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the journal of the asian arts society

of australia

TAASA ReviewTRADE AND CULTURE

3 Editorial: TRADE AND CULTURE

Jim Masselos and Charlotte Galloway

4 EAST OF INDIA – FORGOTTEN TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA at tHE aUStraliaN

NatioNal MaritiME MUSEUM

Michelle Linder

7 FirSt ENCoUNtErS: tHE PortUGUESE iN JaPaN

Olivia Meehan

10 MEdallioN PattErNS at aNGKor Wat aNd alCHi (ladaKH): SHarEd MEaNiNGS

Gill Green

13 CUltUral PolitiCS: BatiK aNd WaYaNG iN iNdoNESia aNd MalaYSia

Marshall Clark

16 UNliKElY CoNNECtioNS: tHE MaKaSSaNS, tHE YolNGU aNd tHE dUtCH

EaSt iNdiES CoMPaNY

James Bennett

18 a Pair oF 19tH CENtUrY CoMPaNY PaiNtiNGS FroM PatNa at tHE

NatioNal GallErY oF ViCtoria

Carol Cains

21 tHE SPrEad oF iNdiaN rEliGioUS BEliEFS: a FirSt CENtUrY BUrMESE StElE

Pamela Gutman

23 laUNCH oF taaSa SYdNEY CEraMiCS StUdY GroUP, 4 aPril 2013

John Millbank

24 iN tHE PUBliC doMaiN: TRADE CERAMICS IN THE AGNSW

Jackie Menzies

25 BooK rEViEW: CHINESE EXPORT CERAMICS

Jackie Menzies

26 CollECtor’S CHoiCE: A COLLECTION OF FILIPINO SANTOS

Pamela Walker with Ron Walker

27 arMCHair traVEl to taaSa’S aGM

Sandra Forbes

28 BooK rEViEW: ARTS OF VIETNAM

Ann Proctor

29 rECENt taaSa aCtiVitiES

29 taaSa MEMBErS’ diarY: JUNE 2013 - AUGUST 2013

31 WHat’S oN iN aUStralia: JUNE 2013 - AUGUST 2013

Compiled by Tina Burge

C o N t E N t S

Volume 22 No. 2 June 2013

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a FUll iNdEx oF artiClES PUBliSHEd iN TAASA REvIEW SiNCE itS BEGiNNiNGS

iN 1991 iS aVailaBlE oN tHE taaSa WEB SitE, WWW.taaSa.orG.aU

LANDING [WALER] HORSES FROM MADRAS, ATTRIbUTED TO J. b. EAST C. 1834 (DETAIL).

REPRODUCED COURTESy DIXSON COLLECTION STATE LIbRARy OF NEW SOUTH WALES. SEE PP4-6.

taaSa rEViEW

THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA INC. Abn 64093697537 • Vol. 22 No. 2, June 2013 ISSN 1037.6674 Registered by Australia Post. Publication No. NbQ 4134

editoriAL • email: [email protected]

General editor, Josefa Green PUBliCatioNS CoMMittEE

Josefa Green (convenor) • Tina burge Melanie Eastburn • Sandra Forbes • Charlotte Galloway William Gourlay • Marianne Hulsbosch Jim Masselos • Ann Proctor • Sabrina Snow Christina Sumner

dESiGN/laYoUt

Ingo Voss, VossDesign

PriNtiNG

John Fisher Printing

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E d i t o r i a l : T R A D E A N D C U LT U R E

Jim Masselos and Charlotte Galloway

3

t a a S a C o M M i t t E E

It was common in the 19th and 20th centuries to point out that trade followed the flag. The aphorism went some way in explaining the nature of empires and what happened under their sway. It did little though to acknowledge the intricacies of regional trade and cultural interactions that had been taking place for millennia.

This issue of the TAASA Review focuses on the way in which local art and culture responded to the influences which came through trade, both inter-regional and international. Perhaps our concerns can set up another aphorism: culture follows trade. In general the articles examine the spread of cultures, belief systems, and their arts as they piggybacked on the extensive trade networks that provided contacts between different parts of Asia. While the arts did not drive trade they were an ancillary in its movement, as trade carried new objects, novel designs and new kinds of perceptions and beliefs from one part of this vast region to another.

Summarising the endeavour of this issue is the East of India exhibition at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. Through her discussion of the multiplicity of interactions on display, Michelle Linder outlines the connections between India under the sway of the East India Company and the Australian colonies in the first half of the 19th century, an interaction little acknowledged in our national history.

That the East India Company had a profound impact upon the territories it dominated is shown in Carol Cains’ discussion of Company painting, works commissioned by Company officials in India. In the days before photography, Company personnel employed local artists to record the sites and society of the strange and different place they were ruling. The artists produced a European and Indian mélange of forms - and a distinctive new body of work.

Trade provided pathways for the movement of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam and their associated artefacts for centuries before the arrival of European traders. Indian beliefs were carried to Southeast Asia through trade and exchange networks from as early as the beginnings of the common era. Pamela Gutman discusses the earliest evidence of this transfer and how these beliefs were reinterpreted in the local context by examining a two-faced stele from Sri Ksetra in Burma. Nearly 1000 years ago, according to Gill Green, similar interactions are implied

by the existence of common decorative patterns based on Indian trade textiles, which provided the background for both Buddhist and Hindu narratives on statues and walls in Himalayan Alchi and Cambodian Angkor respectively.

Well established patterns of sea trade amongst Asian countries also existed in relation to ceramics, such as the so-called Nanhai or Southern Seas trade, long before Western traders entered the lucrative market in the 1500s. Jackie Menzies provides an overview of this movement of goods, using the standing display of trade objects in the Art Gallery of NSW.

With the Europeans, first the Portuguese, and then the Dutch, British, Spanish, Danish and French, came an equally radical, if different, metaphysic. Olivia Meehan discusses the rapid but short-term impact of the Portuguese on Japanese narrative art forms and Pamela and Ron Walker in their account of Filipino Santos, present marvellously fresh Christian images re-imagined within a distinctive Asian context.

James Bennett explores holdings in the Art Gallery of South Australia to illustrate how trading relationships expose the cultural interests of each party. In the case of foreign trade with Indonesia, the Dutch were interested in gold and weaponry, while Indigenous Australians enmeshed the Indonesian fishermen and trepang trade into their histories through bark painting.

Globalisation and transnational interchange are clearly not just a recent construct. However, in a contemporary world with delineated geo-political boundaries, ownership of cultural symbols becomes an often vexed issue. As Marshall Clark points out, the rivalry between Indonesia and Malaysia over batik and wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre) traditions demonstrates the significant role visual culture and tradition play in creating national identity.

These articles offer insight into some of the ways trading interactions through Asia have influenced visual culture both within the region and internationally. We are reminded that across Asia, culture is a dynamic entity and that this is central to its vibrancy and diversity. Yet like so much of matters Asian no single explanatory framework seems able to cover all of the complexity and the riches of this vast continent.

GiLL Green • PRESIDENT

Art historian specialising in Cambodian culture

Ann ProCtor • VICE PRESIDENT

Art historian with a particular interest in Vietnam

todd SundermAn • TREASURER

Former Asian antique dealer, with a particular interest in Tibetan furniture

dy AndreASen • SECRETARy

Has a special interest in Japanese haiku and tanka poetry

HWEi-FE’N CHEaH

Visiting Fellow, School of Cultural Inquiry, Australian National University.

Matt Cox

Assistant Curator, Asian Art, Art Gallery of NSW

CHarlottE GalloWaY

Lecturer Asian Art History and Curatorial Studies, Australian National University, with a special interest in the Buddhist Art of Myanmar

JoSEFa GrEEN

General editor of TAASA Review. Collector of Chinese ceramics, with long-standing interest in East Asian art as student and traveller

aNN GUild

Former Director of the Embroiders Guild (UK)

MiN-JUNG KiM Curator of Asian Arts & Design at the Powerhouse Museum

YUKiE Sato

Former Vice President of the Oriental Ceramic Society of the Philippines with wide-ranging interest in Asian art and culture

SUSaN SCollaY

Is an art historian and curator specialising in the arts of Islam and in historic textiles. She is Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of the UK.

CHriStiNa SUMNEr

Principal Curator, Design and Society,Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

MarGarEt WHitE

Former President and Advisor of the Friends of Museums, Singapore, with special interest in Southeast Asian art, ceramics and textiles

S t a t E r E P r E S E N t a t i V E S

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

MElaNiE EaStBUrN

Curator of Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia

QUEENSLAND

rUSSEll StorEr

Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

JaMES BENNEtt

Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia

VICTORIA

Carol CaiNS

Curator Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria International

4

‘I am a tailor, I complain of general bad treatment, bad and insufficient food; Mrs Browne agreed to give me as much as I could eat; I came from India with her; she has not given me as much as I could eat;

I know nothing of the agreement I entered into, of the particulars of it, I was turned on board ship without going to the police office;

I desired to be returned to my own country; I have been so ill used by Mr Browne, I will remain no longer with him, if he would give me the best dish I could eat, I would not stop with him; this country does not suit me;

I was coaxed to come here, being told that I should have all the privileges I should have in my own country.’

his testimony was made by Meer Jaun to a Special Bench of Magistrates on 10

July 1819. He was one of 35 domestic servants and labourers brought to Australia to work in Sydney around 1812. Many of the servants made claims of mistreatment. An inquiry was held on orders from Governor Lachlan Macquarie and most of the servants were returned to India on the ship Mary owned by William Browne, their employer, in 1819.

The dramatic testimony given by Meer Juan and his fellow country men and women contain allegations of violence, starvation and religious or cultural deprivations. In the exhibition East Of India – Forgotten Trade With Australia at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, actors from two Sydney based Indian arts companies, Abhinay School of Performing Arts Inc and Nautanki Theatre, will record a selection of these testimonies to enable visitors to hear the perspectives of the servants who worked in Australia. We hope to provide visitors with insight into the lives of the sailors, servants, settlers, soldiers and merchants that travelled between India and Australia in the first 70 years of European settlement, and to share stories of an often forgotten trade.

To understand the links between the new colony and India, my co-curator Dr Nigel Erskine and I provide visitors with a brief explanation of early European interactions with Asia. Visitors then encounter in more detail the history of the English East India Company from its founding in 1600 to its demise in 1857 as background to the story of the Australian connection with India.

Following Vasco Da Gama’s discovery of the seaway from Europe to India in 1498, the Portuguese dominated exploration and trade with Asia for the next century. Highlights of the exhibition’s introductory area include a rare manuscript map by Evert Gijsbertz showing what Europeans knew about Africa and Asia at the end of the 16th century. The area where Northern Australia exists is ‘a place of great wealth’ marked as ‘Beach’. On loan from the Dixson Map Collection in the State Library of New South Wales, the watercolour and ink map has a richly decorated border and group scenes showing cartouches, flags, compass roses and inscriptions in Dutch and Portuguese.

A portable drop-front cabinet with Mughal design elements from the Victoria and Albert Museum is an example of the furniture traded in both India and Europe. It was made by Indian craftsmen for European customers to store personal effects. By the end of the 16th century the Portuguese were being challenged by merchant companies from England and the Netherlands. The Dutch were based in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) and the English East India Company had consolidated its power in India.

The East India Company rose from being a relatively small player in the Asian trading world to become the ruler of India, controlling over a fifth of the world’s population. The Company was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1600. Its Court

of Directors met weekly in their London headquarters and controlled all aspects of the company’s shipping trade and finance. Territories under Company rule were named Presidencies and were administered by a governor (or president) based in one of the Presidency towns: Bombay (now Mumbai), Madras (Chennai) or Calcutta (Kolkata).

English artists George Lambert (1700-1765) and Samuel Scott (1700-1772) were commissioned to record various local scenes. Two of their works that hung in East India House (the London headquarters of the EIC) for over a century are displayed in this exhibition. Lambert painted the grand warehouses, wharves and churches constructed in Bombay and Calcutta, while Scott, a marine artist, concentrated on the ships used to transport the vast array of goods exported from India to Europe.

East Indiamen were the European ships that traded into Asia. They were the largest cargo carriers of their day, built to high standards and heavily armed to protect their precious cargoes. Indian textiles had been traded for centuries within Asia and employees of the EIC found an established industry of weavers, fabric painters and block printers in India. Textiles exported from India proved so popular they became a major import to Britain and a source of wealth for the East India Company and the merchants working under licence. The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney has lent

4

T

E A S T O F I N D I A – F O R G O T T E N T R A D E W I T H A U S T R A L I A

a t t H E a U S t r a l i a N N a t i o N a l M a r i t i M E M U S E U M

Michelle Linder

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 2 N O . 2

loSS oF tHE GUardiaN, RObERT DODD ENGRAVING 1790, 843 X 717MM. ANMM COLLECTION

5TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 2 N O . 2

a wide range of textiles: from a block printed sarong made for the Indonesian market in the 19th century to wall-hangings featuring tree-of-life designs, intricately woven shawls and plainer outfits worn by convicts and settlers. An evening dress made in Australia in 1805 for Anna Josepha King (the wife of Governor King) from imported Indian muslin is one of the oldest surviving examples of clothing in Australia and is borrowed from the National Trust of Australia (NSW).

We tell the story of the resistance and conflict encountered by the EIC in the wealthy kingdom of Mysore in southern India. A ceramic sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum shows Lieutenant Hugh Monro being fatally mauled by a Bengal tiger. It was inspired by the famous life-sized automaton depicting the same tragedy that Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore and the EIC’s fiercest enemy, had made to amuse himself. We are also incorporating the V&A’s app of Tipu’s Tiger, for visitors to download to see the automaton in action on screen. The defeat of Tipu Sultan at the battle of Seringapatam in 1799 was met with jubilation in Britain and his personal items were much sought after by British collectors. A beautiful sword covered with his tiger-stripe

emblem and bejewelled tiger eyes is displayed alongside a quiver and arrows that were allegedly taken from his bedroom and later presented to King George III.

Satirical cartoons published in London between 1788 and 1813 focus on the pressures faced by the Company of Directors in England and India. Critics of the EIC believed too many resources were being directed to the military control of India. They wanted the Company to focus on the accumulation of profits for investors through trade. The East India Company lost its monopoly on trade with India and China in 1813 and 1833 respectively, allowing new traders to enter the market. When Indian troops rebelled against the British in 1857, bloody uprisings were ignited throughout India and these ultimately led to the downfall of the East India Company. The British government took over from the EIC ending 200 years of influence and control. A small section of the exhibition focuses on the events of 1857. A striking chromolithograph of the Indian warrior queen, the Rani of Jhansi, photographs by Felice Beato and a Victoria Cross medal awarded to a British soldier who went on to settle in Australia are displayed alongside other items, to interpret the bloody conflict for visitors.

aNNa KiNG’S EVENiNG drESS, C. 1805. INDIAN MUSLIN.

COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA (NSW).

PHOTO: ANDREW FROLOWS

tHE dEatH oF MUNroW, CERAMIC FIGURE, GLAzED EARTHENWARE, STAFFORDSHIRE C. 1830, 34.9CM (L). ©VICTORIA AND ALbERT MUSEUM, LONDON

6 TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 2 N O . 2

The second half of the exhibition brings the visitor to the colony of NSW. The Guardian was the first ship bound for Port Jackson after the First Fleet, carrying food, livestock and other essentials for the fledgling colony. When it struck an iceberg off the Cape of Good Hope in 1789, all the supplies and most of the people onboard were lost. Merchants in India lobbied to supply the now-starving colony. When the Third Fleet arrived in Sydney from England, it brought Governor Phillip the news that he was permitted to develop trade with India, previously restricted by the EIC’s monopolistic charter. It was the loss of the Guardian that effectively kick started the trading relationship between Australia and India. The Atlantic was sent from Sydney to Bengal in 1791 to collect supplies, returning with a cargo of rice, putrid pork, scrawny cattle and newspapers from Calcutta. Merchants such as William Bampton and Robert Campbell were quick to follow the Atlantic and began shipping goods from India to the new colony. Robert Campbell went on to become the wealthiest merchant in Sydney.

