Friday night opened the third exhibit of our printmaking classes in the University of San Carlos Department of Fine Arts at the Tres de Abril Hall of Palm Grass Hotel in Junquera Street.
Traditionally entitled “Patik,” this third set (“Patik Tres”), which runs until October 28, features the work of our students in different techniques of fine art printmaking.
Unlike painting where the artist customarily makes only a single work, fine art printmaking involves techniques and media that enables the artist to make copies or “multiple originals” of the artwork. A limited series of copies or “edition” can be made, and each print is marked with its edition number using a pencil (a tradition in printmaking). Among the most basic techniques are woodcut printing, where image is carved and inked on a wood block before it is transferred on paper by pressing it with a spoon or a machine called an etching press.
Inked wooden or metal plates carved, engraved or etched using corrosive chemicals are pressed with damp paper on top of them into rollers whose pressure will make the paper catch the inked parts of the design.
As the design is permanently fixed on the plate, the artist may repeat the printing process and thus produce a number of work that may be sold, kept or given away. Whereas the singularity of painting makes ownership of it exclusive, printmaking allows more people to acquire a copy of the same artwork. And since they all come from the same plate the artist made, they are all original. Thus, edition prints are also called “multiple originals.”
This idea of sharing art to more people makes printmaking a democratic art form. Indeed, the engravings and etchings of the ancient masters like Albert Durer and Rembrandt proliferated in Europe during the Baroque period, acquired by both aristocrats and the masses. In Japan, the ukiyo-e or woodcut prints of masters like Hokusai sold like hotcakes.
Woodcut printing was an ancient practice common both in Europe during the Middle Ages and even earlier in China. While no traces have been found of woodcut printing in the Philippines during the precolonial era, the closest we have to drawing was the Visayan tattoo or “patik.” The word must have come from the Proto-Austronesian “beCik” (to tattoo), which is also said to be the root of batik, the Javanese textile art using wax-resist.
Patik eventually came to also mean “print.” Apparently, it evolved after the introduction of printing in the Philippines by the Spaniards. In fact, the first artworks that the Spaniards brought here were more prints than paintings.
The friars, who wanted to decorate the newly constructed churches, brought religious engravings, woodcuts and later on, etchings. The printed paper were cheaper and easier to obtain. These were shown to local artists and artisans to be copied into paintings or relief carvings.
At the same time, they also introduced the new printing machine for the publication of religious books. It had been only about two centuries since Johann Gutenberg introduced to the Europeans the movable type, the prototype of printing copied from the Chinese.
This involved the use of a “type” or small wood block carved with a letter that you can interchange, “set” along lead guidelines (thus the term “leading” or setting space between lines of words) to compose a text, then inked and pressed on paper for printing. The whole process is the same as wood block printing.
In fact, side by side with the movable type, printing with the use of a single wooden plate continued to be used for smaller printing jobs, like religious cards and prayer books with few pages.
Thus, for the ancient Filipino, whose original notion of drawing was the tattoo, the meaning of patik extended to both the woodcut print and its cousin, the printed word. Not yet taught to read and write in Spanish, the line between text and image did not really matter.
Those with no access to printing machines resorted to block printing. For instance, the Cebuanos who rose against the well-armed Spaniards during the revolt on Tres de Abril of 1898 used wood block printing to reproduce the images on the vestidora, a small amulet vest worn over their shirts and believed to shield them from bullets.
Incidentally, it was in the Hawanan Tres de Abril of the heritage-themed hotel in historic downtown area that our students had their third exhibition of art prints. We hope that this bit of connection between patik and history will be “etched” in their memory, along with the more fleeting selfies at the gallery.