Every Filipino knows of this painting, it's been on the wall of the National Museum for years and has greeted many visitors. It's a masterpiece by Juan Luna, a well known Filipino artist (and for me a national and personal hero).
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| The Spoliarium @ The National Museum |
Spoliarium is a Latin word referring to the basement of the Colosseum where the dead and dying gladiators are thrown and stripped of their possessions.
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| The vultures that are men |
The Spoliarium is the largest painting in the Philippines, measuring 4.22 x 7.6775 metres. It was the painting that won Juan Luna the first gold medal at the
Exposicion de Bellas Artes (Madrid Art Exposition) in May 1884. It took eight months for Juan Luna to finish this masterpiece.
It is a very dark painting (literally and symbolically).
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| The dead gladiators |
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| The woman and the man with the torch |
The Spoliarium is one of paintings that after seeing it, you can never forget it. It's raw, uncensored, graphic and shows the darkness that lies in the past and present of every society.
For me it shows the things we ignore and tend to give a blind eye to.
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| Spoliarium |
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