Unique artistry: Julian Jumalon and the Butterflies

Prof. Julian Jumalon's love for butterflies and arts prompted him to innovate his signature artworks called lepido mosaics. It is a mosaic made from damaged wings of butterflies and moths. The reason for this unique kind of artwork can be traced back during his childhood years. While residing at Zamboanga when he was eight years old, he saw and was amazed by a bunch of colorful-winged butterflies migrating from one place to the other. After some time, while he was a second year high school student at Abellana National School, he found a book entitled “The Limber Lost Girl” - a love story of a rich man who fell in love with an underprivileged girl who cultures and sells butterflies to earn money. This inspired him to collect different species of butterflies. Consequently, collecting butterflies became his lifetime hobby. To get new species of butterflies with unique colors in its wings, He engaged trading of his butterflies to Europe. Surprisingly, he found 20 unique species of butterfly even though he never had a biology course while studying in college. He did study the parts of the butterfly all by himself, and wrote series of drafts about his findings to scientists in Europe.

His artistry may be dated back during his college days. He studied Bachelor of Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines Manila under the tutelage of famous Filipino artists such as Fernando Amorsolo, Fabian de la Rosa, and Guillermo Tolentino. Due to these artists, Prof. Jumalon’s artistic style in painting was in the realist realm. Moreover, his artworks were inspired by our culture, history, nature and folklore. Great examples of these are the Sa Kabukiran and Akoy Pobreng Alindahaw, where he painted his interpretations of the folk songs of the same title.   He first used oil paint in painting his works. However, materials for oil paintings were very expensive, he switched to watercolor as his medium for painting. But during a cold Christmas evening, as his kids were playing with the damaged butterfly wings in creating Christmas cards, he found out that he can make a never-seen-before mosaic by using the colorful wings of the butterflies. Thus, he named this technique “lepido mosaics”, which then became his signature artwork. These lepido mosaics of Prof. Jumalon were made from damaged wings of moths and butterflies. Unlike other butterfly mosaics like in Taiwan which are composed of big chunks of butterfly wings combined together, Jumalon’s mosaics were mainly made with very tiny cuts (about half a centimeter each) of butterfly wings. Thus, his artworks are product of great patience, where one artwork is finished at least four months. This unique technique made his artworks famous during his time due to its beauty and level of difficulty.

Although Prof. Jumalon died at age 90 in the year 2000, his artworks can still be seen in his Butterfly sanctuary, which is located inside their home. Indeed, Prof. Julian Jumalon proved that Cebuanos possesses the heart of an artist.