On the side of plastic and depictive art, the Filipino cannot be accorded the right to high rank. . . . The anito figures . . . [are] rude: a suggestion of the human figure in abbreviated conventionalized form without aesthetic aspiration sufficed all needs."
. . . [T]he bulol spirit images are fine examples of abstract art, for the Ifugao woodcarver expresses his feelings rather than attempts realistic representation. The distortion, as many observers want to call it, results from emphasis being placed on the quality of 'other worldliness' or the 'preternatural'."