Review_24_1_2015_Mar..

VO LU M E 2 4 N O. 1 M a r c h 2 0 1 5
the journal of
the asian arts society
of australia
TAASA Review
CONTENTS
Volume 24 No. 1 March 2015
3ED ITOR IAL
TA A S A RE V I E W
Josefa Green
4
TREASURE SHIPS : AR T IN T H E AG E O F SP IC E S AT AGSA
THE ASIAN ARTS SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA INC.
Abn 64093697537 • Vol. 24 No.1, March 2015
ISSN 1037.6674
James Bennett
7
N AGAS AKI: WHER E TH E L AND END S AND TH E SEA BEGI N S
Russell Kelty
9
A GOLDEN AGE O F C H I NA, Q IANLO NG E M P E R O R – EXH I B I T I ON AT T H E N G V
Mae Anna Pang
12 CURATORLAND – REFLECTIONS ON BUILDING THE NGA’S ASIA-PACIFIC PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION
Gael Newton
16
GOLD THR EAD EMBR O ID ER IES O F TH E P ER ANAKAN CH I N E S E
Hwei-Fen Cheah
19
HIMAC HAL P R AD ESH : H IL L AR CH ITECTU R E IN ‘ TH E ABODE OF T H E S N OW ’
Margaret White
21
IN THE P UBLIC D O MAIN: CAMBO DI A N LOA N S TO T H E N G A
Melanie Eastburn
Registered by Australia Post. Publication No. NBQ 4134
e di torI A L • email: [email protected]
General editor, Josefa Green
publications committee
Josefa Green (convenor) • Tina Burge
Melanie Eastburn • Sandra Forbes
Charlotte Galloway • Marianne Hulsbosch
Jim Masselos • Ann Proctor • Sabrina Snow
Christina Sumner
design / layout
Ingo Voss, VossDesign
printing
John Fisher Printing
Published by The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc.
PO Box 996 Potts Point NSW 2011
www.taasa.org.au
Enquiries: [email protected]
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TAASA Review is published quarterly and is distributed to members
22
TR AVELLER ’ S C H O ICE : R E V I S I T I N G H I S TO RY I N W E S T BE N G A L
Claudia Hyles
24
AUSTR ALIAN C E NTR E O N CH INA IN TH E WO R L D AT TH E A N U
subscription to TAASA Review are available on request.
Geremie R Barmé
No opinion or point of view is to be construed as the opinion of
25
BOOK R EVIEW: BUR ME S E MA N US CRI PT BI N DI N G TA PE S
No claim for loss or damage will be acknowledged by TAASA
Gill Green
Review as a result of material published within its pages or
26
BOOK R EVIEW: LE MPA D O F BA LI
or omit any article or advertisements submitted and require
Siobhan Campbell
or liabilities that may arise from material published.
27
QUEEN MOTHER O F BH U TAN’S VISIT TO TH E NGA
Meredith Hinchliffe
28
R EC ENT TAASA ACTIVITIES
29
TAASA MEMBERS’ D IAR Y: MARCH 2015 – MAY 2015
30
W HAT’ S ON: M ARCH 2015 – MAY 2015
Compiled by Tina Burge
of The Asian Arts Society of Australia Inc. TAASA Review welcomes
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performing arts. All articles are refereed. Additional copies and
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Prajnaparamita as a child (detail), Angkor Thom, Angkor (Siem Reap), Cambodia,
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Bayon style, late 12th–early 13th century, sandstone, 73.8 x 24.2 x 15.6 cm.
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F OR OU R N E X T IS S U E IS 1 A P R IL 2 0 1 5
T he deadline for all a Dvertising
A full Index of articles published in TAASA R eview since its beginnings
in 199 1 is available on the TAASA web site , www.taasa .org. au
2
F OR OU R N E X T IS S U E IS 1 M AY 2 0 1 5
TAASA COMMITTEE
EDITORIAL
G i ll Gr een • Pr esident
Josefa Green, Editor
Art historian specialising in Cambodian culture
A NN PROC TOR  • Vice Pr esident
Art historian with a particular interest in Vietnam
Two major exhibitions are covered by this
issue of the TAASA Review.
To dd Sun d er man • TREASUR E R
Former Asian antique dealer, with a particular interest
in Tibetan furniture
Dy Andr easen • SEC RETARY
Has a special interest in Japanese haiku and tanka poetry
Siobhan C ampbell
Lecturer, Indonesian Studies, Sydney University
with an interest in Balinese art
Josefa Green
General editor of TAASA Review. Collector of
Chinese ceramics
B oris Kaspiev
Private collector of Asian art with a particular interest
in the Buddhist art of the Himalayan region
M IN- JUN G KIM
Curator of Asian Arts & Design at the Powerhouse
Museum
James MacKean
Collector of oriental ceramics
Natalie S eiz
Assistant Curator, Asian Art, AGNSW with an interest
in modern/contemporary Asian Art
CHRISTIN A S UMN ER
Former Principal Curator, Design and Society,
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
M argaret White
Former President and Advisor of the Friends of Museums,
Singapore, with special interest in Southeast Asian art,
ceramics and textiles
TAASA Ambassador
Jackie Menzies
Emeritus Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of NSW.
President of TAASA from 1992 – 2000
state representatives
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
M elanie Eastburn
Curator of Asian Art, National Gallery of Australia
QUEENSLAND
Tarun N agesh
Assistant Curator, Asian Art, QAGOMA
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
James Bennett
Curator of Asian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia
VICTORIA
Carol C ains
Curator Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria International
Looking ahead to June, the much awaited
Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices will be
shown at the Art Gallery of South Australia,
from 13 June to 30 August, moving on to
the Art Gallery of Western Australia from 9
October to 28 January 2016. Its co-curators,
James Bennett and Russell Kelty, have each
written a background piece for this issue.
James has provided a helpful overview of the
east-west cultural exchange that accompanied
the intense commercial activities between
European maritime powers and Asia from
around 1500 to 1800. Russell’s article focuses
on the European impact on Japanese art and
fashion from the late 16th century through
traders based in Nagasaki and other ports.
At the National Gallery of Victoria, members
will soon be able to enjoy a major exhibition
from the Palace Museum, Beijing. A Golden
Age of China, Qianlong Emperor (1736-1795)
will showcase more than 120 works relating to
the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, including
items from court life and objects reflecting the
tastes and interests of this assiduous collector
and patron of the arts. Senior Curator of Asian
Art at the NGV, Mae Anna Pang, places this
exhibition in its context and describes some
of its key exhibits.
We are also pleased in this issue to be able to
offer a special contribution from Gael Newton,
until recently Senior Curator of Photography
at the National Gallery of Australia. Following
her retirement in September 2014, we invited
Gael to reflect on her work of the last
decade, building the NGA’s highly respected
collection of Asia-Pacific photography. Gael’s
energy and enthusiasm is very apparent in
this personal account and we look forward to
hearing about her next projects!
Remaining articles in this issue offer an
eclectic range of topics. Many TR readers
will be aware of Hwei-Fen Cheah’s ongoing
engagement
with
Peranakan
culture,
particularly the textile traditions of these
locally born Chinese communities in
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. In this
issue, she provides a thorough outline of the
styles and techniques found in Paranakan
gold thread embroidery at various centres.
From textiles, we move to the distinctive
vernacular architecture found in the hill
region of Himachal Pradesh in the western
Himalayas of northwest India. Margaret
White has made good use of her recent visit
to this remote region, describing how the
timeless construction methods and materials
used here in homes and temples have
developed in response to regional climatic
conditions, though currently responding to
more modern trends.
An architectural project which beautifully
combines contemporary and traditional
features - in this case, elements of both
Australian and Chinese design - can be found
closer to home at the ANU’s Australian
Centre on China in the World. Geremie R.
Barmé, its current Director, has described
the intent behind the design of this complex,
which functions as a research institution for
China studies.
For our Traveller’s Choice feature, Claudia
Hyles provides an entertaining account of her
recent visit to the less well traversed towns
and countryside of West Bengal. She paints
a vivid picture of its history, monuments,
distinctive architecture and artisan traditions.
Our cover image provides a clue to our regular
In the Public Domain feature. Melanie Eastburn
describes the three beautiful Khmer sculptures
currently on loan to the NGA from the National
Museum of Cambodia. The NGA also hosted
a function in late 2014 to honour the Queen
Mother of Bhutan. Her visit, described in
Meredith Hinchliffe’s article, aimed, amongst
other things, to promote Bhutanese textiles
and resulted in the donation of a kira or full
length woman’s garment to the NGA, woven
specifically for this visit.
We offer two book reviews in this issue.
Siobhan Campbell reviews a sumptuous and
comprehensive biography of the Balinese
artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad. Gill Green
reviews a book published on woven Burmese
manuscript binding tapes – seemingly one for
the specialist but, as Gill writes, a testament
to the role played by the passion of collectors
of lesser known arts in preserving objects and
their cultural heritage.
Finally, we direct your attention to our
Members’ diary on p29 – now taking a full
page, testifying to TAASA’s very active
program for the next few months. We hope
you enjoy some or all of these activities, and
a selection of photos taken at TAASA’s end of
year party held in Sydney last December.
3
TREASURE SHIPS : ART IN THE AGE OF SPICES AT AGSA
James Bennett
reasure ships at the Art Gallery of South
Australia presents the extraordinary
story of east-west artistic exchange in the
era between c.1500-1800, known as the
‘age of spices’. The exhibition includes a
diverse selection of more than 300 objects,
ranging from paintings and decorative arts
to manuscripts and shipwreck artefacts, from
public and private collections in Portugal,
India, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States
and around Australia. They reveal how the
international trade in spices and other exotic
commodities inspired dialogue between
Asian and European artists, a centuries old
conversation whose heritage is the aesthetic
globalism we know today.