Approximately 100 ships arrived from India between 1813 and 1833, while over 250 ships left for India from Sydney or Hobart in the same time period. Many convict transports unloaded their human freight in Australia and then continued to India to collect a cargo to ship to Europe. The profit was made on the Indian cargo collected on the last leg of the journey. Typical imports from India to Australia included candles, soap, sugar, rice, tea, Chinese ceramics, shoes, rum, cotton textiles, clothing, tobacco, leather, canvas, rope and general household goods. Finding suitable exports proved a challenge for merchants. Timber, sealskins, whale oil, coal and sandalwood were some of the first

Australian exports to India. From the 1830s onwards, horses bred in Australia were regularly exported to India and used by the military; these Australian horses came to be known as ‘walers’. Visitors are able to follow the journeys of three different ships involved in the horse trade in an interactive display.

The journey between India and Australia was hazardous and two routes were taken according to the season. Vessels could sail north through the hazardous, little-charted Coral Sea or inside the Great Barrier Reef, then west through Torres Strait and on to the Bay of Bengal, sailing south of Java. The preferred route was south of Australia and then north into the Bay of Bengal, but during winter, strong westerly winds often made this route unviable. Matthew Flinders began the work of charting safe shipping routes, but it was Phillip Parker King who carried out detailed mapping of the Australian coast between 1817 and 1822. A small selection of artefacts retrieved from the remains of the ships Mermaid, HMS Porpoise, Cato and Royal Charlotte lost in the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea en route to India are displayed. Since 2009 the Museum’s maritime archaeology program has focused on shipwrecks associated with colonial trade to India.

The exhibition tells the diverse stories of settlers who came to Australia from India in a series of small showcases with one object, photograph or document pertaining to each settler. Case studies include Private James Dwyer of the 40th regiment, who was transported to Australia for seven years after striking a superior officer; Madhoo, an Indian labourer brought to Sydney as part of an organised migration scheme, and Captain Andrew Barclay who settled in Tasmania after a lifetime serving the East India Company at sea.

The exhibition concludes with a short film Indian Aussies: Terms and Conditions Apply. Anupam Sharma led the team at Film and Casting Temple at Moore Park, directing and producing an informative, humorous and dynamic short film focused on the current connections between India and Australia. A diverse range of Indian Australians have been interviewed about their experiences and perceptions of the relationship between our two countries. The film production is a novel approach for the museum and a very exciting innovation.

East of India – Forgotten Trade with Australia is on display from 1 June until 18 August 2013. Over 300 objects from the collections of the Australian National Maritime Museum, Art Gallery of NSW, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, National Trust of Australia (NSW), State Library of New South Wales, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, Victoria and Albert Museum, Queensland Museum, Australian War Memorial, British Museum, British Library, Royal Collection, the National Army Museum London, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, Silentworld Foundation and a private lender are displayed.

Michelle Linder has curated a wide range of

exhibitions at the Australian National Maritime

Museum on topics including naval history, travel

souvenirs and community life on the Murray–Darling

river system. She is co-curator of East of India –

forgotten trade with Australia.

rEFErENCEMeer Juan testimony to a Special bench of Magistrates 10 July

1819. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Correspondence

on State of Slavery in Territories under rule of East India Company

and Slave Trade, 1826.

iNdiaN CaBiNEt, 17TH CENTURy, WESTERN INDIA , WOOD, INLAID WOOD, bRASS AND IVORy WITH METAL LOCk

PLATE AND HANDLE, 16.2CM (H), 27.4CM (W), 19.6CM (D) ©VICTORIA AND ALbERT MUSEUM, LONDON

VaSE, MAkER bARR, FLIGHT & bARR C. 1830, PORCELAIN,

34.9CM (H) ©VICTORIA AND ALbERT MUSEUM, LONDON


n 1543, after more than a century of exploration and expansion, the first

Europeans, the Portuguese, landed on the Isle of Tanegashima off the southern island of Kyūshū, Japan. Their arrival has been described in Japanese as kamikaze, ‘by the winds of the gods’, or ‘by accident’ and, indeed, the Portuguese did not intend to visit Japan; their landing on Japanese shores was caused by severe weather conditions (Lidin 2002). Initially they were received well by the Daimyō and the shōgunate of Japan, who recognized the political importance and value of relations with the Portuguese as facilitators of trade with China. The Portuguese brought with them guns, Western learning materials and Christianity.

The people of Japan were no strangers to the idea of cultural exchange when they first encountered Europeans in the mid-16th century. Japan was actively engaged with China and Korea for centuries and well accustomed to appropriating aspects of language, religion, culture, art and literature from foreign lands. And yet their encounter with Europe produced some very different results. The open and polytheistic Shintō religion that dominated Japan at the time, presented no barriers for its followers as they welcomed a useful ally who worshipped, what was to them, just one more ‘deity’. As long as they limited their relationship to commerce, and agreed to keep out of affairs of state, the Portuguese were free to worship their god and proselytize his greatness, predominantly through pictorial representation. (Kuroda 1981). ‘As a result, the Japanese were exposed to, and acquired, aspects of European culture without submitting to colonization. In this process it can be argued that the Japanese ‘discovered’ the West on their own terms, grounded in qualities inherent in their own culture, traditions, and art practices’ (Mastumoto 1998).

For decades scholars of Portuguese history have examined the monumental Japanese screen paintings from the late 16th and early 17th centuries, especially those which depict the arrival of Portuguese merchants and missionaries to Japanese shores: Nanban byōbu, ‘Southern Barbarian folding screens’. In art historical terms the word Nanban has been used to refer to Japanese works of art produced as a result of the contact between southern Europe (principally Portugal and

Italy) and Japan during this period. The term does not describe a particular style or technique. Nanban byōbu were executed by Japanese workshops, using Japanese tradition painting methods, for a Japanese market: these screens were not made for an export market. Typically displayed in pairs, each screen consisted of six to eight panels and was divided into groups of ‘arrival scene’ paintings. The first group shows the departure of the Portuguese carrack, ‘Black Ship’ (or nau), from a foreign port on the left screen, and on the right, the arrival of the ship to Japan. The next group shows the arrival of the Portuguese ‘Black Ship’ to Japanese shores on the left screen, and on the right screen is a procession of Portuguese merchants and missionaries through the streets of a Japanese port town. The third identified group depicts scenes in Japan only. Around 94 screens survive and can be found in collections worldwide (Sakamoto 2008).

By their content, the paintings are inextricably linked to Portuguese exploration in East Asia, but how do these works figure in the scheme of Japanese painting and pictorial narrative? What do they tell us about trade and cultural exchange in the early modern period? Mastumoto Moritaka claims Nanban byōbu reveal much more about projected Japanese perceptions of the ‘other’ than about the foreigners themselves. Extant European sources are valuable for understanding the European experience of Japan at that time,

but only in framing one side of the history. Matsumoto writes: ‘Thus, the Europeans’ image of themselves in Japanese society was largely the product of their perceptions of the Japanese views of Nanban people and culture which the Japanese saw as superficial and inorganic; and the Europeans seem to have promoted or even capitalized on this image for the express purposes of their business and religion’ (Mastumoto 1988).

With the establishment of a Jesuit mission in Japan, delicately illustrated bibles were given to the missionaries for their own use, as much as for propaganda (Cieslik 1963). Two of the most renowned family workshops, active in Antwerp, were given the onerous task of producing many of these books. The Wierix family, Johannes (c.1549-c. 1618), his younger brothers Hieronymus (1553-1619) and Antonius II (c.1555/59-1604) and the Sadeler family, Jan I (1550-1600), Aegidius I (1555-1609) and Rafael I (1560-1632), were patronised by the Jesuits from the late 16th to the early 17th centuries. The majority of the Wierix’s production was religious and served the Counter-Reformation. The engraving style of the family was unique and their output was celebrated for its technical sophistication and delicacy (Ruyven-Zeman 2004). Evidence of Wierix and Sadeler family engravings circulating in Japan in the late 16th century can clearly be detected in the depiction of ‘foreign material’ (ship design, costumes, goods and people) in Nanban byōbu.

I

F i r S t E N C o U N t E r S : t H E P o r t U G U E S E i N J a Pa N

Olivia MeehanTHE DIScOvERy OF THE LONGITUDES OF THE GLObE by THE DEcLINATION OF THE MAGNET FROM THE POLE,

ENGRAVED by JAN COLLAERT II, ENGRAVING, 19.9 X 27CM, RIJkSMUSEUM, AMSTERDAM


The iconographic scheme of the Nanban byōbu borrows from types found in both traditional Japanese painting, and in a series of European engravings predominately taken from Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s Icones Habitus Gestusque (1604) and other Dutch and English copies. Various styles were imaginatively brought together to create a contemporary compositional hybrid, unique to the encounter between the Japanese and the Portuguese. The key design motifs reveal a fashionable desire for the new and the novel, but they also frequently reference Japanese tradition. In creating specific prototypes and groups, the painters established their own working narrative: the departure, the arrival, the procession. Although this can be regarded as a radical diversion from the convention of illustrating scenes from classical texts and lore, it was a narrative familiar to the rising

military elite, and known via sources from preceding eras. Therefore, in the development of Japanese painting the emergence of Nanban byōbu can be considered a symbol of the reinvention of this aspect of Japanese identity through the artist’s imagination.

The first secular Western paintings are thought to have arrived in Japan around 1590. In order to gain papal support for the Society of Jesus, Father Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606) organised an embassy, the express aim of which was to secure exclusive rights to missionary work in Japan. Four young Japanese men from Kyūshū were selected for the embassy to Portugal, Spain and Italy. The experience was intended to expose them to the splendours of European culture, courtly life, art, architecture, power and influence of the Church. nobunaga gave Valignano a set of screens painted by the

Kanō family as gift for Pope Gregory XIII and, in return, Valignano ensured that the Japanese envoy brought back works of art as gifts for noblemen. Among these gifts were items of clothing, jewellery, armour, maps, musical instruments, a printing press, illustrated books and several oil paintings, secular in theme. It is thought that the majority of imported paintings were kept at the Jesuit Seminary on Kyūshū as models for Japanese artists enrolled in the school. Within a short period of time the Western ‘copies’ were circulated and reached the main island, where they were, in turn, ‘copied’ again by other Japanese artists.

Despite Tokugawa Ieyasu’s apparent interest in ‘Western’ affairs, he gradually enforced more stringent laws on the practice of Christianity and Christian settlements. With the arrival of Dominican friars, and later the Franciscans, tensions arose within the ranks of Christian settlements in Japan. The disputes were impossible to conceal from the watchful eye of the Japanese ruling elite. The Portuguese were unwilling to come to an agreement (with the Japanese) to eliminate all religious connection and make trade the sole agenda (Boxer 1965).

The ban on Christianity and its cultural material had an instantaneous impact on the production of Nanban byōbu. The boats literally stopped arriving and so did the paintings. The majority of the commissioners of these art works are thought to have been members of the Shōgunate or Daimyō associated with the Shōgun. The political agenda dictated the nature of artistic commissions, and although the taste for gold leaf screen painting did not diminish, the subject matter most certainly did. The appropriation of European style and painting technique was also abandoned with little or no evidence of influence. Occasionally it is possible to see a lone Nanban-jin character in kinsei shoki fūzokuga,

IMPRESSION OF THE ENGLISH GALLEON ‘WHITE bEAR’ bUILT IN 1563, CLAES JANSz VISSCHER

AFTER VROOM (1580-1660), ENGRAVING, 133 X 187CM, NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM, GREENWICH.


early modern genre scenes, showing ‘past times and pleasures’, but these appearances were sporadic and short lived.

There are two great examples of so-called Nanban-jin depicted in kinsei shoki fūzokuga at Kobe City Museum. The pair of six-fold screens showing the Fūryū Odori a popular dance that took place during Hanami, cherry blossom viewing, includes four figures in Nanban costumes. Looking closely at the figures dressed in Portuguese costume, it is not possible to distinguish their physical features as European, which suggests that they could be Japanese people in fancy dress (Toby 1991). There are a number of clear indicators to support this explanation: the total ban on European people to enter Japan, the strict punishment for any association with Christians and finally, and perhaps most significantly, the Japanese fascination with pageantry, costumes and theatre (Toby 1986)

While these figures are unlikely to represent actual European persons, their presence

does reveal that the Japanese fascination for European material culture had not diminished completely, even if never properly understood. Such interest and curiosity began to reemerge in painting some time after trade agreements and routine were established with the Dutch at Nagasaki, where the traders were kept at a bridged distance from the shore via a man-made structure called Deijma. Once again the so-called ‘European presence’ in these paintings reveals more about Japanese taste and trends, rather than documenting the daily habits of foreigners in Japan.

By acknowledging the expansive, well-established and highly professional practice of family workshops in early modern Japan, we are better able to view the arrival of Europeans and the spirited but limited introduction of European models in a wider context. There is no doubt that the European arrival created commercial optimism in Japan and stimulated both curiosity in wealthy elites and also imagination in its creative industries, but it was a relatively brief moment in a centuries-old

continuum of artistic practice and dynamism both before and after this specific period.

When the Tokugawa Shōgunate came to its formal agreement with the Dutch East India Company, it finally achieved what Toyotomi Hideyoshi had hoped to do with the Portuguese half a century earlier: set up trade without the pressure and interference of religion. The agreement or ‘trade pass’ was signed in August 1609.

Dr Olivia Meehan is Lecturer in Art History at the

Australian National University.

rEFErENCESboxer, Charles R. (1965). Four Centuries of Portuguese Expansion,

1415-1825: A Succinct Survey, Witwatersrand University Press,

Johannesburg, p. 53.

Cieslik, Hubert (1963). ‘The Training of a Japanese Clergy in

the Seventeenth Century’, Studies in Japanese Culture, Joseph

Roggendorf (ed.), Sophia University Press, Tokyo.

kuroda Toshio (1981). ‘Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion’,

translated by James Dobbins & Suzanne Gay, Journal of Japanese

Studies, vol. 7, pp. 1-21.

Lidin, Olof G (2002). Tanegashima: The Arrival of Europe in Japan,

NIAS, Copenhagen.

Mastumoto Moritaka (1988). ‘Images of Westerns in Nanban Art’

in The Walls Within: Images of Westerners in Japan and Images

of the Japanese Abroad, kinya Tsuruta (ed.), University of british

Columbia, Vancouver, pp. 187-211.

Mastumoto Moritaka (1998). ‘Images of Western and Japanese

Art: Embodiment of Imagination and Pseudo-reality in Nanban Art’

in Japan and the West: The Perception Gap, keizo Nagatani and

David Edgington (eds), Ashgate Publishing, London, pp. 13-48.

Ruyven-zeman, zsuzanna van (2004). The Wierix Family:

Introduction and Guide to the Catalogue. Hollstein’s Dutch and

Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700, vol. 49,

Sound and Vision Publishers, Rotterdam.

Sakamoto Mitsuru (2008). Nanban Byōbu Shusei, Chuo koron

bijutsu Shuppan, Heisei 20, Tokyo.

Toby, Ronald (1986). ‘Carnival of the Aliens: korean Embassies in

Edo-Period Art and Popular Culture’, Monumenta Nipponia, vol.

41, no. 4, pp. 415-456.

