20/08/2025
Why is the Spoliarium special?
It's not because it's the largest painting in the Philippines. It's not because Juan Luna, a national hero, painted it.
The Spoliarium is special because it won a gold medal (out of three) at the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884 in Madrid, Spain. At first, it feels a bit reductory to claim this magnificent painting is only important because a group of Europeans gave it a medal, but there is a deeper layer to all this.
Juan Luna was among the first waves of Filipinos who were sent abroad to study further, the group that will eventually be known as the Illustrados. Luna's exposure to the European Art Scene will lead him to join the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1881, winning a silver medal for his work "La Muerte de Cleopatra". Three years later, the Spoliarium would win a gold medal.
And that is the true legacy of Juan Luna: that a Filipino, once exposed to the same opportunities as the Europeans get, will excel. That he won a gold medal from the art exposition of the very country that held the Philippines under its yoke, by the same colonizers who dismissed the Filipinos as "monkeys", should be seen as significant. Some sources even say Luna was unjustly denied the Medal of Honor from the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes due to racial prejudice. But even without all that, the Spoliarium's importance to our history and identity as a people should be unquestioned.
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The Spoliarium can be viewed at the National Museum of Fine Arts everyday from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Admission to the museum is free. We can add this museum stop to any of our Manila tours that you book with us.