T
Europe’s infatuation with pepper, nutmeg
and cloves has often been explained as the
ingredients necessary to preserve cooked foods
in the days before the invention of refrigeration.
This is a half-truth that takes little account of
the complex reasons the condiments of luxury
and status were so avidly sought, often at
great expense to human lives and resources,
from unknown lands on the other side of the
world. Some spices do contain microbiological
elements that may significantly hinder decay,
nevertheless, other important reasons for their
immense value includes their medicinal uses.
Doron Medicum (1683) written by the famous
English doctor, William Salmon, who also
compiled an encyclopaedic publication on
painting techniques, recommends nutmeg,
galangal and cinnamon in prescriptions to treat
ailments ranging from “Vomiting, Hiccough,
and debility of the Stomach” to “‘Melancholly,
Madness, Frenzy’”.
Medieval scholars asserted that spices
originated from the region of the Nile River,
said to descend directly from Paradise. The
commercial realities of the contemporary
Mediterranean spice trade appeared to
support such a viewpoint. Europe was reliant
on the purchase of spices from Muslim
middlemen trading in the great markets of the
Levant, notably Alexandria in Egypt. It was
Christendom’s desire to access the sources
directly and prevent the flow of European
silver and gold into the hands of Muslim
merchants that drove the first great European
maritime voyages to explore alternative sea
routes to the east via the Cape of Good Hope.
Portugal, a small country located on the
periphery of Europe, remapped the West’s
4
Sea atlas of the water world: Containing a short description of all the well-known sea coasts of
the earth, newly issued, Arnold Colom, Netherlands, Amsterdam, 1658. Printed by de Nieuwen-brugh, vellum
bound volume, hand-coloured engraving and letterpress on paper, 58.0 x 36.2cm. Royal Geographical
Society of South Australia, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
view of the world and opened the era of direct
cultural exchange with the East. In 1498 Vasco
da Gama’s small fleet became the first European
ships to reach India and landed in Kerala,
with the famous words, “We come in search
of Christians and spices”. The newcomers
discovered a prosperous far-reaching network
of international trade that utilised the annual
monsoon winds, whereby products from
eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the
Indian subcontinent were exchanged for goods
from Southeast and East Asia. Within a decade
the Portuguese soldier–aristocrat Francisco
de Almeida (c1450-1510) had ruthlessly
seized control of the Arab-dominated Indian
Ocean spice trade and established Portugal’s
permanent presence in the Indies.
The Indian port of Goa became the first great
overseas city of the Western diaspora. The
famed wealth of this strategically located
Portuguese emporium even excited the
cupidity of several Italian alchemists who
hoped to extract gold from the reddish soil.
Goa’s Basilica of the Baby Jesus, housing the
grand Italianate mausoleum of St Francis
Xavier (1506-1552), Apostle of the Indies,
testifies to the city’s religious glory when its
authority extended from Africa to Japan. The
piety of the citizens was renowned, with men
and women said to be always seen holding
rosary in hand.
Goa played a seminal role in the early history
of east-west artistic exchange. Indian craftsmen,
often Hindu, created Christian devotional
images under the instruction of Catholic clergy,
as few European artists were willing to travel
to the Orient. The startling realism of the largerthan-life Christ in Dormition testifies to a local
sculptor’s heartfelt response to the emotionalism
of Iberian Baroque religious art. The provenance
of the sculpture from the Church of St. John
the Baptist (1581) in Thane, now a suburb of
Mumbai - a name derived from the Portuguese
Bombaim, literally ‘good bay’ - documents
the history of Christianity in a city today more
famous for traffic jams and Bollywood.
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
Portrait of de D. Francisco de Almeida, Viceroy of the
State of India, Unknown master, 16th century, Governor’s
Palace, Goa, India, oil on wood, 193.0 x 107.0 x 6.5 cm
(including frame); Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
New forms of art inevitably arose as a result
of the movements of people and media
along Portuguese spice trading routes. The
encounters with distant lands and seas enabled
Europe to access tropical animal products on
a scale never previously imagined. Due to its
potential for exceptionally fine carving and
the symbolic overtones of purity conveyed
by its whiteness, elephant ivory was favoured
for the creation of Christian images. The
seemingly inexhaustible availability of
tropical pearls inspired European fashion
trends. The opulent apparel of George Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628) was
probably the same suit from which the Duke
had the pearls removed in 1627 for sale “for
the use of His Majesty’s Navy” when the fleet
was in dire need of finances.
On 20 March 1602, the modern age of the
multinational corporation commenced with
the establishment of the Dutch United East
Indies Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische
Compagnie) in Amsterdam. Over the next
200 years, the Company maintained a
global monopoly in the sale of spices and
the Company’s VOC logo became the first
internationally
recognised
commercial
trademark. The Dutch contact with Asia
lacked many of the prejudices of later 19th
century Western colonialism or the Chinese
imperial tributary system, both of which
assumed a civilised centre surrounded by
inferior races. Europe had not yet embarked
on the industrial revolution and the two most
eagerly sought after manufactured products
of the day, Indian printed textiles and highfired East Asian ceramics, were far superior to
any comparable item being made in Europe.
The prosperity brought to the Netherlands by
the spice trade and the Company’s increasing
engagement with Asia inspired curiosity and
investigation. Art gained a new significance
as artists sought to render visible the marvels
of the largely unknown worlds that were
sources of the country’s prosperity. Improved
printing techniques stimulated a demand for
lavishly illustrated travel books and grand
‘sea atlases’, much in the style of the modern
coffee-table publication, which presented
the latest maritime discoveries to an eager
reading-public.
It was Dutch ‘tulipmania’ that typified the 17th
century’s fascination with exotica. A Flemish
ambassador visiting Turkey in 1554 first
described a new species of flower that he called
tulipam but this was likely a misinterpretation
of the Turkish translator’s description of its
shape being like a turban (türbent). Dealers
published elaborate illustrated catalogues
for tulip shows and collectors paid fantastic
sums to obtain rare plants. A bulb of ‘Admiral
van Enkhuijsen’ could sell for 5,400 guilders,
the equivalent of 15 years’ wages for the
average Amsterdam bricklayer. Despite the
catastrophic ‘tulipmania’ financial crash in
1637, the flowers became an enduring subject
in painting and decorative arts, just as it was
in the Ottoman Empire.
By the end of the century, Europe was in the
grip of an aesthetic fashion called chinoiserie.
As Carol Cains observes in the exhibition’s
catalogue, this was precipitated by the
establishment of European overseas trading
companies making available, for the first time,
Asian textiles, porcelain and lacquer wares
in large quantities to a broad section of the
population. The term chinoiserie reflects the
extent Europeans largely identified China
as the sole source of objects originating from
diverse countries, including India and Japan.
Chinoiserie was the West’s fantasy of the orient
whereby Asia’s diverse aesthetic traditions
were subsumed in a vogue for European artists
creating whimsical and opulent imitations.
In 1619, the Company’s Governor-General, Jan
Pieterszoon Coen, successfully stormed the
minor Muslim port of Sunda Kelapa in West
Java and renamed the strategically located
town Batavia (Jakarta). Coen recognized the
economic imperatives for the Company to
seize control of intra-Asian trade, especially
in Indian textiles and East Asian porcelain, as
Europe had little to exchange for Asian spices.
Batavia became known as the ‘Queen of the
Orient’ due to its cosmopolitan sophistication,
founded on mercantile wealth, which defined
the epoch. The city’s multicultural population
was drawn from all parts of Europe and
Asia, including slaves who made up around
60% of the inhabitants. It was a world where
European and Southeast Asian cultures
converged. Dutch officials adopted the rituals
of power associated with Javanese courts.
The Batavia reception for one South Sulawesi
royal ally included the Dutch governorgeneral sprinkling the ruler with rosewater
according to Muslim custom.
In Southeast Asia, the age of spices was a period
of extraordinary cultural efflorescence despite
the increasing political uncertainty resulting
from Europe’s colonial expansionism. In the
Javanese and Malay world, the cosmopolitan
coastal sultanates nurtured the visual,
performing and literary arts that defined a
milieu known as the pasisir or ‘waterside’.
Today the importance of ports such as Melaka,
Banten, Gresik, Makassar and Bandar Aceh is
easily overlooked. They left no massive stone
Ceremonial cloth (palepai), with two ships, Indonesia, 18th−early 19th century, Kalianda district, Lampung, Indonesia, cotton, natural dyes, supplementary weft weave,
paper threads with traces of metallic gilding, 75.0 x 336.0 cm. South Australian Government Grant 1974, Art Gallery of South Australia
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
5
Betel nut box [kinangan], with implements, Indonesia, c.1800, Makassar, box: turtle shell, silver and gold, three oval lidded containers
and pepper leaf holder: gold, slaked lime container with spatula, lime knife and betel nut cutter: gold and silver betel nut cutter
and lime knife: gold, silver, box: 8.0 x 19.5 x 13.5 cm; Current acquisition, Art Gallery of South Australia
ruins testifying to their former glories as did
the earlier inland-focused polities of Angkor,
Cambodia, and Old Mataram, Central
Java. Most buildings, even Melaka’s grand
palace, were constructed in wood and other
temporary materials that have long since
vanished. Nevertheless, the legendary wealth
of the Southeast Asia peninsula (chersonese)
inspired the contemporary English poet,
John Milton, in Paradise Lost (1674) to list the
‘Golden Chersonese’ as notable among the
“earth’s kingdoms and their glory”.
