Decision making, materiality and digitisation: Esteban Villanueva’s Basi Revolt Paintings of Ilocos

Esteban Villanueva’s fourteen 1821 paintings, the Basi Revolt Paintings of Ilocos, are valued for their representation of the conflict between the Spanish colonial administration and Filipino Ilocano insurgents. As pictorial documents representing the emergence of secular artistic practice in the Philippines, they possess significant social and historical narratives of national independence and the Ilocano’s strength of character. Damage, previous restorations and the effects of tropical climates have not been kind to the Basi Revolt paintings and their visual reading is complex. This paper reports on the technical and materials analysis of the paintings, documentation, digitisation and image analysis as a conservation model to broaden perspectives on knowledge acquisition in conservation. Conservation decision making in the Philippines is an additional focus of the paper, with an examination of localised values, and the trajectory and life of the paintings to inform conservation actions and creative processes.