proved to be so mischievous that in games of hide-and-seek, “he hid under the skirts of chaste nuns who became flustered and hysterical.”

A certain Sister Gertrude it was who first called him “Napoleon, after the French ruler who had conquered the nun’s home country, Belgium... The name has stuck since, and the Filipino sculptor proudly carries the name of the French emperor Napoleon.”

The author makes sure to remind us of the Bonaparte quote: “If I weren’t a conqueror, I would wish to be a sculptor.”

Reyes writes further of Billy’s boyhood:

“Abueva recalled another incident in school that marked him as a naughty boy. In class, under a Mrs. Grupe, the students were asked to do a writing exercise called ‘push and pull.’ The teacher who was making the rounds saw that there were no marks on the young Abueva’s paper despite his writing gestures. To her dismay, she found out that the boy, having no pencil at hand, had been ‘writing’ with a piece of nail. It is tantalizing to assume that this particular moment was the genesis of a future sculptor delighting at the touch of iron in his hands.”

Abueva’s early fascination with sculpture “began when we were required to do gardening in primary school... Through gardening, I made my initial contact with clay. As a child I made animal forms, especially of the carabao (water buffalo...), out of garden clay.... I know I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands.”

Numerous quotes fill the book, from various artists, critics and cultural historians, not only attesting to the author’s knowledgeability about art and aesthetics, but filling in and buttressing the entire context in which a Billy Abueva comes to be.

We learn that “(t)he sculptor who was most influential in shaping Abueva’s artistic sensibility was Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). To Abueva, Brancusi (pronounced “Brancush”) was the sorcerer of modern sculpture from whom he would learn all the secrets of significant form.” 

We are also treated to quite a panoply of Philippine art history and developments, anent sculpture in particular, learning of the legacy of Isabelo Tampinco and of Abueva’s mentor Guillermo Tolentino, as well as the early days of the Art Association of the Philippines, and of how Nick Joaquin and Franz Arcellana weighed the Filipino artists of that time, and found them to be above and beyond any heritage of smallness.  

Through decades of unswerving commitment, Abueva created modernist sculptures of significant form, transcending and eventually transmuting his earlier influences.

His works are a compleat legacy, from clay to wood to stone to marble and metal, to concrete and fiberglass of portrait busts, mother and child, lovers, family and group confabulations, Kristos, altars and structures of faith, monuments, doors, furniture, play sculpture, birds and beasts, allegorical abstraction, columns, bas reliefs and murals on heritage, his own home and working studio.

There is also Billy Abueva the writer and poet-philosopher, who can be as detailed with his conceptual frameworks as he can be pithy with his elfin observations. Even if he did the human form in its naked glory, he once wrote: “My subject matter is basically humanistic. Only the dead are at peace with the nude.”

He also carved out whole chunks of text on wood. One of my most favorite Abueva pieces is a depiction of Rizal and his Josephine in bed, entwined and partially covered by a sheet, while text surrounds them. Another shows a naked couple reading a book together.

Of the man as playful if premier artist who has not heard of the characteristic manifestations and motifs of Billy’s legendary, picaresque nature? How he fashioned a chariot and rode it inside UP Diliman in the 1960s. How he created what he called a “Rose Gun” that catapulted a rose during a book launching featuring the poetry of Virginia R. Moreno, who is in turn represented in this book with a poem-paean to Billy.

As Dean of the UP College of Fine Arts, Abueva gave so generously, both of his time and encouragement, as much as the works that now install both the Diliman and Manila campuses as possibly the most bequeathed in our country in terms of timeless outdoor art. Even as he gained retirement, he never tired of filling up the spaces in both campuses with his lavish gamut of sculpture gateways, muses, nudes, family and group tableaux, articles of faith as well as of novelty and mischief.

A couple of years ago I listened to him as he explained how his fellow National Artist, the poet Rio Alma, had inspired him to create a female counterpart to the iconic Oblation. The sculpture “Magdangal” stands in front of the new CAL building. His ever-twinkling eyes became benign slits as he recalled hearing of how students were calling it the “J. Lo figure” owing to its somewhat provocative stance and awesome breasts.

Then he recounted how he had just finished a kinetic sculpture that he called “The Erection” a metal column that would rise when it hears the university anthem. At 78, he remained as engaged with the ludic mysteries of life and love as ever.

It was unfortunate that some weeks later, we all heard of yet another stroke he had suffered while in Davao. The next time I saw him, at an elegant dinner at Ricky Soler’s place, he was in a wheelchair and could hardly speak, and yet he kept gesturing to his caregiver to put more of Ricky’s celebrated paella on his plate, and into his mouth.

We should really visit him again at Tierra Verde, where he has painstakingly built a “Swaying House” above a pond, and what on our last visit was already beginning to look like a cathedral in a Gothic manner, and yet at once so distinctively Abueva.

He conquers still, this Napoleon. Author Reyes encapsulates the artist’s consummate labor of love: 

“Whether carving, modelling, welding assemblage, or casting in bronze or concrete, the sculptor in engaged in a constant struggle and ironically, communication to reveal the hidden form, pursuing it to its inevitable end. The wlllingness to take risks and the openness to various sculptural approaches allowed Abueva to mine his protean talent that, like the figure imprisoned within the marble, waits for its release. Through an impressive range of subjects, materials, and methods, Abueva singlehandedly fertilized the field of Philippine sculpture.”

The Abueva book is available at the Yuchengco Museum at RCBC Plaza, corner Ayala and Gil. J. Puyat Avenues, Makati City. Phone 889-1234 or email info@yucheng comuseum.org