Toby, Ronald (1991). State and Diplomacy in Early Modern

Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu, Stanford

THE ARRIvAL OF THE PORTUGUESE, kANO NAIzEN, PAIR OF SIX-PANEL FOLDED SCREENS, COLOUR ON GOLD-DECORATED PAPER, 154.5 X 363.2CM, LATE 16TH CENTURy, EARLy 17TH CENTURy,

kObE CITy MUSEUM, kObE. THE AUTHOR WOULD LIkE TO THANk TSUkAHARA, AkIRA AND THE kObE CITy MUSEUM FOR USE OF THE NANbAN byObU IMAGES.

cOMPORTMENT AND DRESS OF THE PORTUGUESE cITIzENS AND SOLDIERS IN EAST INDIA AS THEy APPEAR IN

THE STREETS FROM IcONES HAbITUS GESTUSqUE INDORUM Ac LUSITANORUM, ENGRAVING by JAN HUyGEN

VAN LINSCHOTEN, 1604, PUbLISHED by CORNELIS CLAESz, AMSTERDAM. bRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON


his article examines two sets of medallion-patterned panels created some

eight centuries ago at two major religious monuments on the Asian continent. The first location is at Angkor Wat dated to the first half of 12th century and the second at Sumstek monastery, Alchi in Ladakh, northern India dated to between the 11th and 13th centuries.

The panels at Angkor Wat are sculpted in stone in bas relief whereas at the Sumstek monastery, medallion-patterned panels appear in an arresting fashion, painted on the hipwrappers of clay images of Bodhisattvas four to four and a half metres high. What the panels at both temples share is an unusual feature - each medallion encloses a figurative motif.

These medallion panels may have a significance beyond mere decoration. The unusual inclusion of figurative motifs suggests a kind of ‘shorthand’: these single figures may be iconic images which, in the case of Angkor Wat, refer to a Hindu narrative, or in the case of the Sumstek, to Buddhist motifs with a similar narrative purpose. Further it is proposed that these medallion panels represent in stone and paint, Indian sourced textiles circulating at that time which later became the inspiration for specific textile patterns on Indian cotton cloth acquired by the Thai royal court from at least the 17th century onwards.

In 1913 George Cœdes published a paper reporting on a group of unusual bas relief panels at Angkor Wat. They appear on window and doorjambs, on pilasters and some wall surfaces. Making ink rubbings of the bas reliefs, he noted no associated inscriptions. These panels comprise a ‘trellis’ of medallions, with each individual medallion formed by a vegetal spiral which curves round to form the circle. Approximately 12cm in diameter, the medallions extend alternately left and right from the spine of the supporting arabesque form.

These panels are distinct from two other sets of bas reliefs at Angkor Wat. One is the celebrated large-scale narrative bas reliefs on the inner walls of the first and second level galleries. Based on Hindu themes, myths or on Khmer historical scenes, sequential scenes are presented in a two or more metres high continuous band. The second are medallions in the form of discs lined up in rows so that they contact each other at four points in

an array. As with the medallion trellises, these are found on walls, window ledges and doorjambs and also on representations of what would today be termed window blinds. They feature repeat ‘secular’ motifs of birds, lotus, interlocking circles, and pairs of confronted phoenix or parrots.

Characteristically, the individual arabesque medallions enclose a single figure. These include figures described as: “flower men… combin[ing] the torso and arms of a man and the head of a man or an animal. They are shown on the corolla of a flower as if they were blossoming or growing like a fruit” (Roveda 2005:308). There are also deities, humans, ascetics, worshippers, animals and birds, and also depictions of mythical scenes with their elements in adjoining medallions, each medallion therefore contributing an episode or a significant element of a story.

Cœdes identified these as Hindu narratives including the Ramayana and other Hindu myths and concluded that the purpose of the trellis was to: “ …show us the main legendary scenes treated with a minimum of detail and characters, but [which] permit us to identify the essential elements, their essential characteristics…” (1913:3). Jean Commaille remarked that medallion patterns represent a “tapestry” created in stone relief (1913:35). Roveda concurs and terms these

panels ”tapestry reliefs” which “…simulat [e] ‘tapestry’ decoration (‘décor en tapisserie’)” (2003:224). Neither Commaille nor Roveda, however, provide evidence in support of a textile simulation.

Other researchers have also postulated the use of textile designs as wall coverings represented in bas relief. Hiram Woodward examined medallion style bas relief panels on outer walls of the 7th century Hindu temple Candi Sewu, Prambanan, Java (1977). He concluded that these particular patterns represented Chinese textiles used as wall decoration sculpted in stone. Green (2007) undertook an analysis of the patterns found on sets of medallions on walls at Angkor Wat, whose motifs were referred to above as ‘secular’. These were compared with actual examples of archaeologically recovered fragments of Chinese silk textiles with medallion patterns dated from the Tang Dynasty (608-907 CE) to the end of the Song (960-1279 CE). My conclusion was that these particular Angkorian ‘secular’ medallions represented textiles sourced in China which served as décor, but not dress, textiles at the Khmer court. Such luxury textiles had been observed in use in the royal Khmer courts of the late 13th century by a Chinese emissary, and would have embellished the walls of royal wooden palaces. Sculpted in stone, they provided permanent embellishment in the temples, the ‘palaces’ of the gods.

T

M E da l l i o N Pat t E r N S at a N G Ko r Wat a N d a l C H i ( l a da K H ) : S H a r E d M E a N i N G S

Gill Green

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF THE HISTORICAL bUDDHA PAINTED ON MAITREyA HIPWRAPPER (DETAIL). IMAGE COURTESy JAROSLAV PONCAR


Turning westward to the Sumstek monastery at Alchi, on the right bank of the Indus River, undoubtedly the most prominent features of this three-storey monastery are three massive images of the Bodhisattvas Manjusri, Maitreya and Avalokiteshvara. These images are painted so that details of crowns, scarves, sacred strings, and waist-to-ankle hipwrappers are minutely depicted.

Maitreya’s hipwrapper is painted with a trellis of medallions each enclosing a motif which depicts an episode in the life of the historical Buddha. Manjusri’s hipwrapper has a trellis of diamond shaped spaces created by use of adjoining stepped squares. Enclosed in each space is an image of a mahasiddha (Sanskrit: maha - great, siddha - achiever). Avalokiteshvara’s hipwrapper is slightly different in that the imagery is not contained in a trellis of medallions but the individual motifs of temples are freely disposed over the textile.

As Maitreya’s medallions and Manjusri’s diamond lattice design contain images of individuals or single episodes, they arguably have the same narrative intent as those medallion trellises at Angkor Wat - but with one major difference. At Angkor Wat the panels are derived from Hindu themes, even though Mahayana Buddhism was established as the state religion by Jayavarman VII (1181-1218 CE). At the Sumstek they are Buddhist.

Roger Goepper, the researcher of the Sumstek temple, notes that:

“Whereas narrative scenes from [other nearby temples] are usually arranged in horizontal friezes as if from scenes in a comic book, the version on the dhoti [hipwrapper] of the Maitreya sculpture…presents the scenes as transpositions into decorative context, isolating them into separate units, the sequence of which is not obvious at first sight. This striking phenomenon may perhaps be seen in context with the general interest in textiles to be observed throughout the Sumstek murals” (1996:26).

This description of the two kinds of narrative formats found in or near Sumstek, mirrors the various bas relief panels at Angkor Wat. It also, significantly for this discussion, introduces the notion that these patterns indicate the presence of textiles. Does the placement of these themes on the Bodhisattvas’ hipwrappers represent textiles available at that time (early 13th century), specifically patterned to serve a narrative purpose? If so, are they similar in intent to the “tapestry reliefs” at Angkor? Can one surmise

that both operate simultaneously as carriers of narrative, as well as fulfilling a practical purpose as wall covering or hipwrapper?

To turn to the question of what Indian textiles are known in this early mediaeval period: block printing was the predominant technique used to decorate such textiles, supplemented by mordant and resist printing or painting. These techniques allow a free hand in surface decoration of a textile ’canvas’, one which is much less limiting than the ‘brocade’ techniques of many of the Chinese sourced textiles of the time.

A cache of a thousand fragments of printed cotton textiles exported from Gujarat on the northwest coast of India was excavated at Fustat (old Cairo) in the 1920s (Barnes 1997). Their age range is said to span the 13th to the 16th century (Barnes 2010:37). Another

similar cache was found at Quseir al-Qadim on the Red Sea coast. Because these remnant textiles are fragments it cannot be determined whether motifs were displayed in panels like those at the Sumstek or at Angkor Wat. Some fragments, however, do feature particular motifs - arabesque scrolls, hamsa (goose), medallions with floral decoration, interlocking circles, stepped squares, and in one instance elephants, horses and riders, seen on the textiles in question. These Fustat textiles were destined for trade to the west and no doubt reflected those customers’ taste. But Indian merchants would or could have responded to requests for textile patterns that reflected the tastes and requirements of markets to the east, specifically for Hindu and Buddhist use. Indian merchants could have supplied textiles at Angkor Wat and Sumstek and indeed Indian textiles were recorded by a late 13th century Chinese emissary as held in high esteem at Angkor.

CLAy IMAGE OF MAITREyA, SUMSTEk MONASTERy, ALCHI. LADAkH, NORTH INDIA. C. 11TH – 13TH CENTURy.

IMAGE COURTESy JAROSLAV PONCAR


MAHASIDDHAS IN DIAMOND TRELLIS PATTERN ON MANJUSRI HIPWRAPPER (DETAIL). SUMSTEk MONASTERy,

ALCHI, LADAkH, NORTH INDIA, PAINT ON CLAy. IMAGE COURTESy JAROSLAV PONCAR

ARAbESQUE MEDALLIONS (DETAIL). ANGkOR WAT, CAMbODIA, FIRST

HALF 12TH CENTURy, bAS RELIEF ON STONE. PHOTO GILL GREEN

A collection of Indian sourced, block printed medallion patterned textiles specifically prepared for the Thai royal court dating to at least the 17th century are noteworthy textiles in the collection of the National Museum in Bangkok (Natthapatra Chandavij 2002). They served both as hipwrappers and as décor - wall decorations or floor coverings – their dress use differentiated from décor use by the pattern layout (Guy 1998:138). A number of these dress item textiles are patterned with medallions enclosing figurative motifs as seen at Angkor, most prominently ‘flower men’, (vide infra), thepanom (worshippers), apsaras, and mythical animals. Medallion patterns with Buddhist motifs as seen at Alchi would not be appropriate as dress items in Theravada Buddhist Thailand so those motifs would not have been replicated in the same way.

As well as providing a kind of shorthand iconic representation of Hindu or Buddhist narratives, the few but illuminating medallion trellis patterns found at Angkor and Alchi arguably also depict Indian sourced textiles. It would certainly help the argument if other panels similar to these were recorded elsewhere on the Asian sub continent. At many of the famous 13th century religious monuments at Pagan, Burma, inner vaults and walls are painted with medallion patterns. They are, however, repeat discs contacting each other at four points and those with figurative motifs feature images of the Buddha, quite unlike the panels examined here. These types of medallion panels are much more related to brocade patterns on Chinese sourced textiles as observed by Woodward.

Even without further evidence, however, it seems reasonable to surmise that these distinctive medallion trellis panels allow glimpses into the very early 12th century Indian merchants’ textile trade for which India has long been renowned. And indeed could the Royal Thai textiles be the faint echoes of the textiles of centuries past circulating between India and eastern markets?

Gill Green is President of TAASA and an Honorary

Associate in the Department of Art History and Film

Studies, University of Sydney.

rEFErENCESbarnes, R. (1997), Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt, Clarendon

Press, Oxford.

barnes, R. & Hunt kahlenberg, M. (2010), Five Thousand Years of

Indonesian Textiles, Delmonico books.

Cœdes, G. (1913), Etudes cambodgiennes, V11, Second etude sur

les bas-reliefs d’Angkor Vat, BEFEO, V111-6, 13-36.

Goepper, R. (1996). Alchi. Ladak’s Hidden Buddhist Sanctuary,

Serindia.

Green, G. (2007), ‘Angkor Vogue: Sculpted Evidence of Imported

Luxury Textiles in the Courts of kings and Temples’ in Journal of the

Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol.50, No.4, 424-451.

Guy, J. (1998), Woven Cargoes, Thames & Hudson.

Natthapatra Chandavij, (2002), Phaa Phim laay booraan nay

phiphithaphan thasathaan heng chaat, krungtheep, krom

Silpaakon PS 2545 [Ancient Chintz Fabrics in the National

Museums], National Museum, bangkok.

Roveda. V. (2003), Sacred Angkor, River books, bangkok.

(2005), Images of the Gods, River books, bangkok.

Woodward, H. (1977) “A Chinese Silk depicted at Candi Sewu”

in Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia,

Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies Michigan, 233-241.

bATIk SARONG, yOGyAkARTA, CENTRAL JAVA, C. 1998, COTTON. COLLECTION AND PHOTO: MARSHALL CLARk


n recent history – as a fabric, art and craft – batik has been associated with the

Javanese of Indonesia and the Malays of east coast Peninsular Malaysia. As a generic term, batik refers to a process of decorating a fabric by applying a wax-resist prior to dyeing. In Southeast Asia, batik first emerged in Java, and made its way to the Malay Peninsula sometime after the 13th century. This occurred as a consequence of the close trade relations between various Malay courts and the northern coastal batik producing areas of Java.

For centuries there has been a great flow of people, products and ideas in the region, with Malay being the common lingua franca. But with the emergence of colonialism, nationalism and postcolonial state-building, the previously close kinship relations shared between the peoples of the two countries have become strained. Malaysians now speak Malay, and Indonesians now speak Indonesian (really a variant of Malay). Despite increased trade and bilateral cooperation, over the last decade in particular Indonesia-Malaysia ties have been marked by rivalry, acrimony and conflict.

It is in this context that in 2009, Indonesia took great pride in UNESCO’s recognition of batik textiles as a distinctly ‘Indonesian’ form of cultural heritage. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono jubilantly declared a ‘national batik-wearing day’ and it is now de rigueur for Indonesian civil servants to wear batik every Friday. But for many, the UNESCO decision was seen less as a win for Indonesia and more as a snub to Malaysia. This is because Malaysian batik has developed as a highly nuanced form of art and heritage in its own right. In contrast to Indonesian batik, which could be argued is more of a craft than an art, Malaysian batik has ‘bolder, freer designs –striking abstracts and energetic floral forms’ with ‘brighter palette and innovative colour combinations’ (Yunus 2011: 12). In short, Malaysian batik is more adventurous, its artists more bold, experimental, and innovative. In Malaysia, batik is more art than craft.

Malaysian designers and artists have long been willing to adopt the motifs and textures of batik textiles into their latest designs, which are then exhibited in art galleries, fashion boutiques and malls and sold at international prices. They are thus producing batik designs for both profit and critical acclaim, without

needing UNESCO recognition of batik as a distinctly Malaysian form of intangible cultural heritage. Adding to the complexity of this narrative, many Malaysian batik artists have studied in Java’s batik heartlands. Moreover, many of Malaysia’s batik artisans are in fact Indonesian migrant workers, who are attracted to the much higher wages they can expect to receive in Malaysia.

With UNESCO’s listing of ‘Indonesian batik’, it appears that Malaysia has little hope of ever securing UNESCO acknowledgement of its own distinct Malaysian batik tradition. This has serious implications for other art-forms found throughout the Indo-Malay world, which happen to be very much part of Malaysia’s heritage. If these forms of intangible heritage occur in both Indonesia and Malaysia, evidently they are off-bounds for Malaysia. This includes wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre), keris (an asymmetrical dagger with a distinctive wavy blade), gamelan and angklung (a traditional bamboo musical instrument). Indonesia has jealously guarded these forms of intangible cultural heritage by systematically and professionally lodging claims with UNESCO, which have met with success.