The pasisir rulers financed the prestige
of their courts through negotiating the
exchange of inland commodities, including
spices and other forest products, for foreign
manufactured goods, notably porcelain
and trade textiles, imported by European
merchants. The islands of Java, Sumatra and
Borneo were still largely covered in dense
impassable jungle so that rivers and shallow
coastal waters were the foremost means of
communication and transport. Classical Malay
texts use the formulaic phrase ‘confluents,
bends and reaches’ (anak sungai dan teluk
rantau) to describe the political dependencies
of kingdoms. The ceremonial gathering of
massive flotillas became occasions of state
theatre when vassal nobles affirmed the
ruler as overlord. Lampung textiles depict
fantastic ships whose imagery simultaneously
references social order on land and actual seagoing vessels, documenting the incorporation
of aspects of European boat design, such as
the mast crow’s-nest.
6
The ‘discovery’ of Australia by Europe was a byproduct of the spice age. The variety of names,
such as Beach (an erroneous transcription
of Marco Polo’s legendary Lochac), Jave la
Grande (Greater Java), India Meridionalis
(Southern India), and Terra Incognita
(Unknown Land) initially applied to Australia
reflects the early European confusion regarding
its location and size. Nevertheless, the mestizo
Portuguese cartographer, Manuel de Godinho
de Erédia (1563-1623) was so confident of the
eventual settlement of the country that he
even designed the national coat of arms. The
escutcheon featured a dove with a branch of
greenery in its beak, a reference to Noah’s ark.
Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), inventor of the
Mercator map projection, conjectured it was
“necessary for such a continent to exist” in
order to balance the continents of the northern
hemisphere. The geographical uncertainties
ensured that the region became an ideal setting
for satires such as Jonathan Swift’s Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the World (1726). The
hero, Lemuel Gulliver, maps the location of
miniature Lilliput somewhere in the Indian
Ocean off the Western Australian coast.
exotic fads such as tobacco, tea and coffee.
It is most appropriate that the exhibition
should originate in Adelaide. This is the only
Australian city founded on the vision of a
Eurasian – the surveyor Colonel William Light
(1786-1839) whose mother was of Malaysian
descent and whose remarkable self-portrait
features in the exhibition.
James Bennett is Curator of Asian Art at the Art
Gallery of South Australia. He and Russell Kelty,
Assistant Curator of Asian Art, are co-curators of the
exhibition Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices to
be held from 13 June to 30 August 2015 in Adelaide
and 9 October – 28 January 2016 at the Art Gallery
of Western Australia.
REFERENCES
Da Fonseca, José Nicolau, 1878 (2006), An Historical and
Archaeological Sketch of the City of Goa, Thacker & Co., Bombay;
B.R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi
Gunn, Geoffrey C., 2003. First Globalization: The Eurasian
Exchange 1500-1800, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham,
Maryland.
Levenson, Jay A., (ed), 2007. Encompassing the Globe: Portugal
and the World in the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Centuries, Arthur
M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Manguin, Pierre-Yves, 2002. ‘The amorphous nature of coastal
The exhibition Treasure ships features objects,
including a convict shirt, hand-stitched
from Indian fabric, and a magnificent early
19th century Chinese punchbowl depicting
Sydney Cove, that locate Australia within this
global history. They document the continuing
story of east-west exchange long after the
West’s obsession with pepper, cloves and
nutmegs had faded and been replaced by new
polities in Insular Southeast Asia: Restricted centres, extended
peripheries’ in Moussons Vol. 5, 2002.
Pavord, Anne, 2000. The Tulip, Bloomsbury, London.
Spate, O.K., 1957. ‘Manuel Godinho de Eredia: Quest for
Australia’ in Meanjin, June 1957.
Turner, Jack, 2004. Spices: The History of a Temptation, Harper
Collins, London.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
NAGASAKI: WHERE THE LAND ENDS AND THE SEA BEGINS
Russell Kelty
component of the planned exhibition
Treasure ships: Art in the age of spices at the
Art Gallery of South Australia presents art
from Australian and international collections
which displays the impact of Europeans at
ports such as Nagasaki. From the late 16th
century, the annual arrival of Portuguese and
then Dutch VOC ships transformed this small
fishing village into an international entrepôt
and inspired the art and fashion of a unique
period in Japanese cultural history called the
nanban (southern barbarian) era.
A
On 9 June 1580, Omura Sumitada, Lord of
Omura, using his baptismal name of Don
Bartholomeu, officially ceded Nagasaki to the
Society of Jesus, creating an opportunity to
establish the most lucrative Macau–Nagasaki
sea route for the Portuguese. This was based
largely on the trade of Chinese silk and
ceramics for Japanese silver, although the
ship journeys were fraught with the dangers
of tempestuous seas and wakō pirates.
The excitement and anticipation which
accompanied the impromptu arrival of the
exotic Portuguese, along with unimaginable
riches and novelties including military
technology, inspired the creation of screens
such as Arrival of the Black Ship from the late
16th century by the ateliers of feudal lords.
The colour black symbolised the limits of the
known world in Japanese culture and carried
associations with wealth. Pre-existing notions
of the mythic treasure ship (takarabune) and
the Seven Gods of Good Luck (Shichifukujin),
often depicted as images of Chinese junks
displayed at New Year celebrations, were
revered by urban merchants during the 18th
century as talismans of an abundance of trade
resulting in wealth and status.
The bridging of the gap between known and
unknown worlds and the exciting commercial
possibilities offered by contact with distant
nations are encapsulated in two 3.5 metre
handscrolls, Scenes of traders at Nagasaki
(c. 1750). The fantastic image of a Chinese
junk, overladen with prized ceramics and
lacquerware and carrying a complement of
Chinese, Mongolian, Ryukyuan, Korean,
Portuguese and Spanish merchants garbed in
vivid textiles, makes its glorious entrance into
the orderly port emporium of Nagasaki.
According to the Record of the Musket (Teppōki)
written in 1607 by the Zen priest Nanpo Bunshi,
in 1543 a ‘ship of the southern barbarians’
carried a crew of Chinese, Ryukyuan
and Portuguese, who presented a pair of
matchlock guns to the local 15year-old lord,
Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528–1579) of the small
island of Tanegashima which his swordsmith
immediately replicated. The National Gallery
of Victoria’s Matchlock hand cannon, with dragon
and cloud design (Ryuu ni kumo zu ozutsu),
displays the crest of the great feudal lord,
Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), and was created
during the 18th century to commemorate his
role in the unification of Japan. The legendary
power of the weapons was commemorated in a
haiku They kick when fired … (c. 1750) composed
by the Zen Buddhist monk and poet, Hakuin
Ekaku (1689–1769).
The arrival of Christianity in Japan, as
elsewhere in Asia, was inextricably linked
to expanding Portuguese and Spanish trade.
The Jesuits recognised that art would become
integral to their missionary work in Japan as
the language was unknown and interpreters
could be unreliable. The Portable altarpiece of
the Fundacao Oriente, Lisbon, painted in the
late 16th−early 17th century, displays? Joseph
holding the Christ child, and the unknown
Japanese painter, most likely a Jesuit student,
has closely followed stylistic elements from the
Hispanic-Flemish school of painting. The black
lacquer frame is lavishly decorated in gold
lacquer and mother-of-pearl inlay in a style
closely associated with nanban decorative arts.
By the 1630s, Portugal’s power in Asia
had considerably weakened. Considered
increasingly
seditious,
the
Tokugawa
Shogunate banned Catholicism (1614) and
expelled the Portuguese (1639), ending the socalled ‘Christian Century’ of Japan’s history.
In an effort to ensure domestic stability
and create a Japan-centric world order by
monopolising the country’s overseas trade,
the Shogunate issued maritime restrictions
(kaikin) in 1635, prohibiting Japanese from
travelling further than Okinawa and Korea,
travelling on ships sailing to foreign ports and
constructing large ocean-going vessels.
Water jar (mizusashi), with foreigner and ostrich,
Ogata Ihachi (Kyoto Kenzan II), Japan c. 1750, Kyoto ware,
earthenware, white slip, underglaze decoration, lacquer
and wood, 21.5 cm x 12.0 cm diameter. Gift of Andrew
and Hiroko Gwinnett through the Art Gallery of South
Australia Foundation 2012, Art Gallery of South Australia
Matchlock hand cannon, with dragon and cloud design (Ryuu ni kumo zu ozutsu), Japan, 18th century, metal, wood, brass, silver. Felton Bequest, 1927,
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
7
Sarasa mat for sen-cha tea ceremony, India−Japan, 18th c, Coromandel Coast (Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh),
assembled in Japan, cotton, natural dyes, gold, hand-stitched, 63.5 x 76.2 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
and ostrich created by Ogata Ihachi (Kyoto
Kenzan II) c. 1750, is a superlative example
of the Kenzan Delft mode, created in a tall
albarello shape, with a lacquer cover which
demonstrates that it was a fresh-water jar
used for ceremonial tea. The decoration,
mostly in the glassy cobalt pigment favored
by Kenzan potters for their Oranda creations,
depicts a Dutchman wearing Japanese wooden
shoes (geta) and an ostrich surrounded by
trees and flowers.
This ended the ‘red seal ships system’
(shuisen) established by the Shogunate, by
which Japanese explorers and merchants such
as Tenchiku Tokubei (1612-c.1692) travelled
to ports throughout Asia. Trade prospered,
as commercial and diplomatic relationships
were maintained by vassal daimyo through
‘four portals’ (yottsu no kuchi): Nagasaki (the
Netherlands and China), Satsuma (Ryukyu
Kingdom), Tsushima (Joseon Dynasty of
Korea) and Matsumae Clan (Ainu).
