Leonardo T. Cruz (1932-2012)
Leonardo had dreamt of making paintings of Noli Me Tangere. He created his Noli Me Tangere paintings in a studio in Caloocan. From this, he was able to paint scenes from the novel vividly like it just happened yesterday and as if he was there to witness the happenings in the novel. Due to his love for Rizal’s work, he made 28 paintings that is inspired by the book Noli Me Tangere. Leonardo was inspired and motivated to paint paintings inspired by the book because of Juan Luna and Jose Rizal as Juan Luna sketched 3 of the main characters in the book and Jose Rizal himself drew the cover of the book. With his paintings, he was able to continue what Juan Luna started and he was able to bring life to the novel. Through his paintings, Leonardo hopes that every Filipino and youth, especially, will be an avid reader of Rizal’s works and be infused with his love and ideal’s for our country.
Background on Dr.Jose Rizal
Dr. Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo was born on June 19, 1861, in Calamba, Laguna. Recognized as an outstanding student for mastering multiple languages and being able to express it proficiently. He was also a medicine student in Manila and during 1882, Jose Rizal received his medical degree when he traveled to Spain. Rizal wrote the discrimination of the Spaniards and also the colonial reign of Spain at Philippines. During that time-span, he also wrote his first novel entitled “Noli Me Tangere”. He did all that writing while living in Europe. In his novel, he made sure to elaborate everything that is happening in his country through the use of literature. The sole purpose of his novel was to open the eyes of his fellow countrymen that they were being abused and oppressed. Noli Me Tangere translates to “Huwag Mo Akong Salingin” or in english, “Don’t touch me.” Noli Me Tangere was a work that focuses on the abuses of the Spaniards and all their maltreatments to the Philippines, especially the Catholic friars that are leading the way for the Spaniards. The book was then banned by the Spaniards in the Philippines, though some copies are being smuggled
Summary of Noli Me Tangere
Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino who, after studying for seven years in Europe, returns to his native land to find that his father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the result of a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan friar named Padre Damaso. Ibarra is engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, Maria Clara, the supposed daughter and only child of the rich Don Santiago de los Santos, commonly known as “Capitan Tiago.”
Ibarra resolves to forego all quarrels and to work for the betterment of his people. To show his good intentions, he seeks to establish, at his own expense, a public school in his native town. He meets with ostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso’s successor, a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Clara confesses to an instinctive dread.
At the laying of the cornerstone for the new schoolhouse, a suspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra’s life, occurs, but the festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly and wantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. The young man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar, who is saved by the intervention of Maria Clara.
Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of the friars, is forced to break the engagement and agree to the marriage of Maria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by Padre Damaso. Obedient to her reputed father’s command and influenced by her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents to this arrangement, but becomes seriously ill, only to be saved by medicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered by a girl friend.
Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before he can explain matters, an uprising against the Civil Guard is secretly brought about through agents of Padre Salvi, and the leadership is ascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is warned by a mysterious friend, an outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; but desiring first to see Maria Clara, he refuses to make his escape, and when the outbreak page occurs, he is arrested as the instigator of it and thrown into prison in Manila.
On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house to celebrate his supposed daughter’s engagement, Ibarra makes his escape from prison and succeeds in seeing Maria Clara alone. He begins to reproach her because it is a letter written to her before he went to Europe which forms the basis of the charge against him, but she clears herself of treachery to him. The letter had been secured from her by false representations and in exchange for two others written by her mother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is her real father. These letters had been accidentally discovered in the convento by Padre Salvi, who made use of them to intimidate the girl and get possession of Ibarra’s letter, from which he forged others to incriminate the young man. She tells him that she will marry the young Spaniard, sacrificing herself thus to save her mother’s name and Capitan Tiago’s honor and to prevent a public scandal, but that she will always remain true to him.
Ibarra’s escape had been effected by Elias, who conveys him in a banka up the Pasig to the Lake, where they are so closely beset by the Civil Guard that Elias leaps into the water and draws the pursuers away from the boat, in which Ibarra lies concealed.
On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood, Elias appears, wounded and dying, to find there a boy named Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been driven to insanity by her husband’s neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her younger son having page disappeared some time before in the convento, where he was a sacristan. Basilio, who is ignorant of Elias’s identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which his corpse and the madwoman’s are to be burned.