Not wanting to upset its much larger and more cantankerous neighbour, Malaysia’s UnESCO office has generally shied away

from nominating contested or even shared Indo-Malay heritage items. Thus Kuala Lumpur has turned its attention elsewhere, to literary manuscripts such as the Syair Almarhum Baginda Sultan Abu Bakar di Negeri Johor (The Poem of the late Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor), for instance, which has been nominated, most recently in 2012, for the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register of documentary heritage.

Despite UNESCO’s listing of Indonesian batik, many Indonesians fear that Malaysia will again attempt to claim one form of Indonesian cultural expression or another, including batik. Other critics, cognisant of Kuala Lumpur’s successful marketing of batik abroad to the United States, France, England and other countries, have criticised Jakarta for its poor ability to market forms of Indonesian cultural heritage (Chong 2012). Thus batik and other cultural forms in Indonesia have become mere pawns in a much larger game of transnational one-upmanship.

For the Malaysian government, the politics of cultural heritage is less an issue of international relations and more of an internal issue, involving domestic contestation among the nation’s different ethnic groups, each of which seeks to promote its own forms of cultural heritage for its own political purposes. Few would argue that Malay cultural heritage

I

C U l t U r a l P o l i t i C S : B a t i K a N d W a Y a N G i N i N d o N E S i a a N d M a l a Y S i a

Marshall Clark


forms have long been promoted over the art, culture and heritage of ethnic minorities such as the Chinese. Although difficult to quantify, a cursory examination of Malaysia’s leading art galleries, exhibitions and museums would indicate an overwhelming emphasis on Malay cultural forms. There is also a heavy focus on the post-independence period, which has been dominated by Malay-centric policies.

At both a national and a regional level, Indonesia has little motivation to maintain and revive much of its cultural heritage. The hyper-nationalistic causes célèbres of batik and wayang kulit are exceptions to the rule. Generally, as long as Indonesia’s economy is still developing, questions of economic growth and the alleviation of poverty are of a much higher priority. State-run galleries or museums, therefore, endure a chronic lack of financial support. Although entrance to museums in Indonesia is either inexpensive or free of charge, most Indonesians, other than groups of schoolchildren, avoid them, as they are generally unattractive, poorly curated and, most importantly, still closely associated with Suharto-era indoctrination, as Adams (2003), for example, notes.

With its more well-developed economy, for several decades now Malaysia has become a reasonably prosperous country with middle-class concerns, including the protection and promotion of art, museums and heritage. As a consequence, Malaysia is far more determined to ensure that history and heritage play leading roles in the national cultural narrative. In contrast to Indonesia, many of Malaysia’s state museums and

galleries are well funded, employing state-of-the-art curatorial practices and technologies, often attracting modest numbers of visitors and corporate sponsorship.

If we move beyond the cultural nationalism epitomised by the successful nomination of ‘Indonesian batik’ for UNESCO’s cultural heritage listing, in terms of systematically maintaining and promoting cultural heritage, Indonesia still has some way to go. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is among the front-runners in relation to the advocacy and efficacy of museums, cultural theme parks and cultural heritage tours and trails. Yet, if we compare and contrast the fate of wayang kulit, and the Ramayana epic in particular, in Indonesia and Malaysia, there are a few important ironies worth highlighting.

Let’s start with Malaysia. For centuries, wayang kulit has been active in the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia, ‘principally in the state of Kelantan and in the districts north of Kelantan in Patani, a Malay majority territory in southern Thailand, with which Kelantan shares much of its culture and cultural forms’ (Yousof 2010: 135). It remains unclear exactly when wayang first arrived. Most scholars tend to agree that it began when Javanese shadow puppet theatre was introduced into the Malay peninsula following the spread of Islam in Java in the 14th century, when orthodox Muslims saw the pre-Islamic Javanese shadow play as ‘undesirable, even harmful’ (Yousof 2010: 135).

In 1990, PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia orthe Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) gained power in

Kelantan, and history repeated itself. For PAS, all facets of state and society should revolve around Islam, leaving little sympathy for traditional pre-Islamic cultural forms such as wayang, which was heavily dependent on the narratives and characters of originally Indian Hindu epics such as the Ramayana. PAS promptly banned wayang kulit and various other traditional Malay art forms, accusing them of being ‘un-Islamic’. The prohibition was only lifted after the puppeteers of Kelantan abandoned the Ramayana epic in their performances, drawing on local folk tales instead.

In contrast to Malaysia, wayang kulit enjoys great popularity in contemporary Indonesia, with regular performances attracting large crowds, often broadcast live to state and commercial TV stations. Many puppeteers enjoy celebrity status in Indonesia, and all-night performances are often spectacular events involving high-profile singers and comedians, as well as a full gamelan orchestra. The Balinese version of the Ramayana epic, written in Kawi (Old Javanese), is widely accepted in predominately Hindu Bali and, according to I Made Bandem (2010: 145): ‘almost everyone is familiar with the essential sequence of the story’.

In Java, although the Mahabharata cycle of tales remains the most popular, during times of social and political turmoil it is not uncommon to see Javanese shadow puppeteers drawing on the Ramayana for inspiration. In the months leading up to the fall of Suharto in 1998, for instance, there was a boom in Ramayana performances. At the time, many parallels with the Ramayana epic – including its plots, motifs and characters – could be seen. The relatively straightforward epic narrative of Hanuman’s monkey army rescuing the kidnapped Sinta (Sita) from Rahwana the evil ogre king struck a number of parallels with the student movement, which was seeking to rescue a ‘kidnapped’ Indonesia from the corruption and authoritarianism of Suharto and his New Order regime.

Despite its UNESCO status and national and indeed global prestige, however, the wayang of Java, Sunda and Bali does not quite yet enjoy untouchable status in contemporary Indonesia. Mirroring the fate of wayang kulit in Malaysia’s northern states, wayang has been threatened by Islamist groups. For example, in September 2011, in Purwakarta, West Java, several statues depicting characters from the wayang shadow theatre were vandalised and destroyed by a mob emerging from a prayer session in the city’s largest mosque.

bATIk CLOTH, yOGyAkARTA, CENTRAL JAVA, C. 1998, COTTON. COLLECTION AND PHOTO: MARSHALL CLARk


According to a Jakarta Globe report, ropes were tied from a van to a statue of puppet character Gatotkaca to pull it from its foundation. The crowd then turned its attention to a statue of another much-loved puppet character, Semar, and, after throwing rocks and pulling it to the ground, hit it with sticks and metal rods before setting it on fire. A statue of the wayang’s Bima was also targeted and set on fire, before the mob moved on statues depicting the twin brothers of the Mahabharata, Nakula and Sadewa (Krisna 2011). Fortunately, hundreds of police and army officers were already on hand, guarding the Nakula and Sadewa and when it started raining the mob dispersed. The hardline Islamic People’s Forum (FUI) had opposed the statues when the project was announced by the Purwakarta city administration in 2010. FUI argued that the statues were ‘against the Islamic identity of the city’ and claimed the statues would encourage people to have ‘superstitious beliefs’ (Krisna 2011). Most Indonesian Muslims, it should be noted, deplore the hardline radicalism of Islamist groups such as FUI.

It seems that despite the popularity of pre-Islamic art forms in Indonesia, tensions between artists, art-lovers and hardline Islamic groups remain. Why is this so? It could be argued that incidents such as this are a not unexpected by-product of Indonesia’s democratic consolidation process. Yet it is useful to remember that a similar process is occurring in the conservative state of Kelantan in soft-authoritarian Malaysia. Moreover, as mentioned above, the early movement and development of pre-Islamic shadow play throughout the region was as

a result of the arrival of Islam. Perhaps the latest tensions are but the latest chapter in this ongoing evolution? Either way, trade and the exchange and adaptation of cultural practices and art forms in maritime Southeast Asia have had unforeseen consequences. In the contemporary era, art and forms of cultural heritage are being exploited and manipulated for complex reasons, simultaneously echoing and diverging from historical precedents.

Marshall Clark is Senior Lecturer at the Institute

for Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts,

Australian National University. He is the author of

Maskulinitas: Culture, Gender and Politics in Indonesia

(2010) and co-editor of Macassan History and

Heritage: Journeys, Encounters and Influences (2013).

rEFErENCESAdams, k.M. 2003. ‘Museum/city/nation: negotiating identities in

urban museums in Indonesia and Singapore’, in R.b.H. Goh and

b.S.A. yeoh (eds), Theorizing the Southeast Asian city as text: urban

landscapes, cultural documents and interpretive experiences. World

Scientific Publishing, Singapore, pp. 135–58.

bandem, I.M. 2010. ‘Ramayana: the roles of the great epic in

Visual and performing arts of bali’, in Gauri Parimoo krishnan

(ed), Ramayana in focus: visual and performing arts of Asia. Asian

Civilisations Museum, Singapore, pp. 134-143.

Chong, J.W. 2012. ‘‘Mine, yours or ours?’: The Indonesia-Malaysia

disputes over shared cultural heritage’. Sojourn: Journal of Social

Issues in Southeast Asia 27 (1): 1–53.

krisna, y. 2011. ‘Mob destroys four wayang statues’. Jakarta

Globe, 19 September. <http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/

mob-destroys-four-wayang-statues/466195> Accessed 17

December 2012.

yousof, G. 2010. ‘Ramayana in the Malaysian Wayang Kulit Siam’,

in Gauri Parimoo krishnan (ed), Ramayana in focus: visual and

performing arts of Asia. Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore,

pp. 134-143.

yunus, N.A. 2011. Malaysian Batik: Reinventing a Tradition. Tuttle

Publishing, Singapore

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INSIDE BURMA: THE ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE

CAMBODIA: ANGKOR WAT, PREAH VIHEAR AND BEYOND

25 October – 13 November 2013Burma is undergoing unprecedented change and publicity. TAASA contributor Dr Bob Hudson is the

doyen of Burma guides and his longstanding annual tour program features extended stays in medieval Mrauk U, capital of the lost ancient kingdom of

Arakan (now Rakhine State, formerly off-limits) and Bagan, rivalling Angkor Wat as Southeast Asia’s

richest archaeological precinct. Exciting experiences in Yangon, Inle Lake, Mandalay and a private cruise

down the mighty Ayeyarwady are also included. Now is the time to see Burma before 'progress' changes it forever. Limited places still available.

Land Only cost per person twinshare ex Yangon $5525

28 October – 14 November 2013Angkor’s timeless grandeur is unmissable. But now Preah Vihear, the revered mountaintop temple of

immense historical and political significance for the Khmers, is finally accessible.

Both generate unforgettable travel memories. Yet Cambodia offers a host of other important cultural

and travel experiences: outstanding ancient,vernacular and French colonial architecture; spectacular

riverine environments; the ongoing restoration and revitalisation of Phnom Penh; culinary sensations and beautiful countryside. Expatriate museologist, author,

Siem Reap resident and TAASA contributor Darryl Collins and Gill Green, President of TAASA and author specialising in Cambodian culture have designed and expertly co-host this longstanding annual program.

Land Only cost per person twinshare ex Phnom Penh $5125

26 January – 14 February 2014Isan is the least visited part of Thailand. But this

north-eastern region has a distinctive identity and, in many ways, is the Kingdom’s heartland. Here older

Thai customs remain more intact and sites of historical and archaeological significance abound. Darryl Collins and Gill Green (see above) lead this new

journey which includes spectacular Khmer temples such as Prasat Phimai, Phanom Rung (reputed to be

the blueprint for Angkor Wat) and Prasat Meung Tam. We cross the mighty Mekong into southern Laos to explore Wat Phu Champasak before concluding in

Vientiane and magical Luang Prabang.Land Only cost per person twinshare

ex Bangkok $5100

ISAN: THAILAND’S ANCIENT KHMER CONNECTION

JAVANESE WAYANG KULIT SHADOW PUPPETS, yOGyAkARTA, CENTRAL JAVA, C. 1998,

CARVED LEATHER. COLLECTION AND PHOTO: MARSHALL CLARk


t may seem unlikely to draw a connection between the Art Gallery of South

Australia’s recently acquired A scholar in his studio by the Dutch painter Abraham Van Den Hecken (c. 1615 – c.1669) and the northern Territory Yolngu artist Minimi Mamarika’s depiction of Makassar fishermen, The Malay prau, painted on bark in 1948. Nevertheless, both works reference events in 17th century Indonesia which was a period of great cultural and political change with far-reaching maritime consequences. The Dutch East Indies Company and local Muslim kingdoms, including Gowa at Makassar, South Sulawesi, were engaged in a brutal struggle for commercial control of the archipelago yet, despite the ongoing conflict, it was also a century of artistic brilliance in the cosmopolitan pasisir (coastal) sultanates of the region.

Den Hecken’s A scholar in his studio ostensibly references the theme of vanitas, the skull placed amongst the luxurious objects evoking the Christian notion of the vanity of all worldly riches. Luxury here is the expensive rare objects brought from the distant Indies as part of the spice trade which had become the source of The Netherlands’ extraordinary wealth. The painting is as much about the golden era of Dutch maritime trade with Asia as northern Christian spirituality. The visual focus of the portrait is not the sitter but the

richly coloured oriental carpet draped on the table. A cluster of bright plumage adorning the scholar’s cap captures the window’s light. They are bird of paradise feathers which could only have been obtained from the species’ native habitat in New Guinea, neighbouring the Spice Islands of Maluku.

Among the objects propped on the table is an Indonesian keris with the hilt in the form of a figure. Den Hecken, as well as being an accomplished painter who worked in both the Netherlands and London, was also a goldsmith so the exotic style of Indies metalwork must surely have interested him. He was not the only Dutch painter of the time to be fascinated by keris. Rembrandt van Rijn depicted the Indonesian weapon in several works of art including The blinding of Samson (1636) and his Self portrait as an oriental potentate with a kris (1643).

By a remarkable serendipity, the keris featured in A scholar in his studio is very similar to a 17th century keris from Bima, Sumbawa, in AGSA’s collection. Indonesian weapons, featuring hilt figures, often identified as raksasa ogres, appear to have been popular among early Dutch collectors who were probably attracted to their figurative decoration more than to the plain handles that are commonly associated with Javanese keris. Royal keris such as these

can further be confidently dated to the 17th century as both it and the painting’s scabbard is very close to a dagger which was already antique when it was collected from South Sulawesi by Prince William IV (1711-1751) of Orange-Nassau.

The influence of the South Sulawesi style of metal work on Sumbawa keris makers is not unexpected as Makassar conquered Sumbawa in 1618-1626. In the painting, the keris’ Makassan style is apparent in the scabbard’s rosette and cord symbolising royal authority, the imitation twine binding and the distinct reddish gold, later known as mas Melayu or ‘Malay gold’. It also incorporates elements from Javanese art. The raksasa is suggestive of Hindu-Buddhist temple guardian statues from the Majapahit Kingdom (1293- c.1500) and earlier periods, a reminder of the lasting influence of the Javanese Hindu-Buddhist aesthetic on Muslim art throughout the pasisir world.