From 1641 to 1853, though Dutch traders were
sequestered to the small fan-shaped island
of Dejima, Dutch learning (rangaku), with
its new discoveries in science, medicine and
the realistic depiction of the physical world,
inspired Japanese curiosity about Europe.
Japanese artists adopted the principles of
one-point perspective in paintings and wood
block prints, known as ‘floating pictures’
(uki e), depicting scenes at Buddhist temples
and pilgrimage sites such as Archery contest
(tōshiya) at Sanjūsangendō (c. 1750).
As part of the nanban fashion, wealthy classes
in urban centres like Sakai, Osaka and Kyoto
eagerly acquired imported foreign textiles,
and created garments particular to Japanese
culture such as Surcoat (jinbaori), constructed
in the late 18th century from Chinese brocade,
Dutch wool and European printed cotton
and worn during military processions. From
the late 1630s the Dutch established a market
for Indian cotton in Japan, known as sarasa.
The National Gallery of Australia’s sarasa
mat for sen-cha tea ceremony (18th century),
8
printed at the Coromandel Coast, India, and
assembled in Japan is an example of the way
foreign textiles were integrated into cultural
paradigms such as the tea ceremony.
Porcelain manufacturing techniques were
introduced by Korean potters, who arrived
in the wake of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s
(1537–1598) attempted invasion of mainland
China through Korea (1592–98). They
settled on Kyushu, at Arita, an area which
had suitable porcelain stone deposits and
nearby harbours. As Chinese porcelain kilns
temporarily ceased to produce export ware
due to the dynastic disruptions around
the mid 17th century, the Dutch sought
out alternatives sources. The exquisitely
decorated Pair of Lidded bowls (c. 1700) made
in Arita displays two royal inventory marks
documenting that they were formerly in the
vast porcelain collection of Augustus the
Strong, Electorate of Saxony (1670–1733). The
king, who was afflicted with ‘la maladie de
porcelaine’, was instrumental in the invention
of hard-paste porcelain-making in Europe
and the establishment of the Meissen factory
in 1710.
After the 17th century, the centre for
adaptations of European ceramic styles shifted
from Arita to Kyoto. Licensed merchants
transported European ceramics such as Dutch
Delftware via the Inland Sea to Osaka, the
nation’s distribution hub, as depicted in detail
on a pair of six panel screens, Seto Inland
Sea: Osaka to Nagasaki sea route map (late 17th
century). Water jar (mizusashi), with foreigner
In Nagasaki the enduring impact of the
international spice trade can be glimpsed
at the annual Okunchi Festival, held each
year since 1634. The culmination of the event
includes floats replicating Portuguese, Dutch
and Chinese ships, which are paraded to the
entrance of Suwa Jinja and presented to the
enshrined deities (kami) (Nagasaki Bunkensha,
2011). According to reports, the three secretsacred resident kami include Morisaki-no-kami,
worshipped when Nagasaki was but a small
fishing village, a Christian effigy saved from
destruction during the widespread persecution
in the seventeenth century and the third kami of
the Sumiyoshi, associated with gods of the sea
and sailing (Nelson 1996: 31-33).
Russell Kelty is Assistant Curator, Asian Art at the Art
Gallery of South Australia and co-curator with James
Bennett of the exhibition Treasure Ships: Art in the Age
of Spices to be held from 13 June to 30 August 2015
in Adelaide and 9 October - 28 January 2016 at
the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
REFERENCES
Bennett, James, Amy Reigle Newland (eds), 2009. The golden
journey: Japanese art from Australian collections, Art Gallery of
South Australia, Adelaide.
Curvelo, Alexandra, 2012. ‘The disruptive presence of the
namban-jin, in early modern Japan’, Journal of the economic social
history of the orient, 55(2012)581-602, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.
Graham, Patricia. J, 2007. Faith and power in Japanese Buddhist
art: 1600-2005, University of Hawai’i press, Honolulu.
Lidin, Olof G., 2002. Tanegashima: The arrival of Europe in Japan,
NIAS Press, Denmark.
Nagasaki Bukensha, 2011. Nagasaki Okunchi Festival, Nagasaki.
Nelson, John K., 1996. A year in the life of Shinto Shrine,
University of Washington Press, Seattle.
Wilson, Richard L, 2015. ‘From Medicine Pot to Mizusashi:
Appropriating Europe in Japanese Art’ in Treasure ships: Art in the
age of spices.
Yasunori, Arano, 2005. ‘The formation of a Japanocentric world’,
International journal of Asian studies, 2.2 (2005), pp. 185-216,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
A GOLDEN AGE OF CHINA, QIANLONG EMPEROR – EXHIBITION AT THE NGV
Mae Anna Pang
Qianlong Emperor in ceremonial armour on horseback, Giuseppe Castiglione, Italian working in China, Qing dynasty,
Qianlong period, 1739, coloured inks on silk, 322.5 x 232.0 cm (image and sheet), The Palace Museum, Beijing
he exhibition A Golden Age of China,
Qianlong Emperor (1736-1795) will show
China’s national treasures from the imperial
collection housed in the Palace Museum in the
Forbidden City, Beijing. It is a rare opportunity
for such a unique and magnificent exhibition
of more than 120 works to be shown at the
National Gallery of Victoria (NGV).
T
The exhibition tells the fascinating story of the
Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-1795), who was
one of China’s greatest and most fortunate
emperors. Qianlong became emperor at the age
of 25, ruled for 60 years and lived to the age of
89. During his reign, China was the wealthiest
and most populous nation in the world.
The Qianlong Emperor was Prince Hongli
(1711-1799) of the Manchu clan of Aisin Gioro
and the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor
(r. 1723-1735). He was a favourite of his father
and grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor (r. 16621722), who recognized Hongli’s abilities in both
martial and scholarly accomplishments at a
young age. Hongli was selected as Emperor on
the basis of merit. Qianlong 乾隆 is the name
of his reign: Qian 乾 means heaven and long 隆
means eminence, or `Lasting Eminence’.
In 1644 Manchu horsemen crossed the Great
Wall of China and ruled China under the name
of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Tradition has
it they were invited to suppress a peasant
uprising by a Chinese general who opened
the gate to the strategic `mountain-sea pass’
in the Great Wall. Once entered, the Manchus
proclaimed themselves as emperors of China
and ruled China for the next 267 years.
The Manchus were originally known as
the Jurchens, who were descendants of
semi-nomadic tribes living in the forest
in present-day northeast China. Nurhaci
(1559-1626) united the Jurchen tribes and
founded the ‘Later Jin’ dynasty. His son and
successor Huang Taiji (1592-1643) renamed
his people Manchu in 1635, changed the
name of Later Jin to Great Qing (meaning
pure, clear) dynasty and adopted the title of
‘emperor’. In view of this, Qianlong is the
sixth Manchu emperor and the fourth Qing
dynasty emperor of China. After reigning for
60 years, he abdicated in favour of his 15th
son who became the Jiaqing emperor (r.17961820) because he did not want to outshine his
grandfather the Kangxi Emperor who had
ruled for 61 years.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
The Manchus realised that in order to
retain power they would have to maintain
their martial superiority in archery and
horsemanship and preserve their Manchu
language and dress. As supreme commanders,
the early Qing emperors personally led
military expeditions and fought in battles.
In times of peace, they organised hunting
activities as a form of military exercise and
held grand ceremonies to review their troops.
The magnificent painting Qianlong Emperor
in ceremonial armour on horseback shows the
Qianlong Emperor in full glory dressed in
his ceremonial military garb of bright yellow
satin embroidered with golden thread, riding
his horse in the procession to the grand review
of troops. Painted in ink and colour on silk
and dated 1739 when Qianlong was 29 years
old, this painting is by Giuseppe Castiglione
(Chinese name Lang Shining, 1688-1766), an
Italian Jesuit who worked in the imperial court.
Castiglione’s style represents the first
serious attempt to combine the artistic
traditions of China with those of the West.
This monumental portrait of the Emperor in
majestic pose riding a graceful horse is in the
9
Snuff bottle with chrysanthemum and quail
Lidded jar with Qianlong reign mark, Chinese,
design, Qianlong reign mark, Qing dynasty,
Qing dynasty, Qianlong period 1736–95, copper, enamel,
Qianlong period 1736–95, porcelain, gold, 6.0 x 3.5 x 2.5 cm,
35.0 x 24.0 cm (D), The Palace Museum, Beijing
The Palace Museum, Beijing
great lineage and providing a cosmic basis
to their imperial power and role as ‘Son of
Heaven’.
pins and ornaments made of precious gold,
pearls, jade, coral and kingfisher feathers,
imbued with Chinese auspicious symbols of
good fortune. Qianlong had 41 consorts, 17
sons and 10 daughters.
European tradition of equestrian portraits
of monarchs and nobles. The realism and
sumptuous colours resemble a European
oil painting, although it is executed in the
Chinese medium of ink and colour on silk.
Almost life-size, this painting of the Qianlong
Emperor was hung in the Travelling Palace in
present day Beihai Park in Beijing. Qianlong
was a successful military leader and during
his reign the Chinese empire grew to a size
unprecedented in Chinese history.
The exhibition displays the Emperor’s saddle
and yellow saddlecloth, swords, bows and
arrows, hunting horn, and the Emperor’s
quiver and arrow container, as well as
hunting scenes and an extraordinary chair
partly constructed of antlers’ horns.
Although the imperial throne was won by
military force, the Manchus realised they
could not rule China on horseback: as a
minority ethnic group they needed to adopt
Chinese ways to rule 150 million Han Chinese.
