(Seeking Freedom) / 1984 / Oil on canvas / 182.88 x 243.84 cm / Artist: Edgar Talusan Fernandez / Renato Santos collection

This large-scale work by social realist Fernandez is one of the important paintings on the subject of the madonna and child, a perennial Filipino favorite.

Here the madonna figure is distinctly Filipino in features, complexion, and costume. There is a strong central focus on the figure that personifies the multiple concepts of madonna: with a halo of sparkling foliage upon the bright rising sun; Inang Bayan, the Philippines as Mother Country; and Tree of Life drawing vitality and strength from the native soil, as the trunk and roots that extend from her figure suggest. The background, with its tropical bamboos and hills, is the Philippines. In the foreground, symbolism takes precedence; the ground that is also the madonna’s flowing skirt with broad maria clara panels becomes the red, white, yellow, and blue of the Philippine flag in supple folds, completed by the orange sun of the halo.

A striking device derived from surrealism is the metamorphosis of the central panel of folded and creased white cloth into a long meandering road or river that goes beyond a suggestion of prison bars that dematerialize and open into a tranquil blue space, symbolizing the much desired freedom; the word kalayaan or freedom is written under a fold of white cloth. The road to freedom is not easy, however, for in the foreground are signs of suffering and sacrifice: a small red section of the flag “stains” the lower section like blood on the white cloth; the cloth itself is crumpled and creased like rugged terrain, and upon it lies a skull, symbolizing the martyrs in the people’s struggle for freedom.