The spread of Makassan maritime power in the archipelago was abruptly halted when Dutch East Indies Company forces conquered the Makassar fortress of Sombu Opa at modern-day Ujung Pandang, South Sulawesi, during the 1666-1669 war. As previously occurred when the Portuguese seized Melaka (1511), the European invasion prompted a dispersal of conquered peoples throughout

I

U N l i K E lY C o N N E C t i o N S : t H E M a K a S S a N S , t H E Y o l N G U a N d t H E d U t C H

E a S t i N d i E S C o M Pa N Y

James Bennett

MINIMINI MAMARIkA, GROOTE EyLANDT, NORTHERN TERRITORy, AUSTRALIA, 1904-1972, THE MALAY PRAU, 1948, UMbAkUMbA, NATURAL EARTH PIGMENTS ON bARk,

43.7 X 89.0 CM; GIFT OF CHARLES MOUNTFORD, ART GALLERy OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 0.1917


the archipelago. The contemporary phenomenon of ‘boat people’ is not new in the archipelago and some fled from South Sulawesi to the Singapore Straits region in western Indonesia where they eventually settled. Others, according to a Makassan account, sailed eastward. The first Makassan voyages to Marege, or Australia as we now call it, is said to have occurred during the war following the Dutch East Indies Company’s defeat of the Makassan fleet off butung in 1667. A number of perahu escaped the Dutch and fled south to the Gulf of Carpentaria, where they remained until daring to return to Makassar, bringing with them the first cargo of trepang (beche-de-mer or ‘sea cumbers’) harvested in Australian waters.

The annual Makassan boat voyages to northern Australian over subsequent centuries greatly influenced the art and culture of Indigenous ‘salt water’ peoples. Some linear patterns in Yolngu totemic designs are said to been inspired by Javanese batik cloth worn by the visiting fishermen. It is just as likely the textiles were 19th century European imitation-batik factory prints which the Makassans traded, eluding Dutch authorities, from the new English free port of Singapore to

throughout the archipelago. The Makassans also introduced many Indonesian words into coastal Indigenous languages, and today the Yolngu-matha term for a white Australian is balanda, which literally means ‘Dutch man’.

By the time Minimini Mamarika painted The Malay prau the visits of the Makassans were already history as Australian authorities banned the boats from Australian waters in 1906. The painting does not look like an accurate rendition of a Makassan prau and even its title reflects the blurring of history. When the Australian anthropologist Charles Mountford acquired the bark painting in 1948, ‘Malay’ had become the generic term for all the Indonesians, including both the Makassans and neighbouring Buginese who also participated in the voyages. The term, like the title’s archaic spelling of prau for perahu, reflect colonial era usage. Mamarika painted the Malay prau, while the Dutch were still occupying Indonesia.

Nevertheless, the painting is more than just a half-imagined image of a Makassan boat re-constructed from communal memory. The meeting of the two peoples resulted in the intermingling of spiritual traditions. The

Makassan sailors revered certain locations along the Arnhem Land coast as sacred and regularly left offerings of food, goods and money to the djinn spirits who dwelt there. The real subject of Mamarika’s painting is an Indigenous sacred site on Bickerton Island, Groote Eylandt, which is said to have been a Makassan perahu in ancestral times. The large circles in the hull are not meant to be portholes, which Makassan boats lacked, but allude to holes in certain rocks at the sacred site of Junbia where it is said the ancestral perahu anchored before becoming transformed into the island.

James bennett is Curator of Asian Art at the Art

Gallery of South Australia

rEFErENCESbennett, James, 2011, Beneath the Winds: Masterpieces of

Southeast Asian Art from the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art

Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, pp. 46-47

Mountford, Charles, 1956, Records of the American-Australian

scientific expedition to Arnhem Land 1. Art, myth and symbolism,

Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, p.98.

AbRAHAM VAN DEN HECkEN, THE NETHERLANDS, C.1615-C.1669, A SCHOLAR IN HIS STUDIO, C.1655, THE HAGUE (?), THE NETHERLANDS, OIL

ON CANVAS, 121.8 X 106.7 CM; GIFT OF ANNE DAVIDSON, DR PETER DObSON, DR MICHAEL DREW, DR MICHAEL HAyES, PETER MCkEE AND PHILIP

SPEAkMAN THROUGH THE ART GALLERy OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION COLLECTORS CLUb 2012, ART GALLERy OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

INDONESIA, ROYAL KERIS, 17TH CENTURy, bIMA, WEST NUSA

TENGGARA, NICkEL, IRON, GOLD, DIAMONDS, SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES,

51.0 X 13.0 CML GIFT OF GEOFFREy HACkETT-JONES IN MEMORy OF

HIS bROTHER FRANk THROUGH THE ART GALLERy OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

FOUNDATION 2008, ART GALLERy OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA


he term ‘Company painting’ refers to a genre of Indian painting ‘produced

for Europeans and …heavily influenced by European taste’ (Archer 1992: 11) and the style or school was named after the various European trade companies operating in Asia from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries. The British were the main patrons of this style of painting, by virtue of their pervasive presence in India during the period of the English and British East India Companies (1600-1857) after which time this style of painting was superseded by photography.

Drawn to India in the 17th century by the promise of vast riches to be acquired through trade, the British founded the English East India Company in 1600. Its creation, and that of the Dutch, French, Danish and Swedish East India Companies was inspired by the financial success of Portuguese trade in Asia during the 16th century. The English East India Company effectively ruled the country from 1757. Their extensive trade in commodities as varied as saltpetre, cotton, silk, indigo dye, tea and opium is mirrored in a concurrent exchange between British patrons and Indian painters,

demonstrated in the Company style or school. This article examines a pair of Company paintings from Patna in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).

Apart from Surat and Bombay, the English East India Company’s main sites in India were also the most important centres of Company painting. These included Patna and Calcutta in the east, and Masulipatam, Madras and Trichinopoly in the south. Europeans in these centres acquired Company paintings as souvenirs, either to send home to family and friends or to keep as mementoes of their time in India. Protestant missionaries also used sets of images of Hindu deities and temple sites in their campaign to contest ‘idolatry’ and promote Christianity. Each centre produced a distinctive style of Company painting as local artists adapted their indigenous style to satisfy the demands of the local European community, adjusting their palette and subject matter and adopting stylistic influences from European art conveyed by prints and paintings imported by the English, as well as by drawings, paintings and prints created by amateur English artists in India.

This artistic evolution, which combined distinctive Indian regional painting styles with European elements, repeated responses by Indian painters to the aesthetic requirements of other foreign patrons, such as the Mughal Empire and the Delhi Sultanate. Artist families in places such as Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Delhi, Murshidabad, Patna, Calcutta, Benares and Lucknow produced such local paintings, which were hawked around the British stations or sold to travellers at well-known halting places on the rivers. Similar paintings did not develop on a large scale in Rajasthan, Hyderabad or the Punjab Hills, nor in places where british cultural influences were less felt or where lively Indian patronage already existed. (Archer 1992: 17).

The trade in Company paintings can be seen as part of the trade in manufactured goods from India to England, in which the taste of the European market modified the Indian product. Indian textiles such as painted and printed cottons from the Coromandel Coast and embroidered silk coverlets from Gujarat provide an interesting parallel. Popular subjects for Company paintings included

T

a Pa i r o F 1 9 t H C E N t U r Y C o M Pa N Y Pa i N t i N G S F r o M Pa t N a a t t H E

N a t i o N a l G a l l E r Y o F V i C t o r i a

Carol Cains

NAUTcH GIRL WITH A MUSIcIAN, PATNA, bIHAR, INDIA C 1860, OPAQUE WATER COLOUR AND GOLD ON

PAPER. PURCHASED NGV FOUNDATION, 2007. COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL GALLERy OF VICTORIA

TWO MUSIcIANS, PATNA, bIHAR, INDIA C 1860, OPAQUE WATER COLOUR AND GOLD ON PAPER.

PURCHASED NGV FOUNDATION, 2007. COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL GALLERy OF VICTORIA


sets of portraits of castes and occupations, procession pictures, sets of images of deities and religious sites and natural history subjects. The main stylistic adaptations in Company paintings were those which enhanced the naturalism of the image, particularly the use of shading to model figures and drapery, and the inclusion of shadows. European prints and paintings which arrived in India from the time of the Portuguese had provided exemplars for shading and modelling and were copied by Indian artists. In many Company paintings the naturalism of the costumes and faces is undermined by awkward poses and figures, which were generally isolated against a blank background and thus deprived of context.

Patna (Azimabad), the capital of the present day state of Bihar, was the site of an important English East India Company ‘factory’ (the name given to Company centres that incorporated trade headquarters and storehouses) from 1620. The city’s site on the Ganges River provided easy access to the port at Calcutta and consequently Patna became the inland centre for the British in east India from the first quarter of the 17th century, mainly trading saltpetre and silk, and later sugar and opium. After 1800 Patna was also an important administrative centre for the Company and by the 19th century the city was home to a large and diverse European population, which included employees of the English East India Company, soldiers, traders, missionaries, and families. They saw much in India that they regarded as picturesque and wanted to record visually, and local artists realised that this could provide a lucrative timely replacement for declining local patronage. While Indian artists continued to

paint religious images and portraits for local rulers, they also painted new subjects which were central to the Company painting genre.

It is not surprising that the themes dear to Company paintings concerned aspects of Indian life and individuals which were considered exotic, colourful and striking, and that their compilation with assiduous attention to detail was a distinguishing feature of the Company school. In England in the late 18th century, at the same time that Company painting for the British in India was developing, ‘…people were beginning to look at the world around them in a fresh new manner which has come to be known as “the Picturesque”…’ (Archer 1992: 16). Books like Costumes of the Lower Orders of London, published in 1826, recorded picturesque details of the apparel of chimney sweeps, shoe blacks, match girls and amputee beggars in a series of hand coloured engravings by Thomas Busby.

A comparison between Busby’s images and the two Company paintings from Patna dated c. 1860 at the NGV reveals interesting similarities. The latter are probably part of a set depicting different occupations, one of the most popular forms of Company paintings. The paintings each depict a pair of figures, a nautch dancer and a musician, and a pair of musicians. Nautch dancers were professional dancers who provided entertainment at Mughal and Rajput courts and for British patrons. The dance performance was accompanied by a group of musicians playing string and percussion instruments such as those depicted in these paintings, which include a sarangi (Indian fiddle), a pakhavaj (a north Indian drum) and cymbals.

The figures display all the important characteristics of this type of subject in the Company painting genre. They include paired figures (often a man and woman) isolated against a blank background, depicted in a stiff and posed manner with expressionless faces. The artist accurately renders costume and accessories in detail, and although the clothes and figures are carefully modeled and shaded, they seem to float above the ground, only anchored by small, unconvincing shadows. The modeling recalls European images copied by Indian artists from the early 17th century.

The figures in Costumes of the Lower Orders of London also carefully document details of dress and accessories. Like their Company painting equivalents, their occupations are signaled by these details as well as their poses, although each figure’s occupation is further identified by an inscription. Also like their Indian counterparts, they are depicted in

isolation although there is a horizon indicated in each work and some images include misty background details. The figures are anchored by small shadows beneath their feet and their clothes and bodies are carefully shaded and modeled. The palette of the two groups is very different. One of the characteristics of Patna painting that differentiated it from other Company paintings is its clear, bright palette, redolent in reds and oranges and employing areas of bright, blueish white pigment. In contrast, the palette of the English paintings comprises soft, subdued blues, browns and greys. Patna paintings also display a distinct physiognomy evident in these examples.

The theme of pairs of men and women depicting costumes, customs or occupations had first appeared in Indian art in a set of mid-16th century water colours probably commissioned by a Portuguese patron. A second similar surviving group, dated 1701-05, was painted for the Italian traveler Niccolao Manucci (1639-1717) (Archer 1992; 12-16). These two sets are the precursors of Company paintings such as those in the NGV collection and herald their thematic concerns and, equally importantly, their function as an inventory or catalogue.

There is a sense that these sets of images perform in part as a stock take, in the same way as a Company warehouse register. While they do not list tangible goods to be traded, they visually record and order a range of information that added to the ‘stock’ of English knowledge about India, which could function as a mnemonic, in the case of souvenir images, or, in the case of deity images collected by missionaries, as a resource as valuable as cotton and saltpetre. Later in the 19th century,

MATcH GIRL, FROM COSTUME OF THE LOWER ORDERS OF LONDON,

BALDWIN AND CO. LONDON, 1820, bUSby, THOMAS LORD (ARTIST

AND ENGRAVER), HAND-COLOURED ENGRAVING. COLLECTION

OF THE bRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON

STANDING FIGURE OF A WOMAN, 17TH CENTURy, INDIA, OPAQUE

WATER COLOUR AND GOLD ON PAPER. FELTON bEQUEST, 1980.

COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL GALLERy OF VICTORIA


International Exhibitions provided a platform for presenting Indian goods to potential markets. After the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 a group of clay figures representing different castes, occupations and religious sects which had been included in the Indian exhibit was gifted to the NGV. The group can be seen as a three dimensional equivalent to sets of Company paintings depicting similar subjects, and includes a nautch dancer and a musician.

Not all Company paintings depicted portraits in isolation. Nautch dance performances seem to have been a popular subject in many centres of Company paintings, probably because they were particularly ‘picturesque’ and recorded

an occasion which foreigners found especially charming and exotic, as corroborated by extant British and Indian images and British diaries from the 18th and 19th centuries. A painting in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum by Shiva Lal (c 1817-1871), one of the most important artists in Patna, depicts, as it states: ‘Dancing-girls entertaining an Indian gentleman of Patna city who is seated under a red canopy; a courtyard in the background’. Dated to the same period as the NGV paintings (c. 1860), the courtyard and canopy are shown receding from the viewer, although their shadows do not correspond to those beneath the dancers, musicians and audience members grouped in the foreground. Individual figures correspond closely to those in the NGV

paintings, and are grouped in various vignettes that enliven the scene and contextualise the participants. Similar modelling and shading, palette, costumes and physiognomy is seen in each example.

A final comparison serves to highlight some of the adjustments made by Indian artists when painting in the Company style. The NGV collection includes a painting from the Mewar kingdom in Rajasthan, which shows a nautch dance performance in the Udaipur palace before Maharana Jagat Singh II and his sardars (princes, leaders, nobles). Dated 1748 it is an example of a painting in a predominantly Indian style: the kingdom preserved its Hindu identity even though it was nominally part of the Mughal Empire. Therefore even though its artists incorporated some Mughal and European stylistic elements, including modelling and shading, they retained aspects of the pre Mughal Indian painting style, including areas of flat, dense colour and figures delineated with a black outline.

The painting illustrates a lively nautch girl and her musicians in the foreground, their instruments identical to those shown in the NGV Company paintings. The Maharana, shown haloed and larger than the other figures to denote his status, partakes of a hookah like the Indian gentleman in the Patna painting. Also similar is the grouping of courtiers around the dancer. However, differences between the Udaipur and Patna nautch scenes include the inconsistent spatial recession in the Udaipur palace architecture and the lack of modelling and shadows in its figures which, with the exception of the dancer and musicians, also show a lack of animation. Similar information is conveyed, although in a less naturalistic fashion.

Scenes such as those depicted in Shiva Lal and the Mewar artist’s paintings place the nautch dancer within a performative and spatial context - a narrative presentation which is in contrast to the isolated ‘specimen’ of the nautch dancer and her musicians depicted in the NGV paintings. The intent in the latter is rather to record a ‘type’ not an event, as part of a categorisation of the unfamiliar: a typical concern of the Company painting genre which nonetheless resonated with similar sets of images from Europe, such as the engravings of Costumes of the Lower Orders of London.