The Manchu emperor proclaimed himself the
‘Son of Heaven’ (Tianzi 天子), Ruler of the
Universe, the title adopted by emperors in
imperial China, who were also often referred
to as the ‘True Dragon’ (Zhen Long 真龍). In his
inaugural portrait dated 1736 when Qianlong
was 25 years old, which can be seen in the
exhibition, the Emperor is portrayed as the
‘Son of Heaven’, a mediator between heaven
and earth.
Seated on a golden dragon throne, he is dressed
in full ceremonial robe with accessories - hat,
belt, necklace, boots and collar. The ceremonial
robe is decorated with dragons, symbol of the
Emperor and is of bright yellow, the colour
reserved for the Emperor. The Emperor wore
the ceremonial court robe when presiding
over grand ceremonies and making sacrifices
to imperial ancestors and to the earth.
Attributed to Castiglione, this painting
shows the European influence of portraiture,
realism and illusionism such as in the linear
perspective of the carpet. However, the
subject, symbolism and the tools of ink and
colour on silk are traditionally Chinese.
The portrait is accompanied in the exhibition
by the Emperor’s ceremonial robe, crown and
necklace as shown in the portrait, together
with the Emperor’s semi-formal robe,
imperial seals, and ritual vessels. Also on
show is the portrait of Empress Xiao Yichun
(1727-1775), the Empress and court ladies’
formal and semi-formal robes, bracelets, hair
Influenced
by
European
paintings,
documentary paintings that depict life at the
imperial court such as the celebration of the
Emperor’s mother’s birthday, the Emperor
enjoying the pleasures of life with his court
ladies in a country retreat, the Emperor
receiving Mongolian leaders or foreign tribute
bearers also reflect imperial life in the exhibition.
Qianlong played an important role in his court
academy of art and his palace workshops in
the Forbidden City, Suzhou, Yangzhou and
Guangzhou (Canton). Every work had to
This robe combined the cut of the Manchu
costume with traditional Chinese symbols
of imperial power and good fortune. It is
distinguished by a full pleated skirt, providing
comfort; trousers were worn inside the skirt.
The sleeves are tight-fitting, and taper into
flared cuffs resembling the hoofs of a horse,
a reminder of the Manchus’ equestrian
background.
The dragons and the twelve traditional
symbols of Chinese imperial sovereignty on
the robe reflect the intricate and hierarchical
political structure the Manchus had inherited
from the previous Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
In adopting Chinese imperial symbols, the
Qing emperors were linked to the illustrious
rulers of past dynasties, becoming part of this
Qianlong Emperor appraising: One or two, Qianlong Emperor & court artists, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period, 1780,
with two seals of the Qianlong Emperor & inscribed with poem by Qianlong Emperor, coloured inks on silk, 92.2 x 121.5 cm
(image), The Palace Museum, Beijing
10
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Sacrificial xu vessel with Qianlong reign mark, Qing dynasty, Qianlong period 1736–95,
porcelain (moon white glaze), 24.3 x 18.5 x 23.3 cm, The Palace Museum, Beijing
gain his approval before its production. The
exhibits show Qianlong’s fondness for jade
and his exotic taste for European decorative
arts such as colourful enamel paintings,
snuff bottles, European clocks and European
decorative arts in the style of Chinoiserie that
was based on the European imagination
of China. A vase copying the Chinoiserie
style, made in the workshop in Guangzhou,
is shown in the exhibition. A cup and ewer
made of gold used at the Emperor’s birthdays
and banquets demonstrate the opulence and
wealth of the imperial court at the time.
The Qianlong Emperor is portrayed as a
Chinese scholar enjoying nature in several
landscape paintings in the exhibition. Qianlong
was said to have been a child prodigy and at
the young age of six he began studying the
Chinese classics with Chinese tutors of the
Hanlin Academy. He was a passionate poet
and essayist. No less than 13,000 prose and
40,000 poems have been attributed to him.
The Emperor also learned to write Chinese
calligraphy and ink painting in the scholaramateur style when he was 18 and 19 years
old. Examples of his painting of the West Lake
and semi-cursive style of calligraphy, classical
Chinese paintings together with the Emperor’s
copies, treasures of the scholar’s study - brush,
ink stick, ink stone, brush holders, brush rest are in the exhibition.
But most of all, Qianlong was the foremost
collector of Chinese art. In the painting One
or Two dated 1780, Qianlong is portrayed as
a Chinese scholar and art collector. Dressed
in the garments of a Chinese scholar, he
sits comfortably on a couch holding brush
and paper ready for writing. Behind him
hangs a portrait of himself on a screen. He is
surrounded by objects from his art collection
and by a young attendant.
This painting is a copy of a small album leaf
of a Chinese scholar in the same garment and
position by an anonymous artist dated to the
Song dynasty (960-1279), which had been in
the Emperor’s collection since his youth and
is now in the Palace Museum in Taipei. One
of four versions, this one is unique in that the
ink painting of plum blossoms on the screen is
painted and signed by the Emperor in 1780 when
he was 70 years old, while the rest of the painting
is by court artists. The portraiture and the linear
perspective of the furniture show European
influence. The substitution of his self-portrait in
place of the Song scholar reflects an unexpected
playfulness on Qianlong’s part, which also
appears in other paintings in the exhibition.
The Qianlong Emperor was a generous patron
of the arts who also sponsored scholarship.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
The Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty
inherited the ancient palace collection of the
Ming, the oldest art collection in the world.
But the real renewal and expansion of the
imperial collection came under the personal
direction of the Qianlong emperor. He was
the last of the great imperial art collectors and
patrons in Chinese history.
The Emperor played the multiple roles of
collector, connoisseur, art historian, curator,
registrar and conservator. He reassembled
many of the treasures that had been dispersed
to private collections. He also expanded the
collection many times over with works of
his numerous palace workshops and court
painters, as well as paintings and calligraphy
by himself.
documentation. Art works
conserved and restored.
were
also
The Qianlong Emperor combined his passion
for collecting with his role as preserver and
restorer of the Chinese cultural heritage.
His models were past emperors as well as
the highly educated Chinese scholars whom
he aimed to emulate. He had the vision of
creating a new golden age modelled on the
ideals of the past, convinced that under his
reign Chinese civilisation had reached an
unprecedented height of development.
Dr Mae Anna Pang is Senior Curator of Asian Art
at the National Gallery of Victoria. She is curator
of the exhibition A Golden Age of China, Qianlong
Emperor (1736-1795) which will be held at the NGV,
Melbourne, 27 March - 21 June 2015.
He assessed the ancient paintings and works
of calligraphy in person and gave them his
seal of approval. He also regularly added
poetic inscriptions to the paintings of the
imperial collection, following the example of
the emperors of the Song dynasty, Emperor
Huizong (r. 1101-25), and the literati painters
of the Ming dynasty. The poems expressed
his appreciation and authentication. Ceramic
pieces, ink sticks and brush pots were also
engraved with his poems.
REFERENCES
Barme, Gerame R. 2008. The Forbidden City, Profile Books,
Great Britain.
Ho, Chuimei and Bronson, Bennet, 2004. Splendors of China’s
Forbidden City, The Glorious Reign of Emperor Qianlong, The Field
Museum, Chicago.
National Palace Museum, 2013. The All Complete Qianlong,
The Aesthetic Taste of the Qing Emperor Gaozong, National Palace
Museum, Taipei.
Pang, Mae Anna, 1988. Dragon Emperor, Treasures from the
Forbidden City, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Rawsk, Evelyn S and Rawson, Jessica (ed.), 2006. China, The Three
Qianlong undertook projects which included
the comprehensive cataloguing of the
imperial collections (paintings, calligraphy,
ceramics, bronze, jade etc.), which resulted
in their scholarly assessment and systematic
Emperors, 1662-1795, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Zhang, Hongxing, 2002. The Qianlong Emperor, Treasures from
the Forbidden City, NMS Publishing Limited, National Museums of
Scotland, Edinburgh.
11
C U R AT O R L A N D – R E F L E C T I O N S O N B U I L D I N G T H E N G A’ S A S I A - PA C I F I C
PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION
Gael Newton
Following her retirement in September 2014 as Senior Curator
of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia, TAASA
invited Gael Newton to review her last decade with the NGA,
where she was responsible for the establishment of a survey
collection of Asia-Pacific photography spanning from South Asia
to the west coast of the Americas. For this collection Newton
located and negotiated the acquisition of several major private
collections of Asia-Pacific photography including one of some
5000 colonial-era Indonesian photographs.
Gael Newton, Canberra.
Photo courtesy Paul Costigan
Ron Radford AM arrived in Canberra
W hen
as Director of the NGA in late 2005, I could
not have imagined that the next decade of my
life would be focussed chiefly on the history
of photographic art across the Asia-Pacific
region. At our first meeting I tentatively
proposed that the National Gallery develop
a major collection-based show of Asia-Pacific
photography. This was met with Radford’s
famed decibels of enthusiasm, reflecting his
own embrace of Asian art as Director of the
Art Gallery of South Australia.
At the outset of both our careers in the 1970s,
Asian art had had little place in the few art
history courses in Australia. But to put this in
context, even Australian art history was not
obligatory. My first study of my homeland’s
art came through a stint working in 1974 as a
research assistant to Professor Bernard Smith
on one of his books. Smith’s famed 1960 study
European Vision in the South Pacific, ended with
a note on photography more or less bringing
the golden age of illustration to an end. How
wrong he was on that issue and how differently
we now see the nuanced inter-relationship
between Western art influences in the AsiaPacific and indigenous artists traditions and
responses in the 19th-20th centuries.
made in Asia and only three Asian-born
photographers: on my departure there were
some 8000 works with many by named and
celebrated but also unknown studio, amateur
and family photographers.
