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拍品专文
EARLY SCHOOLS OF 20TH-CENTURY BURMESE PAINTING
Myanmar painting is crucial to Southeast Asian arts because its history reaches back to the 11th century AD. This invites irony because Myanmar's contemporary painting is sparsely known due to the wall that surrounded Myanmar after military takeover in 1962. Nonetheless, the 20th-century history of Myanmar painting is similar to the transformations which occurred elsewhere in Asia—Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, for example—whereby local artists began to mix indigenous tendencies with Western influences, arising in unique perceptions.
In Myanmar, the formal introduction of international painting occurred with the establishment of the Burma Art Club in 1918. In the 1920s, British club members sent two Burmese painters, Ba Nyan and Ba Zaw, to London to study at the Royal College of Art. Ba Nyan remained in London seven years, where he also studied under the atmospheric realist Frank Spenlove-Spenlove and was influenced by the master painter Sir Frank Brangwyn. His training under Spenlove was thorough, and he made the Grand Tour throughout Europe to familiarize himself with the work of the Continent's great masters. Although painters in Burma before Ba Nyan had encountered Western influence from professional British artists who traveled to Myanmar and provided ad hoc instruction—Sir Gerald Kelly and Talbot Kelly, for instance—it was Ba Nyan, when he returned to Yangon in 1930, who established the foundations of a realist and impressionist school of painting, through rigorous apprenticeship of young artists and episodic instruction to mature painters.
Ba Nyan and two other painters, Ngwe Gaing and San Win, formed the heart of what might be called the Yangon School—a term which includes many painters in Yangon who did not necessarily study under Ba Nyan, Ngwe Gaing, or San Win but who painted in a realist or impressionist style, sometimes mixing in Traditional effects. When Ba Nyan died at the age of 48, Ngwe Gaing became known as the foremost painter in Myanmar. He was from the southern coast and was of mixed Burmese-Chinese lineage. His early painting instruction came from Ba Ohn and Poe Aung in Dawei, and in Yangon from Ba Sein and ultimately Ba Nyan. In time, Ngwe Gaing became known as "All-Around Ngwe Gaing" for he was a master of pen-work and pencil drawing, watercolour, gouache and oil, and his genres included portrait, landscape, still-life, old Burmese tales and Buddhist themes.
Mandalay was hatching its repartee. Ba Zaw, whose training in London was in transparent watercolour, passed on his skills to fellow Mandalay artists such as Saya Saung. By this time, a tradition in plein air watercolour had developed in Mandalay where the style was suited to the scenic monuments of Upper Myanmar. The eccentric genius Ba Thet was among those working in this style, and he seemed to have tired of these depictions and began to poke fun in some work at what is sometimes called in Burma the British "Royal Academy style." Ba Thet could be a bold experimenter, and through his encouragement and that of U Kin Maung (Bank), a Modernist Movement was initiated largely, but not entirely, from Mandalay in the 1950s-60s which borrowed from the surrealist aspects of the centuries-old temple paintings in Pagan.
Another early school of painting existed in Mandalay—the Chone\Aye School, then under the mastership of Saw Maung. The originator of the school, Saya Chone, a 19th- 20th century Royal Artist in the traditional mode, began adding Western perspective and proportion to his paintings. Chone trained Saya Aye who painted religious works in Upper Myanmar and paintings to preserve the memory of the monarchy. Saya Aye was Saw Maung's father and trained Saw Maung, who took over his business. Thus, throughout this turbulent period, Saw Maung was painting religious works for edifices in Upper Myanmar with a crew of more than 20 painters. But he was not blind to the movements stirring about him, and experimented with realism, impressionism, and Traditional painting in a secular oeuvre which received kudos. What was true of Saw Maung was also true of painters such as Kan Chun (Railway) and Kyaw Nyunt who worked under him. They too developed secular oeuvres.
Kyaw Hlaing (Bogalay), Ba Lon Lay, Lun Gywe, and Min Wae Aung's influences are from the Yangon School. The works of Tin Maung Oo (Yangon), (Ramree) Tin Shwe, Myat Kyawt, and Nyein Chan Su derive from the rupture into Modernism which began in the 1960s and gained forceful momentum in the late 1990s.