Carol Cains is Curator of Asian Art at the NGV

International.

rEFErENCEArcher, Mildred, 1992. Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the

British Period, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

MaHaraNa JaGat SiNGH ii aNd HiS SardarS WatCHiNG a NAUTcH, C. 1748, UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA, OPAQUE

WATER COLOUR AND GOLD ON PAPER. FELTON bEQUEST, 1980. COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL GALLERy OF VICTORIA


ndia and Southeast Asia were connected by trade and exchange networks from the

middle of the first millennium bCE through routes which either hugged the coast of the Bay of Bengal or crossed the ocean from ports in what are now Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Important entrepôts along the Thai peninsula would, in the early centuries of our era, link with routes through the Straits of Malacca and thence to southern Cambodia, Vietnam and southern China. Along the routes travelled not only traders but also monks, brahmans, artisans and even circuses. Of course India was not a unified country but home to a number of mature states and chiefdoms which would develop into states. The earliest, the iron age Mauryan empire (322–185 bCE) from its capital at Pataliputra in modern Bihar conquered polities to its west and south, the emperor Aśoka (304 - 232 BCE) propagating Buddhism as an instrument of state formation. Succeeding kingdoms also transformed local protective anthropomorphic deities, yaksas, regarded as guardians of the earth and the fertility-producing waters below, into a cult endorsed by the elite, one which would enhance the power of the ruler and assure his

function of guaranteeing the fertility and prosperity of the state. These would change from localised deities to heroic Brahmanic divinities identified with the ruler belonging to cults practised across political frontiers. It was around this time that iron working was adopted in Southeast Asia and was responsible for increased agricultural intensity, consequent population growth and militarism. Local chiefs justified their claim to power through ritual in which a stone or boulder was considered to concentrate the active power of the soil: it was not the seat of the god but the god himself co-substantially. Ritual developed to control this power, to ensure the continued fertility of the land. The spirit of the stone passes into the officiant of the ritual, who could be a shaman or priest or a chief, identified with the god for the duration of the ceremony. As the wealth and power of a chief increased it was necessary to find ways in which to justify his hold over the land and divergent groups of people, and for this he turned to Indian concepts of religion and power, subtly adapted to local conditions. This development is evidenced by the earliest sculpture and other

artefacts found in Southeast Asia, facilitated by long-established trade connections with India. The earliest indications of Indian beliefs being transferred to Southeast Asia are amulets in the shape of the triratna, (literally ‘three jewels’), the symbol of the Buddha, Dharmma and Sangha. The Buddhist canon makes a concerted attempt to inculcate moral and ethical values among the laity through loyalty to the triratna and so the symbol is prominent in religious contexts, as at the Great Stupa at Sanchi in India in the first century CE.

The amulets, usually of semi-precious stones, are found together with manufactured beads and other symbolic objects depicting auspicious symbols such as the auspicious tripartite srivatsa, which denotes prosperity and fertility, and animals associated with royalty like the lion and the horse. These were believed to bring luck to the wearer. Identical amulets are found worn by yaksīs on early Buddhist stupas in India. Recent excavations have unearthed production sites with unfinished examples showing that when these proved popular they began to be manufactured in Southeast Asia, possibly initially by Indian craftsmen, and exported along the trade

t H E S P r E a d o F i N d i a N r E l i G i o U S B E l i E F S : a F i r S t C E N t U r Y B U r M E S E S t E l E

Pamela Gutman

I

tHE Sri KSEtra Warrior/tHroNE StElE. SANDSTONE. HEIGHT 135 CM. IMAGE: bOb HUDSON, COMPOSITE, AFTER ARCHAEOLOGy DEPARTMENT, MyANMAR, PHOTOS


routes. Seals bearing the inscription deya dhamma “gift of merit” are plentiful at early urban sites in Burma, Thailand and Vietnam further indicating the spread of Buddhism. A two-faced stele from Sri Ksetra in Burma (Gutman and Hudson), one of a number of early urban sites which can now be dated from the 1st century CE, illustrates how Indian concepts of religion and power were reinterpreted in Southeast Asia. One side of the stele depicts three men. The central figure, apparently a leader or a cult figure, holds a massive weapon and is flanked by smaller figures that also hold symbols of power. The other side shows a throne surmounted by a canopy with two women in attitudes of respect on either side.

The three figures on the first side can be seen to be stylistically closely related to the Sanchi yaksas. They are depicted frontally, in a similar yaksa stance, one hand on hip. The figures are solid, with firmly rounded flesh. They wear comparable tri-partite hair arrangements and their ornaments are similar: multiple bracelets or armbands, wide necklaces, large round earrings hanging to the shoulders. All wear dhotis tied in front, the ends falling between the legs. The wide flat faces of the stele figures too share the physiognomy found in the pre-Satavahana phase at Amaravati, dated to the 1st century CE, and to the 1st century reliefs at Kanganhalli, a Buddhist site in Karnataka, linked to the eastern ports by riverine routes. And like earlier yaksas, the stele figures have prominent bellies illustrating their promise of fecundity. The

figure on the right holds a wheel, a cakra, the potent weapon of war with possible solar connotations, mounted on a stick, while the figure on the left holds a garudadhvaja, (‘Garuda banner’) which in later Indian iconography was to become an attribute of Vishnu. This side of the stele suggests a close connection with an Indian pre-Kushana form of Vasudeva-Krishna worship of the early bhāgavata tradition, which originated from the speculative thinking of the orthodox brāhmana texts. In 1st century India the important school of the bhāgavata (“devotees of the blessed”), also known as Pāñcarātra or Sātvata, had elevated Vāsudeva-Krishna, originally a tribal hero, to the rank of Supreme God by identifying him with the Vedic Vishnu.

It is likely that the Sri Ksetra stele is connected to this tradition, but reinterpreted within a Southeast Asian context in which ritual invoking the power of the soil and sometimes the ancestors was conducted by or on behalf of the chief. In the early urban context the ruler, already familiar with developments in Indian religious beliefs, sought to adapt them to earlier practices in order to enhance his power. With the arrival of bhakti beliefs, in which the devotee is actively involved in the worship of the divinity, a leader could achieve a close relation with the god of his affection, in this case Vāsudeva-Krishna in the eyes of his people, thereby offering them the means of establishing their own relationship with the divinity. On the other side of the stele, the apex depicts

a much-abraded Buddhist symbol which appears to be the upper portion of a triratna; the form of the symbol here compares with depictions at Sanchi and Amaravati. The throne denotes the Enlightenment of the Buddha at Bodhgaya, representing the vajrāsana, the seat on which the event took place.

Here it is depicted within a pavilion supported by four slender pillars surmounted by a canopy made of cloth. The throne itself shares many of the characteristics of early Amaravati thrones: it has ornate legs, possibly with animal feet, and a footstool with a symbol which may be a vajra, indicating the vajrāsana. However, it is no longer within the open air Bodhgaya shrine as depicted at Bharhut and Sanchi, but in what appears to be a reproduction of a shrine made in portable materials, wood and textiles. The women on either side of the throne stand in an attitude of respect, the free hand touching the elbow of the inner arm, which reaches to support or touch the throne. This gesture is quite different from the dramatic postures of women worshipping at Amaravati, suggesting a more conservative society and a local ritual. Like the Amaravati women they are naked to the waist, but their garments are tied at the waist with the ends falling between the legs, as do the men’s garments. They wear heavy torques around the necks, like the males on the other side. Their hair is not elaborately dressed as is usual in early Indian sculpture, but falls straight over the shoulders. Their identity is unclear. They may be related to the royal figure on the other side of the stele, queens who patronised Buddhism. How, then, was imagery from Sanchi and Amaravati transported to Burma? Metal-using societies on both sides of the Bay of Bengal had been linked through trade over the last half of the first millennium bCE, during which time urban and ritual centres along the trade routes had been developing. By the 1st century CE the Sanchi area was incorporated into the Satavahana empire, with its base in the Deccan. The Satavahanas in the Deccan patronised both Brahman and Buddhist establishments. The ancient town of Vidisha, some 10 kilometres from Sanchi, was situated on the major trading routes linking northwest India and the Ganges valley with the Deccan, whose ports on the east and west coasts had a long history of trade with Ceylon and Southeast Asia.

Buddhism had been spreading through this area since Mauryan times, and by the 1st century CE the monastic establishments were intimately connected with this trade,

bEADS, SEALS AND AMULETS, INCLUDING TRIRATNA, WHEEL AND bODHI LEAF MOTIFS, FROM SITES IN NAkHON SI THAMMARAT,

THAILAND. PHOTO: COURTESy SUTHI RATANA FOUNDATION 2013

accumulating wealth through donations and interest from money lending and organising its redistribution. Buddhism, which had become institutionalised in the post-Mauryan period, had already been successful in pioneering newly-developing regions in Andhra and elsewhere. The Sangha, once established, was well-equipped to provide practical help to society, and monks could interact with outside groups. It was thus attractive to the leaders of newly-emerging polities, and soon followed the trade routes to Burma.

Concurrently, the rulers of these polities were adopting the bhāgavata cult and identifying with its heroes, notably Vasudeva-Krishna. This devotional cult, as it emerged, was also conducive to proselytising, and was developing in importance in both the economic and political spheres. Its adherents were not as closely tied to the limits of the caste system, believing that anyone could achieve salvation. There was no dichotomy between Brahmanism and Buddhism in ancient India or in the countries culturally influenced by India. While the lay community followed the precepts and doctrines of the Sangha in its search for salvation, its daily life continued to be governed by Brahmanical rituals.

Buddhism was unable to successfully resolve the question of providing ritual identity for its lay followers. In contrast to the detailed rules laid down for the monastic order, the laity was left to adopt the Brahmanical rites and rituals for its day-to-day functioning. Through the stele, itself a development from animist practices, the chief now asserted his power through Brahmanic ritual associated with a proto-vaishnavite cult, promising his people salvation, power, wealth and fertility - but to be sure of this he, or his queens, also appropriated Buddhism, which assisted in stabilizing the evolving society and indeed promised much the same.

Dr Pamela Gutman is an Honorary Associate in the

Department of Art History and Film Studies at the

University of Sydney.

rEFErENCEGutman, P. and b. Hudson “A First Century Stele from Sriksetra” in

Bulletin d’École Française d’Extrême Orient, forthcoming.


laUNCH oF taaSa SYdNEY CEraMiCS StUdY GroUP, 4 aPr il 2013

John Millbank

The inaugural meeting of TAASA’s Sydney Ceramics Study Group took place at the Powerhouse Museum, with around 45 members braving the driving autumn rain to attend. This first meeting was themed as a “show and tell”, inviting attendees to bring their own pieces to be viewed and discussed. Nearly half of the people who came took up this invitation, yielding an extensive and varied array of pieces and something of a challenge to the moderator for the evening, Dr John Yu, to ensure that everybody had a chance to contribute.

Dr Yu opened the proceedings and led off with his own contribution, a varied group of five blue and white pieces: small Chinese dishes for the domestic and export markets, and two Vietnamese pieces, including an example of a prized bleu d’Hué piece from the 18th-19th century.

The theme of export wares continued in other contributions. There were several

pieces of Zhangzhou (Swatow) ware from Fujian collected by members in places as diverse as Japan, Java and the Philippines. One of the contributors, Yuki Sato, talked to the history of the maritime trade which supported their production and distribution. Other export wares on display included pieces for more specialized markets in South East Asia: Bencharong porcelain made in China for the Thai market and Peranakan wares commissioned by well-to-do families of the Straits Chinese community. There were also shipwreck pieces, including a chicken-shaped flask found by one member in a Hoi An shop and authenticated on the spot by an archaeologist from the shipwreck excavation.

There were SE Asian wares from Cambodia, Laos and Burma, and Chinese wares for domestic use, including a Song dynasty whiteware box containing its original weiqi counters. There were also several pieces

presented for identification, each of which carried its own interesting story of acquisition.

All present expressed satisfaction that this group had now become active, fulfilling a need for exchange of information and experiences among ceramics collectors similar to that which has existed for many years for TAASA members with textile interests.

JOHN yU PRESENTING AT THE SyDNEy CERAMICS

STUDy GROUP MEETING. PHOTO: MIN-JUNG kIM


he display of 120 Asian export ceramics in the 13m long wall case in the Art

Gallery of New South Wales conjures a world of shipwrecks, merchant trade, and exotic social rituals. The ceramics, mainly Chinese, vary from grave goods, everyday bowls and platters, to valued treasures. The dense display, modelled on the crowded wall displays of early collections such as the Topkapi in Istanbul, is organised by time frame, country of production and market destination, presenting an overview of shifting markets and tastes from the 10th to 19th centuries. Its focus is on the ceramic trade amongst Asian countries: the so-called Nanhai (Ch: ‘Southern Seas’) trade which existed long before Western traders entered the lucrative market in the 1500s (see TAASA Review Volume 13, no 1, 2004).

Most of the ceramics were given to the Gallery by generous patrons, many of whom collected their ceramics in their original market destination at opportune times such as when grave goods were excavated in the Philippines in the 1960s, or when the contents of a new shipwreck were released on the market. Ceramics which flooded the market in one decade were rarely seen in the following decade, a sage reminder to acquire (hopefully legally) excavated objects as soon as they appear.

Amongst the examples of qingbai on display, a rare, yet quite delightful miniature piece of four boys playing in a lotus pond (ex F.W.Bodor Collection) is outstanding. Technically this keenly observed model is significant for its innovative use of brown iron spots to accentuate the boys’ hair and to add movement to the surface. This piece and others nearby, all small to comply with their role as grave goods in the Philippines, were produced at kilns at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province and in Fujian. The qingbai trade to the Philippines and Indonesia that first flourished in the Yuan dynasty petered out through the 1600s as Christianity spread through the Philippines after the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1500s, and as Islam spread through Indonesia.

Several pieces on display are from cargo of ships sunk in this lucrative trade such as the Beilitung shipwreck, found in 1998 off Beilitung Island on the east coast of Sumatra in the Java Sea. The discovery attracted much

attention both because of the size of its cargo of 9th century Chinese ceramics and because the ship was an Arab dhow, the first one of its kind found in maritime excavations, and proof that there was trade between Arabia and China as early as the 9th century. The cargo comprised mainly ceramics, over 60,000 pieces, as well as lead ingots, star anise, bronze mirrors and cast iron vessels. Many of the ceramics were everyday bowls with minimal decoration in the green and cream palette of Changsha wares. As with the examples on show, the glaze on many has degraded due to the length of immersion in sea water.

A large class of popular export ceramics from the Song through Ming dynasties were greenwares produced at the Longquan kilns of Zhejiang . The range of shapes includes bowls, vases, platters, ewers and jarlets. On display is a selection of large shallow dishes, the focus for the communal meal gatherings central to Indonesian society. Design was minimal and tended to be carved, incised or moulded. A fascinating, local use of small Longquan jarlets is demonstrated by the pair with carved wooden stoppers which exemplify a practice unique to Sumatra where such containers were used to store pupuk, a potent protective mixture prepared by the datu, men imbued with ritual and magical powers, for application to objects and sculptures.

Power and politics impacted on ceramic production through the centuries. For example huge volumes of export trade to Southeast Asia were encouraged by the Mongol rulers of Yuan dynasty China (1279-1368), while political and social unrest concomitant with the collapse of the Ming dynasty in the late 16th, early 17th centuries saw other countries stepping in to fill orders that Chinese kilns were unable to fill. Several examples are on show, such as Vietnamese blue and white dishes inspired by

Chinese prototypes, and, less familiar, Hasami ware celadons from Japan.

Then from the 16th century came the Europeans – first the Portuguese, then the Dutch, English and other Europeans. Huge cargoes of porcelain were shipped to their home markets to satisfy what sometimes equated to a craze for specific ceramic types. This enormous ceramic trade to Europe is not well represented in the Gallery’s collection. However many Western collections, such as Chinese export porcelain in the Peabody Essex Museum, have wondrous displays of export ceramics destined for European markets (see p25 for my review of this collection’s newly published catalogue).

The Art Gallery’s collection does contain a fine example of a less familiar and more idiosyncratic Western shape – that of a monteith bowl. The Peabody Essex catalogue details the origin of this name (p125): ‘This form is said to have gotten its name from an Oxford student, Monsieur Monteith (Monteigh), who wore a scalloped cloak’. The monteith, which first appeared in silver, was designed to chill wine glasses which were cradled on the notched rim, their bowls suspended in iced water. It is doubtful that the Chinese decorator, in choosing to decorate the interior with the eight Buddhist emblems, was cognisant of the purpose of this strange piece ordered for the foreign market.