Ignorance was bliss. I had no Asian languages,
Asian or Pacific studies background, although
I had experienced life in bi-cultural New
Zealand and travelled to Hong Kong, Japan,
China, and the Philippines. I had only a
basic knowledge of Asian geography and
cultures. That the National Gallery had great
- and collaborative - Asian art curators was
a comfort. My adventure began on Boxing
Day 2006 when my partner Paul Costigan
pinned a map of the Asia-Pacific region over
my desk. I hit the keyboard armed with a
bibliography prepared by Gillian Currie in
the National Gallery Research Library, of
what photographically-illustrated books and
photo-histories on the region she could find,
The Gallery’s Librarians were essential,
no article or title seemed too obscure to be
beyond their reach. The Library benefitted
as well from the inclusion of over 100
photographically illustrated books on colonial
Indonesia that came in 2007 as part of the Leo
Haks Indonesian photographs collection.
The Research Library’s holdings in this
field, amplified by numerous purchases over
the years, are now a significant resource for
scholars. The Librarians were possibly glad
to see me finally depart nine years later in
September 2014!
What made such an Australia-based AsiaPacific project possible was the internet and
internet based translation programs. I began
scouring online pictorial resources including
museum and library catalogue databases, as
well as ebay, dealer, rare book and auction
house websites. Much of the heritage of
Asian photography is held in Europe in the
archives of former colonial powers but also
in USA collections resulting from American
engagement in the Asia-Pacific from the 1850s
and 60s. Fortunately digitisation of pictorial
archives has been extensive in Euro-American
institutions for two decades but as yet similar
electronic resources in English in Asian
archives are rare. The Singapore National
Library Portal is useful.
A catalyst in these developments for me had
been in 1998 when our Australian National
University graduate intern Malaysian art
historian Raimy Ché-Ross asked: “How many
images of Asia and Asian-born photographers
do you have?”. Raimy’s report on the slim list
of Asian photographs by subject or maker in
the National Gallery collection led me to try
to expand the holdings on a regular basis. An
early acquisition in 1999 was a group of Asian
images to add to the holdings of famed French
photojournalist, Henri Cartier-Bresson. In
1998 the Gallery held around 200 works
Gusti Ngurah Ketut Jelantik, Prince of Buleleng with entourage in Jakarta on the visit of Governor-General
LAJW Sloet van de Beele, Woodbury & Page, 1864, albumen silver photograph, Collection National Gallery of Australia
12
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
I Goesti Agoeng Bagoes Djelantik, Anakagoeng
Agoeng Negara, Karangasem, Bali, 1931, unknown
photographer, gelatin silver photograph, 14.0 x 9.7 cm,
Portrait of a boy and girl, Bikaner, Surajmal Studio, c.1900, gift of American friends of
Collection National Gallery of Australia
the National Gallery of Australia, inc, New York, NY, USA, made possible with support of Mr David Knaus, 2014
Human resources were of course essential; my
long time photo-department volunteers Robert
Deane and Bernard Lilientahl, as well as our
2013 Australian National University intern
Lisa Catt, contributed research papers. French
intern Annabelle Lacour from the Ecole du
Louvre, Paris, worked on the Haks collection
in 2012. Her richly detailed, insightful 2014 MA
thesis on the colonial era photographers of Bali
is held in the Gallery Research Library. Curator
of Photography Anne O’Hehir followed
mostly a 20th-21st century line in the program,
visiting India on two occasions and curating
several photo gallery displays of the collection
of South and Southeast Asian historical and
contemporary photographers.
My map-pinning partner was ever on hand
with technical and practical assistance and
research help. His own ebay photo collecting
interests expanded to Asian vernacular
material. National Gallery curators are not
able to bid on ebay but a few sellers were
prevailed on to accept the glacial pace of
museum acquisition. A very rare 1859 suite
of photographs from the Franco-Spanish
expedition to Tourane, Vietnam, for example
was located via an ebay dealer, while rare
large exhibition prints of Balinese by Swiss
photojournalist Gotthard Schuh taken in 1938
were spotted late one night on an obscure
Swiss collector /dealer’s website.
Director Ron Radford had determined from the
outset that acquiring private collections would
enable the Gallery to make progress in the
Asia-Pacific collection. He sent me to London
to view the mostly South Asian photographic
collection of Howard and Jane Ricketts and to
Amsterdam to view the Leo Haks collection
of colonial Indonesian photographs. Both
collections were acquired in 2006-07.
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
The Leo Haks collection provided the bulk
of the works shown in the 2014 exhibition,
Garden of the East: photography in Indonesia
1850-s-1940s. Indeed the astuteness, vision
and dedication of Haks and other serious
collectors I have met with in Europe and
Asia has been a great learning experience.
Museums often fawn over donor-collectors
whilst seeing dealer-collectors as simple
‘sellers’ rather than significant researchers
in their own right. Museums benefit greatly
from the often decades long collecting by
dealers of then unfashionable material which
curators would not have had the institutional
interest or support to acquire in small bits
over the same period.
Surveying the most renowned professional
studios in Asia formed the first goal of the
Asia-Pacific project and key figures are now
represented with large group of works. These
include the prolific British photographer
Samuel Bourne in India and the Europeans
Raimund Stillfried and Felice Beato who
played a major role in introducing studio
photography into the treaty ports of Japan
in the 1860s -80s. The most comprehensive
coverage in the National Gallery’s Asia-Pacific
collection is of the work of photographers
in colonial Indonesia. The latter include
works from the 1850s-1880s by the Java
based studio founded by Walter Woodbury
from Manchester, who found his calling in
professional photography after a stint on the
goldfields of Australia in the mid1850s.
One much celebrated figure is Scottish
photographer
John
Thomson
whose
fascination with Asia began when he was
based in Singapore in the early 1860s. He soon
abandoned studio work for documentation
of life in the streets. He went on to effectively
invent the modern travel photo book in the
1870s. Others like German Herman Salzwedel
who produced work of great artistic
sensitivity in Java in the late 19th century or
Charles Scowen who did lyrical views and
plant studies in Sri Lanka, remain underrated.
Such artists are not the primary innovators
we celebrate in world histories but cultural
13
T
A dancing-girl of Bali, resting, Thilly Weissenborn,
c.1925, photogravure 21.1 x 15.9 cm, Collection
Young Javanese woman, Kassian Céphas c.1885, albumen silver photograph,
National Gallery of Australia
13.7 x 9.8 cm, Collection National Gallery of Australia
relevance is not about firsts but about the
exchange and domestication of new ideas.
Together with the sheer aesthetic delights of the
Asia-Pacific project, what has been especially
satisfying has been to build the holdings of
key Asian-born photographers. The National
Gallery now holds a good representation of
works by premier 19th and early 20th century
photographers in Asia including Kassian
Céphas in Indonesia, Lala Deen Dayal and
Shapoor N. Bhedwar in India, Francis Chit
of Thailand, Afong in Hong Kong, Kusakabe
Kimbei and Kasumasa Ogawa in Japan and
Eduardo Masferré in the Philippines. Names
are not everything; one of my favourite groups
of works is the hand coloured early 20th century
photographs by various Indian studios. This
vernacular genre has a remarkable rich history
in India to the present day.
From the 1890s to the present, most studio
photographers in Indonesia have been of
Chinese ethnicity. Few of these from the colonial
era are well known internationally. Care was
taken at the time however to identify those
who had any personal profile or style such as
the entrepreneurial Tan Tjie Lan in Jakarta. A
number of photographers in Southeast Asia were
Japanese but little study has been undertaken
of the diaspora of Asian photographers across
the region. A few Japanese photographers were
present in most major ports.
Women photographers are rare indeed in
mid 19th to mid 20th century Asia and the
Pacific but Indonesian-born Dutch woman
Thilly Weissenborn in Java in the 1920s-30s
and German Hedda Hammer (later Morrison)
in China and Sarawak are professionals
represented by key bodies of work in the
National Gallery collection. Both worked in a
Pictorialist-documentary style.
14
A last acquisition of a group of lesser known
Japanese Pictorialist art photographers from
the 1920s-40s was also close to my heart. My
career began with Australian Pictorialism
and I retain a soft spot for the Romantic art
photographers of the early to late 20th century.
The movement had a long but now forgotten
life in Asia into the 1960s. The purchase
enhanced the representation of the salon style
art photographers across Asia which formed
a subset goal of our ten year strategy. Asian
Pictorialist photographers who followed
trends in Europe and America are a project I
hope to develop in future.
Compared to Euro-America, there are only a
few innovators or artists with international
impact from the Asia-Pacific indigenous
photographers. Stepping back from this
survey of Asia-Pacific photography, however,
it became clear that the history of the first
century of photography across Asia is rich
and diverse. It was a shock too to realise
that the bulk of the hundreds of thousands
of daguerreotypes and cased ambrotype
wet-plate process portraits and views has
vanished: we know these were produced
in Asia, many for Royal households, from
contemporary newspaper advertisements.
Some points of difference were revealed during
the project research in the way photographic
processes imported into Asia were taken up.
Techniques like the cased ambrotype (a wetplate negative turned to a unique positive
image) had a vigorous late life in Japan
from the 1870s-1890s though superseded
internationally by photographs on paper by
the 1870s. Hundreds of examples of middle
to lower class Japanese portraits in neat kirri
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Man climbing the front entrance to Borobudur,
Kassian Céphas, 1872, albumen silver photograph,
22.2 x 16.1 cm, Collection National Gallery of Australia
wood cases survive and are usually carefully
inscribed with the sitter’s name and the date.