Myanmar painting is crucial to Southeast Asian arts because its history reaches back to the 11th century AD. This invites irony because Myanmar's contemporary painting is sparsely known due to the wall that surrounded Myanmar after military takeover in 1962. Nonetheless, the 20th-century history of Myanmar painting is similar to the transformations which occurred elsewhere in Asia—Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, for example—whereby local artists began to mix indigenous tendencies with Western influences, arising in unique perceptions.
In Myanmar, the formal introduction of international painting occurred with the establishment of the Burma Art Club in 1918. In the 1920s, British club members sent two Burmese painters, Ba Nyan and Ba Zaw, to London to study at the Royal College of Art. Ba Nyan remained in London seven years, where he also studied under the atmospheric realist Frank Spenlove-Spenlove and was influenced by the master painter Sir Frank Brangwyn. His training under Spenlove was thorough, and he made the Grand Tour throughout Europe to familiarize himself with the work of the Continent's great masters. Although painters in Burma before Ba Nyan had encountered Western influence from professional British artists who traveled to Myanmar and provided ad hoc instruction—Sir Gerald Kelly and Talbot Kelly, for instance—it was Ba Nyan, when he returned to Yangon in 1930, who established the foundations of a realist and impressionist school of painting, through rigorous apprenticeship of young artists and episodic instruction to mature painters.
Ba Nyan and two other painters, Ngwe Gaing and San Win, formed the heart of what might be called the Yangon School—a term which includes many painters in Yangon who did not necessarily study under Ba Nyan, Ngwe Gaing, or San Win but who painted in a realist or impressionist style, sometimes mixing in Traditional effects. When Ba Nyan died at the age of 48, Ngwe Gaing became known as the foremost painter in Myanmar. He was from the southern coast and was of mixed Burmese-Chinese lineage. His early painting instruction came from Ba Ohn and Poe Aung in Dawei, and in Yangon from Ba Sein and ultimately Ba Nyan. In time, Ngwe Gaing became known as "All-Around Ngwe Gaing" for he was a master of pen-work and pencil drawing, watercolour, gouache and oil, and his genres included portrait, landscape, still-life, old Burmese tales and Buddhist themes.
Mandalay was hatching its repartee. Ba Zaw, whose training in London was in transparent watercolour, passed on his skills to fellow Mandalay artists such as Saya Saung. By this time, a tradition in plein air watercolour had developed in Mandalay where the style was suited to the scenic monuments of Upper Myanmar. The eccentric genius Ba Thet was among those working in this style, and he seemed to have tired of these depictions and began to poke fun in some work at what is sometimes called in Burma the British "Royal Academy style." Ba Thet could be a bold experimenter, and through his encouragement and that of U Kin Maung (Bank), a Modernist Movement was initiated largely, but not entirely, from Mandalay in the 1950s-60s which borrowed from the surrealist aspects of the centuries-old temple paintings in Pagan.
Another early school of painting existed in Mandalay—the Chone\Aye School, then under the mastership of Saw Maung. The originator of the school, Saya Chone, a 19th- 20th century Royal Artist in the traditional mode, began adding Western perspective and proportion to his paintings. Chone trained Saya Aye who painted religious works in Upper Myanmar and paintings to preserve the memory of the monarchy. Saya Aye was Saw Maung's father and trained Saw Maung, who took over his business. Thus, throughout this turbulent period, Saw Maung was painting religious works for edifices in Upper Myanmar with a crew of more than 20 painters. But he was not blind to the movements stirring about him, and experimented with realism, impressionism, and Traditional painting in a secular oeuvre which received kudos. What was true of Saw Maung was also true of painters such as Kan Chun (Railway) and Kyaw Nyunt who worked under him. They too developed secular oeuvres.
Kyaw Hlaing (Bogalay), Ba Lon Lay, Lun Gywe, and Min Wae Aung's influences are from the Yangon School. The works of Tin Maung Oo (Yangon), (Ramree) Tin Shwe, Myat Kyawt, and Nyein Chan Su derive from the rupture into Modernism which began in the 1960s and gained forceful momentum in the late 1990s.