Returning to the Manila, Zobel became part of the circle that was to form the core of the developing modernist movement in the Philippines. Critics note that the brilliant chromatism of the Philippine landscape and the Filipino sense of color influenced Zobel's early work. His drawings of Philippine folk scenes with quick, energetic lines foreshadowed the culturist he was to develop later in Spain, drawing no longer on folk art, but on the vast resources of Western art history.