It was also interesting to realise that Japan and
then India had strong long running genres of
hand coloured photographs, a minor genre in
most other countries. The subtle transparent
colour dyes of the many hand-coloured
photographs exported from Japan in the mid
to late 19th century Japan are arguably the
finest expression of this practise worldwide.
Yet equally the exuberant water colours and
gouache of Indian hand-coloured portraits
and devotional prints in India have no
parallel elsewhere. Chinese portrait studios in
Hong Kong and Singapore had a specialty of
producing rich decorative coloured portraits
like traditional scroll paintings, painted from
or over enlarged photographs.
The three genres are dramatically different
and have no relationship. Japanese product
seems to have been made in millions but
chiefly for overseas customers and travellers
rather than the domestic market, the Indian
output was almost entirely for the Indian
royalty and a middle class domestic market,
while Chinese portraits could even be ordered
from afar by sending a photograph.
Aspects of the National Gallery’s new collection
including representation of recent contemporary
photomedia from Asia, were the subject of
exhibits in the permanent photography gallery
from 2009 to 2014. A seminar in 2010 coconvened with Dr Luke Gartlan called Facing
Asia: early studio portraiture in Asia was held
in collaboration with the Australian National
University and a later one on the Garden of the
East exhibition was held in 2014. A selection
of East Asia papers from Facing Asia is due for
publication in 2015.
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
Writing in the Rain, FX Harsono, still from colour video, 2011, Collection National Gallery of Australia
European and Asian curators and scholars of
photography in the Asia-Pacific will I hope,
find that the National Gallery has surprising
and extensive works to offer. The Leo Haks
colonial Indonesian collection needs scholars
to work on the rich holdings. A late acquisition
of mine in 2014 was of four albums compiled
by German photographer Tassilo Adams
surveying his own work in Java in the 1920s.
This resource is a dissertation in the waiting,
perhaps one I will pursue on a future visit to
New York to visit Adams’s descendants.
Two Australian scholars Susie Protschky and
artist Lushun Tan have already done studies
of the over 100 Dutch East Indies family
albums held as part of the Haks collection.
Originally I had thought that the family
albums might quietly be moved on to a social
studies archive, being seemingly of low
aesthetic value. The interest of the scholars
awakened the realisation of the quality and
charm of this vernacular material. Family
albums had a prime position in the Garden of
the East exhibition.
Whatever the future direction of the collection
at the National Gallery, in response to the
question: “How many photographs of Asia
do you have in the National Gallery of
Australia?” we can now say: “Lots. Where do
you want to start?”.
The demands of projects for the 50th
anniversary of the Republic of Singapore
will consume much of my time in 2015. I
will work towards a history of photography
in insular Southeast Asia, particularly its
Pictorial-ethnographic photographers like
KF Wong, but also engage with the vibrant
contemporary photomedia scene. The region
has a character of its own which gets lost
among the grander better known narratives
of photography in India, China and Japan.
Other stories on photographers, images
and thoughts gathered along the way while
researching the past 40 years will hopefully
get written up on my website: www.photoweb.com.au/gn
In September 2014 Gael Newton, Senior Curator of
Photography at the National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra, retired after 29 years’ service in various
positions. Over her 40 year career Newton has
curated many exhibitions - both historical and
contemporary survey shows and monographs on
Australian and international photographers.
Prior to joining the National Gallery, Newton
was foundation Curator of Photography at the Art
Gallery of New South Wales, where she worked
from 1974-1985. From late 1985 to 1988 Gael
was Visiting Curator, Bicentennial Photography
Project, at the National Gallery of Australia
commissioned to mount the exhibition Shades of
Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988
and write and edit the accompanying reference
work. From 1989 Newton spent some years as a
lecturer in the National Gallery’s Public Programs
Department and joined the curatorial program in
1992 as Curator of Australian and then Australian
and International Photography.
Newton is currently working as a freelance
consultant and researcher including on
commissions for the Asian Civilisations Museum
and new National Gallery Singapore in the lead up
to the 50th anniversary of the Republic in late 2015.
15
GOLD THREAD EMBROIDERIES OF THE PERANAKAN CHINESE
Hwei-Fen Cheah
Woman’s slippers, late 19th century. Malaysia or Singapore. Collection of the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
n a small purse, a giant lotus rises behind
a capering qilin. On the other side, a
plump deer twists its head to look behind
while Lilliputian birds nest in floral scrolls
along its crimson velvet borders. Drawn
from conventional Chinese imagery, the qilin
represents honour and the boon of many
sons, the deer longevity, and the lotus is
both a Buddhist symbol for purity and a
homophone for continuity and relationships
(Welch 2008). The finely worked but naively
rendered imagery of the purse, the minute
border motifs, the carefully couched fretworkpatterned background, and the raised metallic
thread embroidery all point to its cultural
source in the Peranakan (locally-born)
Chinese communities in Indonesia, Malaysia,
and Singapore.
O
Gold thread embroidery was historically
associated with status in island Southeast
Asia. At Javanese and Malay courts,
ceremonial covers and pillow ends were
embroidered with gold. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, the Dutch in the Netherlands Indies
instituted regulations that restricted gold and
silver dress trimmings and embroidery to
high-ranking officers. Gold embroidery was
considered a luxury item in their China, so
the high status associated with such items
in Southeast Asia would have reinforced
the migrant Chinese regard for this type of
ornamentation.
Peranakan Chinese gold thread embroidery
is known as sulam benang mas (especially
in Malacca) or gim siew (in Penang Hokkien
dialect). It is also sometimes referred to as
tekat, a term commonly used in Malaysia and
Indonesia for metallic thread embroidery.
Inspired by the needlework traditions of their
Chinese forefathers and their multi-cultural
environment, embroiderers made use of a
range of techniques that have given rise to
the variety and richness that characterize
Peranakan Chinese gold thread needlework.
Styles and Techniques
In Peranakan Chinese laid work, gilt thread
is stretch flat on a fabric ground and couched
with silk threads of a contrasting colour.
The couching threads remain visible on the
surface, often forming crackled, swastikafret or diaper patterns. In Java, metallic
thread couching with repeat patterns was
known as sulam songket, a direct reference to
its imitation of local gold and silver brocade
16
(songket) (Jasper and Pirngadie 1912), but
the Peranakan Chinese work seems to have
drawn on Chinese brocades instead of local
songket for inspiration as the patterns tend to
be couched on the backgrounds rather than
the motifs themselves.
An unusual type of ‘picture’ couching appears
on embroideries from Penang, Malacca
and Palembang, in which polychrome silk
threads are couched into Chinese designs of
auspicious flowers and animals. It probably
developed as a way of interpreting patterns
on ready-made embroidery templates where
the cotton base fabric was supplied with
motifs already drawn onto the surface. A
skilled needleworker would have been able
to execute it in a technique of her (or perhaps
his) choice.
By far the most recognisable type of Peranakan
Chinese metallic thread embroidery is raised
embroidery which is similar to Malay and
Indonesian tekat timbul; the low relief and
busy compositions are reminiscent of chased
metalwork. In Peranakan Chinese work,
exceptionally tiny stencil-like motifs are
created by couching metallic thread over some
sort of padding attached to the ground fabric.
The shapes can be couched in a kind of ‘basketweave’ or ‘brick’ pattern. In Penang, the
basket-weave pattern could also be achieved
by couching over thick darning needles which
were removed after stitching (Grace Saw,
personal communication, July 2008).
Peranakan Chinese embroideries from
peninsula Malaysia are usually raised with
cardboard whereas those from Java and
Sumatra have either cardboard or cord
padding. I unpicked a small border motif
from an Indonesian envelope purse, probably
made around the turn of the 20th century,
and found that its construction corresponds
closely with Jasper and Pirngadie’s (1912)
description of yarn padding in Indonesian
tekat timbul. In this piece, the embroiderer
first couched a strand of eight-ply cotton
cord before sewing additional cord in the
transverse direction over the first layer to
create the padded design; narrow gilt ribbon
was then laid across the padding and couched
with white cotton thread. Bullion threads and
sequins were stitched after.
Whereas metallic wrapped threads were
imported from a number of different sources,
gold ribbon or plate, purl and bullion (a
spring-like metallic wire), and sequins were
European. The Malay terms for these threads
can each be associated with a European
counterpart - kelengkam or kelingkam with
the French clinquant (flat gold ribbon); gim
with bullion gimp (French wire), and labuci
with the Dutch lovertjes or spangles. Because
metallic purl and ribbon are relatively heavy,
it is rare to find large items fully embroidered
with these materials. Separately embroidered
bands with gold thread were attached to
women’s jackets and skirts in the same way
sleeve bands and trimmings were made
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Woman’s wedding jacket c. 1900. Java, Indonesia. Collection of the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
for Chinese garments; detachable gold
embroidered collars, cuffs and badges in the
form of a Mandarin squares were used for
men’s wedding jackets.
The Peranakan Chinese certainly liked
variety. Many types of thread – metallicwrapped threads of different thicknesses and
tones, gold ribbon, bullion, purl, and spangles
– were often employed on a single work. The
relatively simple embroidered border of the
wedding jacket illustrated here comprises
at least three types of smooth and check
gold purl, and sequins of two different sizes
in addition to the gold ribbon. This is not
unlike the padded gold thread embroidery on
European military uniforms that may have set
a precedent, directly or indirectly, for the type
of tekat timbul seen on Indonesian Peranakan
Chinese garments.