Upon learning of the reported death of Ibarra in the chase on the Lake, Maria Clara becomes disconsolate and begs her supposed godfather, Fray Damaso, to put her in a nunnery. Unconscious of her knowledge of their true relationship, the friar breaks down and confesses that all the trouble he has stirred up with the Ibarras has been to prevent her from marrying a native, which would condemn her and her children to the oppressed and enslaved class. He finally yields to her entreaties and she enters the nunnery of St. Clara, to which Padre Salvi is soon assigned in a ministerial capacity.
Interpretation of the Painting
The painting shows different scene of the famous novel of Dr. Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere and the main inspiration of Leonardo is none other than the novel, Noli Me Tangere. We all know that Noli showed how abusive the Spaniards during that time. As you can see in the painting, suffering, abuse from civil guards, friars, and other government officials are evident. They use their powers to mistreat civilians. Civil guards harassed civilians, just like in the painting in the lower left part of it. Another are the friars who use their powers to commercialize religion, just like in the upper right corner of the painting. Moreover, Government officials will always be in a picture which show how they abuse their powers just to control the people.
Also the girl in yellow which is Donya Victorina who represent being a social climber during the Spaniards colonization. This character shows how people tend to associate with higher classes of society, specifically the Spaniards and the illustrados and mestizos. Furthermore, Donya Victorina is obsessed in becoming a Spanish to the point that she covered her face with a layered make-up, dressed like Spanish, and spoke Spanish every time despite all the grammatical errors and being unaware regarding the language she constantly uses which shows how colonial mentality reigned in our country years back then.
The painting represents nothing but the Philippines itself. it shows in one art that this country consists of different kind of people and no matter how hard they try to cover and hide their wrong doings or make it look good with their lies, it would still not remove the fact that this country is deeply flawed in many ways.
Relevance to Present Day
Noli Me Tangere is a Spanish novel written by a medical practitioner, poet and Filipino nationalist, Dr. Jose Rizal, who made a brave, wise, yet life-threatening decision to expose the devastating conditions of the Philippines under the governance of the Spaniards. Indeed, Noli Me Tangere is a well-known novel in the Philippines, even schools and universities require the teachers and professors to teach this book to all the youth to know the history of the Philippines. Little did they know that Noli Me Tangere is not just a typical book instead, an eye-opener and a constant reminder that depict several messages for all the Filipinos.
First, Noli Me Tangere shows how being a social climber is not new to this day. It shows how the people back in 1800 like Dona Victorina and Capitan Tiago in the story, cling to Spaniards and even agree with the increment in the tax of the Filipinos just to fit in and raise their status. Even up to this day, this social issue is very evident in the Philippines and even goes along with colonial mentality. Social climbing is not that bad after all because everyone has the rights to choose who they want to be, it is just that, one can never understand how it results to ungratefulness and insecurity of oneself that will never be good to the society.
Second is, abuse of power. Evidently, Noli Me Tangere displays the abuse Filipinos had experienced under the Spanish Rule. In the story, Dr. Rizal used civil guards, friars, and other government officials in the story. It shows how the civil guards harass the civilians with even the slightest mistake they commit like the inability to show identification cards or even not rendering salute, how friars use plenary indulgence to sell ecclesiastical privileges, how government officials use their power to overrule the place. It is very similar to what is currently happening in the Philippines under the Duterte Administration where abuse of power is indisputable. Extrajudicial killings or shoot to kill, and even the accused of the innocents like what happened to Crispin and Basilio.
Third, family devotion. Let us not forget to look on the brighter side of this book, the characters like Maria Clara, Crisostomo Ibarra, and Sisa who stayed committed to their family. Maria Clara who remained obedient to his father, Capitan Tiago; Crisostomo Ibarra who did not stop seeking justice for his father Don Rafael Ibarra; and Sisa who kept devoted to her family especially to her sons despite having a not-so-good partner. These shows how Filipino can do everything for their family no matter how hard life is or no matter what state they are in.
Lastly, self-sacrifice and patriotism. These two are the most obvious messages Noli Me Tangere depicts. Starting with Sisa, who endured all the beatings his husband did and going on a risky journey just to find her son, Basilio, and the willingness of Crisostomo Ibarra and Elias, despite having different means, to fight for the freedom of the country. This goes along with the people who never stop fighting through protests, etc., no matter how dangerous it is for themselves and to go and fight against the flawed and abusive government just to get what Filipinos truly deserve.
After all, as you enter the Gallery V of National Museum of Fine Arts, Noli Me Tangere’s painting will truly capture and please your eyes, but as you pay attention carefully, you would hear all the loudest cries behind. You would hear the messages it has been trying to express which people nowadays fail to see. Let us not forget that Noli Me Tangere is still one of the most powerful weapons Filipinos could use.
