The University of Santo Tomas (UST) Faculty of Arts and Letters has spent six decades producing people who write the country’s stories. For its 60th anniversary, it decided to put some of those stories on a wall.

The faculty recently unveiled a commemorative mural at the lobby of the St. Raymund de Peñafort Building, created by Artlets alumni Michael, Glenn and Noel Blanco, collectively known as the Blanco Brothers.

Titled “From Pen to Pixels: Honoring the Past and Embracing the Future,” the work brings together figures, milestones and images reflecting the faculty’s long association with Philippine literature, journalism, creative writing and the arts.

Among the figures depicted are National Artists F. Sionil Jose, Nick Joaquin, Bienvenido Lumbera, Cirilo Bautista and Rolando Tinio, alongside literary figure Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta and veteran Thomasian journalists Sandra Aguinaldo, Lourd de Veyra, Glenda Gloria and Arnold Clavio.

Students and scholars appear alongside them, with historical references and fragments of campus life filling the remaining spaces.

Rather than presenting the faculty’s alumni as a parade of famous names, the mural places them within the larger community that produced them.

The Blanco Brothers employed academic realism and narrative figurative painting, arranging the figures across a sweeping, frieze-like composition. Ochres, browns and golds dominate the surface, punctuated by deeper blues.

Carefully rendered faces, detailed clothing and symbolic scenes weave through the portraits to create a panoramic narrative.

The faculty seal sits near the center, while two children appear opening a book, looking toward whatever comes next.