Jackie Menzies is the former Head of Asian Art at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales.

i N t H E P U B l i C d o M a i N : T R A D E C E R A M I C S I N T H E A G N S W

Jackie Menzies

T

MoNtEitH, CHINA, QING DyNASTy, kANGXI PERIOD,

C1710-20, PORCELAIN WITH UNDERGLAzE bLUE DECORATION,

15.6 X 32.P CM. ART GALLERy OF NEW SOUTH WALES,

GIFT OF MRS MARGARET STRUTT-DAVIES 1984

JiNGdEZHEN or FUJiaN WarE lotUS PoNd, CHINA, yUAN

DyNASTy, 1300S, PORCELAIN WITH QINGBAI GLAzE, 4 X 10.5 CM.

ART GALLERy OF NEW SOUTH WALES, EDWARD AND GOLDIE

STERNbERG CHINESE ART PURCHASE FUND 1999. PHOTO AGNSW


treasures of Chinese Export Ceramics

from the Peabody Essex Museum

William R. Sargent, with an essay by Rose kerr.

Peabody Essex Museum, 2012,

Distributed by yale University Press.

RRP USD$65.00, hardcover, 556 pp.

Founded in 1799, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts or PEM (as it is more succinctly referred to) contains fascinating collections given by wealthy merchants involved in the extensive trade between America and China. In 2003 the PEM completed a striking museum transformation with the gallery spaces renovated and expanded. An entirely new expansion will be completed in 2017 to make it the ninth largest museum in North America. The PEM is rightly proud of its large collections of Asian export art, the consequence of an amalgamation with the China Trade Museum in 1984 and the Essex Institute in 1993. As a result the PEM now has an extraordinary total of over 19,000 works of Asian export furniture, lacquer, paintings, textiles, carvings, silver and ceramics, of which more than 6,600 are ceramics (p28).

Now comes this impressive book, a selection of 287 ceramic pieces with meticulously documented entries providing technical details and cultural context for each object. The book is as physically weighty (nearly 4 kilograms) as its research is prodigious.

The book opens with two essays – one by Sargent, a ceramicist and curator who has worked on Asian export art for some 30 years; the other by the eminent Chinese ceramics scholar Rose Kerr. Sargent’s essay tracks Western appreciation, sometimes over

appreciation if we believe the satirists, for Chinese ceramics. The essay understandably includes American patronage along with that of English and European royalty and, later, the merchant classes. The second essay by Rose Kerr details the production of porcelain, illustrated with Guangzhou imitations of the famous set of 20 paintings of the stages of porcelain production commissioned in 1743 by the Emperor Qianlong from the painter Tang Yin.

The essays are followed by 22 chapters of catalogue with the ceramics, grouped by type and date, ranging from ‘Early Blue and White 1400-1650’ to ‘Porcelain decorated in Europe’. In between, classic types such as Kraak ware, Zhangzhou (previously Swatow) ware, and Yixing wares are covered, often with recently acquired excellent examples. Each entry details provenance and related works, a prodigious job when one considers the publications and collections relating to Chinese export ceramics.

Particularly fascinating are those entries which source the European designs, often engravings, used for decoration. While some might blanch at the thought of eating from plates decorated with scenes of the Crucifixion, Sargent assures us that while ‘the concept of decorating dinner services, beer mugs, and punchbowls with political, historical, mythological, or religious imagery is at odds with modern taste, this was not so in the eighteenth century, when hardly any event could be considered inappropriate as a motif for a tea or dinner service….Some designs, such as the so-called Scotsmen plates, were so controversial and specific that they could not have been displayed in company that was anything other than sympathetic’ (p 319).

The four appendices of this thorough book include a useful one on armorials for those readers keen to ascertain their family’s porcelain heritage, while the exhaustive bibliography covers nine pages, and the careful glossary five pages.

These commendable details, together with the empathetically photographed ceramics, ensure this is a definitive reference book for lovers of Chinese porcelain. The value accorded this collection is acknowledged by the research and care that has gone into this

sumptuous publication, including the cover with its use of raised gold lettering for the title, and the artful placement of two rather bizarre carp tureens dating to 1760-80.

I must admit to being drawn to gifts of the early 19th century since they elicit the sense of wonder and adventure their donors must have felt in being exposed to the world of China. For example a figure of a monk (cat. 269) was given in 1819 by the minister of Salem’s East Church, the Rev. William Bentley, who had received it from his friend Captain Hodges, Commander of many of the ships that went to China and other ports. The figure is a fine example of the genre of 18th century, unfired clay, nodding-head Chinese figures which, Sargent advises, were extraordinarily popular in the West: ‘… as curiosities that revealed the dress and customs of the Chinese people’ (p. 483). being of unfired clay and hence very fragile, few such figures have survived to be part of the narrative of Western taste for Chinese ceramics.

This book is a pleasure to read, full of fascinating details concerning taste, ships, their routes and ports, the sources for pictorial designs and the Western clients for whom cost was no object. There are designs where the awkwardness of drawing, the distortion of forms and the English misspellings evoke the bewilderment felt by the hapless Chinese decorator who had to grapple with images of the architecture, clothes, religion and languages of cultures and lands beyond his experience. Export porcelain is proof that trade and the desire for curious objects, and profit, can overcome cultural incomprehension.

Jackie Menzies is the former Head of Asian Art at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales.

BooK rEViEW: C H I N E S E E X P O R T C E R A M I C S

Jackie Menzies

25

C o l l E C t o r ’ S C H o i C E : A C O L L E C T I O N O F F I L I P I N O S A N TO S

Pamela Walker with Ron Walker

ne corner of our house is given over to about a dozen wooden figures of Filipino

household saints of varying sizes, the fruits of two generations of collecting. Most are on shelves; two statues of the Virgin standing on their crescent moons, robes fluttering, hang on the wall. It doesn’t really look like a shrine, more like a gathering of individuals, each focused on some intense inner life, but nevertheless also gazing directly out at the world around them. All of them were carved in the 19th century or earlier, before the importation of mass-produced plaster versions which were enthusiastically acquired, leaving many of the old wooden saints to be consigned to oblivion - or the shed out the back; one of our saints has the remains of a wasp cocoon in the crook of his arm.

The fact that most people living on a group of islands in Southeast Asia came to own and cherish Christian images is of course due to Spain’s conquest of the Philippines in the mid 16th century. Spanish rule lasted until 1898, ample time to leave behind a tangible legacy in many fields, including art.

A massive push to proselytise by the Catholic Church meant lots of church building and decoration for which local carvers were increasingly employed, using as models the sculptures of saints in Renaissance and rococo styles brought in by the Spanish conquerors. As time went on, these combined with Chinese and native Filipino influences to produce Christian religious sculpture of sometimes extraordinary quality and energy. So one of the figures of the Virgin hanging on our wall has a distinctly Chinese look to the flow of her robes and a couple have had their noses flattened, presumably after the nationalist uprising of 1896, to make them look more like indigenous Filipinos.

Our collection started with my husband’s second overseas posting with the Australian foreign service in Manila in 1963, before we met. Being a good mother’s son, an avid collector of many things, he bought one or two wooden santo sculptures from a small antique shop which sold little else and was run by an old man and his daughter in Ermita, by then an area of post-war buildings beginning to look run-down in comparison with the newer areas of Manila. Most of the dealer’s santos were made of wood, but there were a few there in ivory, mostly out of Ron’s price range.

In any case, his interest from the very beginning was in the wooden “popular” sculptures. He felt that they had an artistic conviction and energy lacking in many of the more formal and to him less engaging and artistically convincing “high art” wood and ivory sculptures that were closer to their Spanish originals. Obviously the skills of local sculptors varied enormously; sometimes householders even carved their own figures, others who could afford it commissioned a local carver. Predictably his mother on seeing his santos, bought a large number herself, which encouraged him to continue his own collection. After a while he became interested

in local details like the design of the bases of the sculptures and started to collect carvings of San Roque - the saint who protects against the plague and other devastating diseases - from different parts of the Philippines.

Our interest in santos runs parallel with our interest in what we’ve come to call “the peripheries” – the outer edges of strong cultural and artistic styles, very often deriving from conquest, where the newly dominant culture is modified by the locals as it percolates down through the population and away from the capital. In these areas in particular, old culture and styles persist in the

O


SAN ROQUE IN MINICHAPEL, PHILIPPINES C. LATE 19TH CENTURy, WOOD, GESSO, PAINT. PRIVATE COLLECTION, CANbERRA ACT


a r M C H a i r t r a V E l t o t a a S a’ S a G M

Sandra Forbes

new and change it. The results are often called provincial and looked down upon because they seem degenerate in comparison to the original high art models, but for us these peripheral styles often push the boundaries of those models in new and vibrant ways as is the case with santos.

Saints in the popular style can be stocky, often wearing tunics and leggings with neatly-tied belts around their waists or tall with flowing robes inspired by the Spanish sculptures. You can sometimes see, such as in one of our figures, that of San Jose, the shape of the original tree-branch dictating the cylindrical form of the finished work, perhaps in an animistically inspired belief that the spirit of the tree would remain as part of the sculpted saint. The figures usually look straight before them, though the Holy Family tend to gesture towards each other and the statues of the Immaculate Conception can show baroque-inspired curves. Hands and sometimes arms were carved separately and so sleeves can

end distressingly in stumps where the hand is missing. Colour, laid on gesso and often renewed by the owners with devotion but little idea of moderation, was originally very bright and often clashing. Ignorance of monkish orders results in San Vicente Ferrer, a Dominican, appearing in a bright sky-blue robe which gives that rather dour saint with his hair shirt and mortification rites an almost cheerful air.

The San Roque tableau is the only one of its kind we’ve seen. The saint, with the angel who cured him of the plague and the dog who each day brought him bread, stands in front of his house in the forest and lifts his tunic to display the plague sore that infected him while he was ministering to the plague-stricken. Significantly underlining the warm humanity of the saint, the door of his distant house is open. The whole is enclosed in a shrine with a small box for alms in the front. The colours are vivid and the figures stand out before the blue, tree-entwined background. Only the

dog seems emotionally connected to anyone else in the scene: the angel and the saint gaze out at us as if waiting for us to react to them, send them a prayer perhaps. As so often with these figures, the purpose and meaning of the sculpture is completed by the worshipper.

Inevitably the collection grows more slowly now, even with the addition of some of Ron’s mother’s santos. Not surprisingly it still consists exclusively of santos in the “popular” style. As time went on we found them in unlikely places like auction rooms in Canberra, down on the South Coast, in Hong Kong and in New York, where there was a dealer in Asian art who loved them. Ron still treasures a small kneeling figure of Mary Magdalene with glass eyes and hair flowing down her back, a gift from the dealer in Manila where it all began.

Around 45 members were present at TAASA’s 2013 Annual General Meeting, held on 17 April at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts. This may be a record attendance – although there’s little doubt that the drawcard of the evening was not really the Society’s annual activities, rather the scheduled post-meeting speaker, Claudia Hyles, and her topic Passages to India and the Armchair Traveller.

but first, the AGM. Gill Green’s President’s Report outlined the principal activities of the Society for the previous year: publication of four issues of TAASA Review (Vol. 21, Nos.1-4) and the organisation of events in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. She thanked all members of the Management, Publications, Events, Membership and Website Development committees for their input, in particular Josefa Green, editor of the TAASA Review, and Ann Guild, Treasurer.

Ann Guild presented the audited Financial Report for the year ended 31 December 2012, which showed that the Society had made a small overall loss, but still retained a healthy surplus. Election of members of the Management Committee was next on the Agenda. The President advised that

four members had come to the end of their elected terms - Sabrina Snow, Christina Sumner, Min-Jung Kim and Jocelyn Chey. Christina and Min-Jung were re-elected for three year terms; Sabrina and Jocelyn had decided to stand down, and were very warmly thanked by the President for their many years of service.

Todd Sunderman, appointed for one year in 2012, was elected for a three-year term and will take over the job of Treasurer from Ann Guild, who remains chair of the Events Committee (see p2 for all current TAASA Committee members).

The meeting then approved the awarding of an Honorary Life Membership to Sandra Forbes, in particular for her eight years as Editor of TAASA Review. General business followed, including the recent encouraging interest shown by members in the formation of a Ceramics Study Group in Sydney (see report p23)

After refreshments, speaker Claudia Hyles was introduced by Committee member Ann Proctor. Claudia, a foundation TAASA Life Member based in Canberra, is a writer, literary reviewer and independent

researcher. Her long love affair with the Indian sub-continent - since 1968 she has visited India more than 30 times – was clear from her talk and its particularly fascinating illustrations.

Claudia’s topics ranged widely, from textiles to books, from architecture to the Indian Mutiny. Describing her early introductions to India both actual and literary, she showed us photos of her teenage self dressed 70s style on her first visit as an exchange student, and of her early copy of E.M.Forster’s A passage to India with charming cover sketch. Among her topics was the little-known work of architect burley Griffin in Lucknow, where he designed both a town palace and a country palace for the Rajah of Jahangirabad as well as the University Library. We heard about chikan-kari, the textile technique for which Lucknow is famous and which reminds the aficionado of the jail screens of Moghul architecture. And to supplement her erudite and absorbing reminiscences, Claudia brought along some of her own textiles which members were able to view at the conclusion of her talk.

That’s how to be sure you have a quorum at an Annual General Meeting.


arts of Viet Nam 1009-1945

kerry Nguyen-Long

The Gioi Publishers, Hà Noi, 2013

RRP AUS$55, softcover, 316 pages

Until the publication of this volume, no book in English has dealt so completely with the development of Vietnamese art during the Vietnamese dynastic periods from 1009 to1945. Admittedly there have been books dealing with separate categories of artistic production such as ceramics and painting, as well as catalogues accompanying specific exhibitions, but none have so comprehensively presented the development of the art of the majority Kinh Vietnamese.

Nguyen-Long, who is a contributing editor to the journal Arts of Asia, has drawn on many Vietnamese writings previously inaccessible to the English speaker; on recent archaeological research including that carried out at the Hà Noi citadel, and on her own extensive research and writings. Her co-authored book on Vietnamese Blue and White Ceramics was reviewed in the TAASA Review of June 2002. The reader benefits greatly from the depth of her experience. Furthermore, the time that she spent living in Hue, associated there with the Royal Museum, allows for a more informed understanding of the final nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945). A driving motivation to produce this book was, as the author states, her ‘frustration at the often disregard, total omission or perfunctory handling of the arts of Vietnam in publications’. Many earlier writings have perpetuated a view that Vietnamese art is merely a poor copy of Chinese or Indian prototypes, frequently repeating inaccurate or biased colonial attitudes. This book

carefully analyses the development of the arts throughout the dynastic period, drawing out the distinctive ability of Vietnamese artists and artisans to adapt, innovate and incorporate changing belief systems and motifs over this 1,000 year span. The first chapter, dealing with art and history of the pre-dynastic period, sets the ground for an understanding of these later developments.

The book is structured so that each chapter summarises the significant historical context and the philosophical climate of the period under discussion and relates how the social climate affected the art and architecture of each dynasty. Sculpture, ceramics, metal work, painting, lacquer ware, wood block printing, inlay, stone and wood carvings, furniture and fashion are all discussed. Although copiously illustrated, the reader’s understanding would be enhanced by the inclusion of the dimensions of art works and their location, which are generally not provided with the text accompanying the images.

