José Honorato Lozano (1815 or 1821-1885) was a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

painter born in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

. He is best known as the pioneering practitioner of the art form known as

Letras y figuras Letras y figuras (Spanish, "letters and figures") is a genre of painting pioneered by José Honorato Lozano during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines. The art form is distinguished by the depiction of letters of the alphabet using a ...

, in which the letters of a patron's name is composed primarily by contoured arrangements of human figures surrounded by

vignette Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...

s of scenes in Manila - an art form that may have derived loosely from

illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

. Santiago Pilar, an authority on 19th-century paintings, described Lozano's works as "some of the most quaint and endlessly fascinating relics of Filipino culture in Spanish times". Lozano was the son of a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

keeper at

Manila Bay Manila Bay ( fil, Look ng Maynila) is a natural harbor that serves the Port of Manila (on Luzon), in the Philippines. Strategically located around the capital city of the Philippines, Manila Bay facilitated commerce and trade between the Phili ...

. He grew up in

Sampaloc, Manila Sampaloc is a district of Manila, Philippines. It is referred to as the University Belt or simply called ''“U-Belt”'' for numerous colleges and universities are found within the district such as the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest exta ...

outside the walled city of

Intramuros Intramuros (Latin for "inside the walls") is the historic walled area within the city of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. It is administered by the Intramuros Administration with the help of the city government of Manila. Present-day I ...

. A local commentator, Rafael Diaz Arenas, remarked as early as 1850 that Lozano was "a watercolourist without rival". Lozano also painted in the conventional ''costumbrista'' tradition as a means of supplying the demand for

souvenir A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

s of Manila to foreign visitors. He also painted in oils and the

Spanish government gl, Goberno de España eu, Espainiako Gobernua , image = , caption = Logo of the Government of Spain , headerstyle = background-color: #efefef , label1 = Role , data1 = Executive power , label2 = Established , da ...

commissioned him to depict episodes from the history of the colony to be displayed during a fiesta in the district of

Santa Cruz, Manila Santa Cruz is a district in the northern part of the City of Manila, Philippines, located on the right bank of the Pasig River near its mouth, bordered by the districts of Tondo, Binondo, Quiapo, and Sampaloc, as well as the areas of Grace P ...

in 1848. José Maria A. Cariño, author of ''José Honorato Lozano: Filipinas 1847'', surmises that Lozano may have been trained by Chinese painters or Filipino painters skilled in

Chinese painting Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as ''guó huà'' (), meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western style ...

techniques. A folio of Lozano's watercolors surfaced in a 1995 episode of Antiques Roadshow (the UK edition) with appraiser Peter Nahum. The album had been commissioned by Emile Nyssens, and was sold at Christie's in 1995 for 265,000 British pounds; and a Spanish marquesa by another—not unless there were two or three separate albums floating around in Europe. But that folio appraised by Nahum went on to sell for GBP240,000 at a later auction. In 2021, ''Views of Manila'' (1850), a ''letras y figuras'' watercolor by Lozano that previously was in the collection of economic historian Benito J. Legarda was sold for a record PHP17.52 million (USD362,412.41), becoming the most expensive artwork sold by the artist internationally.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lozano, Jose Honorato Filipino painters Genre painters People from Sampaloc, Manila 1885 deaths Year of birth uncertain

See also

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