The arts and crafts of the people of

a region are expressive of their way of

life- a reflection of their daily activities,
ideals, and aspirations and of the
opportunities open to them to improve
and perpetuate that way of life.
 The arts and crafts of the Filipinos may be
divided into four distinct periods, as follows:
1. Primitive or pre-spanish colonial period,
extending up to March 16, 1521, when
magellan discovered the Philippines
2. Spanish colonial period (1521-1898)
3. Period of American occupation (1898-1935)
4. Contemporary period (establishment of the
commonwealth, Nov. 15, 1935, to the preent)
 The picture writing recorded on a rock found
some time ago in a cave in Baler, Quezon,
gives an account of the social and economic
activities of a tribal group.
 The founding in 1849 of the school of fine
arts, which offered drawing, painting,
engraving, and sculpture, and of the trade
school in succeeding years, contributed
towards the spread of this influence.
 Gradually but surely they drew the admiration
of the artistic elements among our people.
The common traditional designs and
handworks of this periods were of the
Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, and
Renaissance schools.
 The handy work design of the Philippines
during this period struck a new note.
Handiwork or skill training was included in
the first primary curriculum organized in the
islands, and the first primary handiwork shop
was organized at Pagsanjan, Laguna, in 1904
with a native carpenter as a teacher.
 Arts and Crafts as a course is slowly gaining
in importance insofar as its role in the
Philippines educational system is concerned.
◦ In this connection, the United Nation Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization and the
International Bureau of Education have the following
to say:
1. “That art education, which make an appeal to so
many of the child’s activities, provides an important
means off aesthetic, intellectual and moral
education, and enables the teacher to find out what
the child is thinking and feeling and to discover his
artistic aptitude.”
2. “That in the pursuit of learning, the pursuit
of a profession, and the enlightened use of
leisure, the skill and understanding acquired by
studying art encourage the appreciation of
beauty in nature, life, production and art,”
3. “That art is an educational factor necessary
to the all-round development of personality,
and an important means to a deeper
understanding of reality,”
 4. “That the multiplication of images, through
photography, books, advertisements, films
and television, to –day represents an advance
as important as was the invention of printing,
and that the visual education of children
should therefore be more widely develop so
as to guide their thinking, cultivate their
taste, and prevent their awareness from being
blunted by vulgarity and ugliness,”
 5. “That the visual arts, as well as the arts,
can make a contribution to confidence and
understanding among mankind.
 In arts and crafts, as in other phases of art,
there are various modes of expression, and
each modes has its followers or disciples.
Thus we have the traditional eclectics, the
traditional modernists, the non-traditional or
pure modernists, and the ultra-modernists.
 These are the artists or craftsmen who work
in any of the styles and the past and blend
such styles with the new forms of the
present.
 To this group belong those who depart from
the old mechanical procedure of following
traditional forms or motifs
 These are the people who believe that in arts
and crafts, form follows function and that the
characteristics of the materials used should
influence the appearance of the structural
design.
 They are those who work purely in
imaginations.