A constant theme throughout this book is that of buddhism as a thread defining Vietnamese culture, due to its persistent and pragmatic openness to pre-existing ideas. Another is the ability of ruling regimes to combine Confucian and Buddhist ideas, as evidenced through the artistic motifs of the dragon and Bodhi leaf appearing in varying styles across the centuries.

This publication traces a number of previously neglected developments: the history of handicraft associations from the Lý (1009-1225) to the Nguyen dynasties and that of painting over the same time frame. The author explores the arts that were produced both for the court and for local patrons through handicraft associations; the communal efforts of these organisations is reflected in the accessibility and human scale of the works they produced which were generally always close to nature. Handicraft units working for the courts to fulfil social and religious obligations were disbanded by the French in 1862.

Of particular interest are the references to painting which go back one thousand years and continue throughout history. For instance, Lý dynasty stele inscriptions describe paintings of beautiful scenery and Buddhist imagery. Although due to the

ravages of conflict and weather none of the earliest examples survive, Nguyen-Long’s account counteracts the view perpetuated in many writings that painting did not exist as an art form in Vietnam prior to the arrival of the French. Certainly oil painting was not practiced before the introduction of French influence but this particular colonial opinion is typical of many of the misconceptions perpetuated about art in Vietnam.

For its breadth of research and scholarship, this book is a most valuable resource for those interested in Vietnamese art in particular and Asian art in general.

Dr Ann Proctor is an art historian with a particular

interest in Vietnam.

BooK rEViEW: A R T S O F V I E T N A M

Ann Proctor


r E C E N t t a a S a a C t i V i t i E S

FROM BEGINNER TO EXPERT: A TAASA SYMPOSIUM, 9 March 2013.Margaret White

This was a wonderfully informative and enjoyable day as speakers shared stories on learning about and collecting Asian art. The opportunity to handle pieces and to question speakers enhanced the experience.

Michael Abbot AO QC opened with a lively account of his varied collections. He initially focussed on Asian trade ceramics but later switched to textiles because they were more connected to people’s lives and less expensive to collect at the time. Perhaps he was lucky when he began collecting in the 1960s as he was able to go to the source to find items, something he feels is paramount. He emphasised that donating one’s collections to art institutions is just as rewarding as collecting.

Todd Sunderman described his experience as beginner collector, who by research and perseverance, managed to acquire pieces for his home and later became an expert dealer in the niche market of antique west Tibetan furniture. Todd outlined how to get started and the steps necessary to build a collection.

Donna Hinton, Head of Objects Conservation at AGNSW, provided some useful solutions to the care and conservation of objects. In particular, she discussed the value of careful documentation of one’s collection and the balance needed between protection and display.

Raimy Che-Ross’ Malay silver collection began with his family heirlooms. Malay silver is an area perhaps little known to many in the audience and we learnt of Raimy’s research into the cultural background of this once royal preserve. Old british black and white film clips illuminated Malay silver’s function in coronation ritual.

Paul Sumner, David Hulme and Brigitte Benziger spoke on the practicalities of buying art wisely as well as the state of the auction and retail market for Asian artworks in Australia. Paul perhaps related the funniest story of the day as he recounted breaking his honeymoon in Italy to pursue some special

t a a S a M E M B E r S ’ d i a r Y

JUNE 2013 – AUGUST 2013

Sydney private collection viewing for members –Saturday 27 July

Members are invited to a viewing of a private collection which covers an eclectic mix of artefacts, furnishings and ritual objects mainly from India. There will be a morning and afternoon viewing session, as this inner city venue can only accommodate a small number of people. Venue details will be provided to attendees and early booking is advisable.

TAASA members only. Cost: $20.00 with refreshmentsContact: Gill Green at [email protected]. or 02 8964 6430

100 Years of Hindi cinema - Saturday 17 August

This full day event will be held at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts. In the morning, Indian cinema expert Adrienne McKibbins will provide an overview and history of Hindi cinema, using film clips to take us through the twists and turns of the Bollywood genre. Following an Indian takeaway lunch, we will view a feature film with intermission.

Further details to be advised but put this date in your diary.

TAASA Texile Study GroupAll meetings held at the Curatorial Café, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney 6-8pm.

12 June – A Gecko on my Shoulder: Australian Textile artist Jessica Watson will give a presentation of her work resulting from a year long Artist Residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia.10 July – Central Asian Textiles: Margaret White will examine textile designs, techniques and their transmission through Central Asia, focusing on examples from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.14 August - Furoshiki & Ikebana: Yukie Sato & Sandy Marker will explore the relationship between these traditional Japanese Arts.Refreshments provided. $10 members; $15 non members. Contact: Marianne Hulsbosch [email protected] or 0413741552.

TAASA Ceramics Study Group, SydneyMeetings held at COFA, Oxford St Paddington 6-8pm, High Tech Seminar room, F205.

Tuesday 11 June - Buncheong Ware and the work of contemporary Australian- Korean ceramic artist, Won-Seok KimIn this next CSG event, Min-Jung Kim from the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney will give a brief overview of Buncheong ware and introduce noted Korean-Australian ceramicist, Won-Seok Kim. Won-Seok has generously agreed to bring samples of his work which he will discuss. People are invited to bring relevant Korean pieces they may have in their collections, including related Japanese mishima ware.

Refreshments provided. $15 members; $20 non members. RSVP: Margaret White at [email protected].

Tuesday 6 August 6-8pm - event topic to be advised.

LAUNCH OF THE TAASA VICTORIA CERAMICS STUDY GROUP Tuesday 18 June, 6–8 pm, Mossgreen Gallery, 310 Toorak Rd, South YarraPaul Sumner (Managing Director, Mossgreen Auctions) has kindly invited TAASA to a private viewing of ceramics from the collection of the late Vincent Massa which will be auctioned at Mossgreen. Dr John Yu AM, noted Asian ceramics collector, has agreed to launch the Study Group that evening with a discussion of the works on view. Refreshments provided. $20 at the door. RSVP: [email protected] or [email protected]

In our coverage of Christina Sumner’s OAM award (March 2013 p29) we wrongly attributed to her the curatorship of the exhibition Faith, fashion, fusion: Muslin women in Australia. This was curated by Glynis Jones and Melanie Pitkin.

29

MARGARET WHITE DISPLAyING A PAINTED PANEL FROM ONE

OF TODD SUNDERMAN’S WEST TIbETAN CAbINETS

ANN GUILD AND RAIMy CHE-ROSS WITH A MALAy SILVER bOWL

FROM RAIMy’S COLLECTION


Asian pieces, one of which resulted in a new auction record in Australia in 2011.

TAASA TEXTILE STUDY GROUP EVENTS Margaret White

Textiles of East Timor: A visual survey, 13 March 2013Dr Chris Reid began by providing a snapshot of the tumultuous external influences on the region. The culture of the Tetun people of

Timor was shaped by Malay culture to the west and the Papuans from the east. They use the back-strap loom to weave their ikat technique textiles. He also pointed to the generic European flower pattern, derived from the Dutch and Portuguese, depicted on local textiles - sarong and tais (woven cloths). Dr Reid guided us in detail through regional and design styles and techniques, identifying typical motifs of clan and ethnic identifiers such as the twin- tailed, eared crocodiles symbolising the Supreme Being.

Revival and Innovation - the tradition and evolution of Aari embroidery, 10 April 2013

Guest speaker Asif Shaikh is a Master embroiderer and fashion designer who has taken inspiration from the chain stitch or Aari (from ari, an embroidery tool) carpets of the Kutch Royal Court of the mid 18th century; the Persian kamdani metal work brought to India with the Mughals in the 16th century;

the early zardozi silver or gold metal thread couching technique, and mid 20th century folk motifs. Combining tradition with a contemporary twist has led to innovations such as a simplified embroidery scroll frame or karchob, new designs and colour combinations and the miniaturization of embroidery stitches for intricate sari bands or fashion items. One stunning example was a piece of zardozi work encrusted with rubies, emeralds and Basra (Iran) pearls stitched on hot pink silk.

30

t a a S a P r o F i l E S

SUSAN SCOLLAYA Melbourne based TAASA Committee Member, Susan is an art historian and curator with extensive international experience, having studied and lived in the UK, Australia,

Europe, the Middle East and the USA. She is widely travelled in the Islamic world and since 1984 has done most of her research work in Turkey. In 2012 she completed her Ph.D. at La Trobe University, Melbourne on the cultural history of the lost 15th century Ottoman palace at Edirne - viewed from the perspectives of its ceremonies and spaces, the art objects and textiles used within the palace walls, its extensive gardens, and the poets, poetry and Persianate culture that inspired it.

Susan was specialist guest co-curator of the manuscript exhibition, Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne from March to July 2012 and again at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, November 2012 to April 2013. She edited the exhibition publication, now in its second printing, and a special edition of the La Trobe Journal of the SLV which published papers from the international conference that accompanied the exhibition. Susan also guest edited

the March 2012 issue of the TAASA Review on “Persian Art of Poetry”. She is a contributing editor to the prestigious London based journal, HALI: carpet, textile and Islamic art.

Most recently she contributed an essay, ‘Remembering Josephine Powell: Kismet, Hasret and Horses’ to the catalogue published by Koç University in Istanbul that accompanied an exhibition of photographs of rural Anatolia by the late ethnographer and textile specialist, Josephine Powell. Susan is a Fellow of the SLV, a member of the International Association of Historians of Islamic Art and in January 2013 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.

TODD SUNDERMANTodd is TAASA’s new Treasurer. He has a great passion for Asian art and antiques. “I remember strolling through an antique shop in London in 2001 and stumbling across

a magnificent Thai buddha statue. It was the sole Asian piece from the very old and very large collection of a recently deceased English Lord. It was love at first sight and from that moment on I was hooked.”

Born in Malaysia to expatriate parents, perhaps his love of Asian art has always been in his blood. It is his extensive travel though, that he credits with building his passion and knowledge. “My wife and I were addicted to travel until the kids came along and slowed things down a bit. We have had the privilege of being able to travel extensively throughout large parts of the world, including every country in Asia. The more we saw the more we fell in love with Asia, and started collecting everywhere we went.”

“For us, the art becomes a part of the whole experience. To appreciate the art fully, we also like to experience the people, culture, food, history and passion of the country that it comes from. Every time I walk past a piece in our home it brings back great memories.”

Todd’s greatest passion though is for antique Tibetan furniture. After starting as a private collector, he was also a dealer while living in Singapore, holding exhibitions in Australia and the United States. Todd has lived variously in Australia, London, Singapore and the United States. He has worked as a corporate lawyer, business consultant and executive. He is currently engaged in his toughest role – stay at home dad.

CHRIS REID DISCUSSING TEXTILES WITH ROz CHENEy.

PHOTO: ROSALIE PAINO

A MODERN TWIST ON TRADITION: SAMPLES OF ASIF SHAIkH’S

FAbRICS. PHOTO: SANDy WATSON

TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 2 N O . 2 31

W H a t ’ S o N i N a U S t r a l i a : J U N E 2 0 1 3 – A U G U S T 2 0 1 3

A S E L E C T I V E R O U N D U P O F E X H I b I T I O N S A N D E V E N T S

Compiled by Tina Burge

aCt

Earth and Fire: Japanese aesthetics and

contemporary ceramics lecture series

National Gallery of Australia

Thursday lectures, 18 July – 8 August

from 6.00 – 7.00pm

18 July: The avant-garde of earth, fire and water Dr Wendy Ella Wright, research scholar, Japan Centre, ANU: how potter, Yoshikawa Masamichi and others have evolved concepts taken from Japanese archaeological sites into today’s avant-garde movement.

25 July: Japanese potters and their influence in Australia Robert Bell, Senior Curator, Decorative Arts: on Japanese potters in Australia and Australian potters who have worked in a Japanese tradition or aesthetic.

1 August: The wabi influence on Japanese ceramics Ian Jones, potter and PhD candidate, School of Art, ANU: impact of wabi on tea ceremony ceramics, in particular the wood-fired works from Bizen and Shigaraki, and the revival of this aesthetic in the 1930s.

8 August: Japanese aesthetics and Australian influences Japanese potter Hiroe Swen: on her practice, Japanese aesthetics and Australian influences on her work.

Additional lecture – 9 July 12.45pm: Fired with Passion; but with a mystified purpose.Dr Wendy Ella Wright: on ancient Jomon pottery and indigenous Japanese aesthetics in contemporary Japanese art and design.

NSW

a Silk road saga: Yu Hong’s sarcophagus

The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

22 August - 10 November 2013

In 1999 an extraordinary white marble sarcophagus, unlike any previous discovery, was excavated in Taiyuan, capital of China’s Shanxi province. It belonged to Yu Hong and his wife, who had been interred in 592 and 598 respectively. Its carved and painted scenes of hunting, feasting, musical performance and domestic life owe more to Persian and Buddhist iconography than Chinese motifs. The sarcophagus will be on display with more than 20 objects from the

tomb or from burials of the same period in the same province.

24 August symposium: will tease out the implications of the sarcophagus find which demands a fresh interpretation of the cultural interaction that occurred between China and the West due to travel and trade along the Silk Road. Speakers include: Professor Zhang Qingjie, the archaeologist who excavated Yu Hong’s tomb. Edmund Capon, former director of the AGNSW. Professor Qi Dongfang from the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University. Professor David Goodman, currently Academic Director, University of Sydney China Studies Centre. Dr Cao Yin, Curator of Chinese Art at the AGNSW.For more information go to: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

the Shaping of Eryldene

Centenary of an iconic house and garden

Eryldene Trust & Historic Houses

Trust Members Joint Event.

Sunday 28th July, The Mint, Macquarie Street, Sydney, 10am – 4pm. Speakers including Jackie Menzies, Colleen Morris, James Broadbent, Zeny Edwards, Anne Warr and descendants of the two progenitors of Eryldene, the building commissioned in 1913 by EG Waterhouse from architect William Hardy Wilson, will delve into the tastes and artistic influences that shaped the house and its gardens, with a special focus on the Chinese connection and the growing appreciation of Chinese art, decoration and design in 20th century Australia. Bookings: www.hht.net.au or 8239 2266

SoUtH aUStralia

Noble Shadows: ancestral art of indonesia

and indigenous australia

Art Gallery South Australia, Adelaide

11 May - December 2013

Explores the close parallels between the spiritual traditions of Indonesia and Indigenous Australia. From pre-historic times, the Indigenous arts of both countries have been a medium for expressing spirituality and reverence for ancestors. The display features a variety of objects in the medium of woodcarving, ceramics, bark painting and textiles. Among the highlights is a collection of spectacular Borneo spirit masks only recently acquired by the AGSA and several 18th century Sumatran ‘ship cloths’ whose great fragility has precluded inclusion in previous exhibitions. For more information go to: www.artgallery.sa.gov.au

WEStErN aUStralia

oriENting: With or Without You

Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery,

The University of Western Australia, Perth

4 May - 13 July 2013

The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia is holding two exhibitions based around the early work of the artist Ian Fairweather. The first, ORIENTing: Ian Fairweather in Western Australian Collections, features his early paintings from the 1930s and 1940s and focuses on the influence of Asian art and culture on his practice.

ORIENTing: With or Without You, curated by Aaron Seeto and Toby Chapman, responds to many of the themes such as place, identity and landscape that preoccupied Fairweather. The exhibition includes works by contemporary artists Newell Harry, Tom Nicholson, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Roy Wiggan, Tintin Wulia and John Young. Some of the artists respond directly to Fairweather’s paintings, while others reflect on the broader themes of cross-cultural engagement and interaction.For more information go to: www.lwgallery.uwa.edu.au

SarCoPHaGUS SEat, SUI DyNASTy (581-619), WHITE MARbLE.

FROM yU HONG TOMb 592 CE. SHANXI PROVINCIAL MUSEUM

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