Centres of Embroidery
Research has focused primarily on the Straits
Settlements (Penang, Malacca, and Singapore)
and, to a lesser extent, Palembang where many
Peranakan Chinese embroideries have been
collected. Missionary sources and oral history
accounts also reaffirm that local girls in the
Straits Settlements embroidered and beaded in
Chinese or Peranakan Chinese styles, both for
personal use and as a means of supplementing
their income. In contrast, although Batavia
was home to migrant and localised Chinese
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
populations for far longer than Singapore or
Penang, very little attention has been given it
as a centre for Peranakan Chinese needlework.
However, evidence shows that Batavia and
other towns around Java were active centres
for Peranakan Chinese metallic thread
embroidery, perhaps even playing a part in
regional Peranakan Chinese embroidery trends
in the early 20th century.
According to Jasper and Pirngadie (1912),
Indonesian embroidery in general was most
developed at Meester Cornelis (present day
Jatinegara), about eight kilometres south of
Batavia. As in the Straits Settlements, it was
carried out on a piecework basis by women
and girls in their homes to the specification
of middlemen who were mostly Chinese.
At Tangerang, about 30 kilometres west of
Batavia, with a significant Peranakan Chinese
population, embroidery techniques included
sulam tekat (relief embroidery) and sulam songket.
A good example of the type of embroidery
that was current is a Peranakan Chinese
embroidered purse illustrated in Wibisono
(2012: 273); it is accompanied by a
handwritten Chinese leaflet from a shop in
Batavia and dated to 1896. However, the
best part of embroidery was probably for
footwear, especially slippers for the wedding
gift exchange. Jasper and Pirngadie (1912)
emphasised that selop songket, slippers with
gold embroidery that imitated songket, from
Meester Cornelis were particularly well
regarded throughout Java, with patterns
dubbed banji (swastika), ombak-ombak (waves),
muti (beads), lobang loei (perhaps Chinese
cash), and serikaya (a coconut dessert sliced
into diamond-shaped pieces). Although they
did not refer to the Peranakan Chinese, I
propose that their descriptions were relevant
to this culture.
Old slippers matched with photographs
corroborate this. A mid-19th century
photograph in the KITLV collection in
Leiden shows the wife of the Chinese kapitan
(headman) of Batavia and a young girl (image
no. 90619). The women, probably of mixed
race, wear calf-length tunics of dark cotton or
silk and batik kain with phoenix and peony
motifs, typical Peranakan Chinese women’s
dress of the time. The older woman’s slippers
jut from under the hem of her batik wrap - the
slipper vamps are couched with a criss-cross
pattern within a ruyi or fungus shape and tiny
raised motifs are embroidered on a narrow
velvet band along the border.
These slippers closely resemble the design
of another pair in Amsterdam’s National
Museum of World Cultures which has a
silver thread ground couched with a pattern
of intersecting circles. A lobed panel of dark
blue velvet is stitched in the centre of each
17
A pair of slipper faces, “Sloffen handel Gezusters Lauw”,
1935-40. Surabaya, Indonesia. Collection of David Kwa,
Pocket case, c. 1900. Indonesia. Courtesy of
Detail from an envelope purse c. 1900. Indonesia.
Bogor, Indonesia
Guan Antiques, Singapore
Courtesy of Jan Smith, Dalmeny, Australia
vamp; atop this, a four-legged snouted
animal, probably an elephant, is couched in
basketweave stitch over thick cord. Its velvet
borders are stitched with tiny floral motifs of
silver thread and outlined with tightly twisted
pearl and braided silver thread.
exhibition in Batavia (Katalogus 1865: 51, 280).
The difficulty of finding Peranakan Chinese
gold thread embroidery in Surabaya today
belies the fine workmanship available there
just 80 years ago. Two sets of gold thread
embroidered slipper faces on rich velvet
fabric attest to this. The Lauw sisters, whose
specialized slipper shop at 14 Donokerto
in Surabaya sold these slipper faces, were
awarded a Diploma at the city’s 1934 annual
fair. They named these designs “Parijs” and
“Berlin B” to evoke the sense of European
sophistication and vogue but the motifs had
more direct associations close to home. The
floral sprays set against criss-cross patterns
and sequins call to mind the bouquet (buketan)
pattern that had been first popularised by
Indo-European batiksters and would have
appealed both to Peranakan Chinese and
other groups.
Java as well as batik sarongs and kebaya. As
we examine Peranakan Chinese gold thread
embroideries more closely, we may well find
that the Javanese north coast helped to shape
the footwear trends for fashion conscious
Peranakan Chinese women a century ago.
The high quality of embroideries in Peranakan
Chinese style certainly attracted the attention
of urban populations. Embroidered slippers
in the Chinese style appear to have been worn
by wealthier women across ethnic groups.
A Dutchman who lived in Ternate in the
mid-19th century wrote of Ternate Christian
women with “little Chinese slippers” and the
“respectable and affluent” mestizo women
wearing “Chinese slippers embroidered with
gold and paillettes” (van Doren 1860: 272).
“Chinese slippers” embroidered with gold
thread and beads were also a popular part
of the home-wear of European women in the
Indies (Koloniaal Museum 1908: 27).
Jasper, J.E. and Mas Pirngadie, 1912. “Chapter XI, Andere
Although the elephant is a conventional
Chinese symbol for prudence, wisdom and
strength (Welch 2008: 128-9), it is unusual in
Peranakan Chinese embroidery. Nevertheless,
two pairs of embroidered slippers of Chinese
form in the Asian Civilisations Museum
collection (2012-213 and 2012-214) carry similar
elephant motifs couched with silver thread
over thick cord in a basketweave pattern and
in the same flattened, frontal view. The leather
soles are each impressed with an oval mark that
reads “BIEKENG BKT BATAVIA,” confirming
the origin of the slippers.
The region around Batavia was not the only
place in Java for Peranakan Chinese metallic
thread embroidery. Gold thread embroidery,
including work in Peranakan Chinese style,
was made in other north coast Javanese
towns such as Semarang and Surabaya. This
is confirmed by the inventory of items sent
to the various exhibitions in the mid-19th
century. For instance, Chinese and nonChinese slippers, slipper faces and a small
briefcase were sent to the 1862 Exhibition
in London. These used real European gold
thread or imitation European silver thread
and were made by natives in Semarang
(Rutering and Trakranen 1862). A pair each of
gold thread embroidered slippers in European
and Chinese styles from Surabaya and a pair
of embroidered slippers from Batavia (also
probably of gold thread, judging from its
price of 25 florins) were sent to the 1865 trade
18
Embroideries were exported too. In the 1920s
and 1930s, D.T. Lim, a shop in Singapore that
catered to the Peranakan Chinese community,
imported slippers and slipper faces from
My thanks to Ng Ah Choon, Guan Antiques
Singapore; Grace Saw, Singapore; Jackie Yoong
and Maria Khoo Joseph, Peranakan Museum
Singapore; Pim Westerkamp, Tropenmuseum
Amsterdam; David Kwa, Indonesia; and Jan
Smith, Dalmeny, Australia.
Hwei-Fen Cheah is a visiting fellow at the Centre
of Art History and Art Theory, Australian National
University.
REFERENCES
van Doren, Jan Baptist, 1860. Herinneringen en schetsen van
Nederlands Oost-Indie, vol. 2. J.D. Sybrandi, Amsterdam.
aanverwante technieken van inlandsche weefkunst.” In De
Inlandsche kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch Indië. Deel II‬: De
weefkunst, Mouton, ‘s-Gravenhage, , pp. 301-317.
Katalogus der tentoonstelling van grondstoffen en nijverheids …
gehouden te Batavia, 1865. Lange & Co. Batavia.
Koloniaal Museum te Haarlem, 1908. Gids voor de bezoekers
van het Koloniaal Museum te Haarlem, met plattegrond en vele
afbeeldingen. J.H. de Bussy,Amsterdam.
Rutering, A. and N. Trakranen, 1862. “List van voorwerpen
door de heeren A. Rutering en N. Trakranen op last van het
Gouvernement van Batavia verzonden, en bested voor de in 1862
te London te houden tentoonstelling.” Tijdschrift voor nijverheid en
landbouw in Nederlandsch-Indië, volume 8.
W Ogilvie, Batavia, pp. 175-184.
Welch, Patricia Bjaaland, 2008. Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and
Visual Imagery. Tuttle, Vermont.
Wibisono, Lily (ed.), 2012. Indonesian Chinese Peranakan: A
Cultural Journey. Intisari, Jakarta .
Photograph from the KITLV collection online http://media-kitlv.nl/
image/4cdf7308-99e5-455a-96e1-a837bf5414da, accessed 12
October 2014.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
HIMACHAL PRADESH: HILL ARCHITECTURE IN ‘THE ABODE OF THE SNOW’
Margaret White
Chaini Castle Temple Tower, Himachal Pradesh, India, c17th-18th century. Photo: Richard White
he vernacular architecture of Himachal
Pradesh in the western Himalayas of
northwest India has evolved over many
centuries. Remarkable temples, forts and
residences demonstrate the inhabitants’
profound knowledge and understanding of
their environment, their cultural patterns and
traditions. Much of its hill region, even today,
is relatively remote. The typical settlement in
Himachal Pradesh is perched precariously
along the stepped contours of sunny slopes
of the landscape amidst a backdrop of
snow-clad mountains. Nearly 90% of the
population is spread thinly in small villages
traditionally dependent upon agriculture
and animal husbandry; 64% is covered with
forests, and thus, wood has played a major
role in the evolution and development of
various architectural forms. Traditionally,
deodar (cedar) and kail (pine) were chosen for
their strength, weather and insect resistance.
The other material used extensively is stone,
particularly slate.
T
The style of architecture echoes similar
building practices and functions found
in many Himalayan and other countries,
including
Bhutan,
Ladakh,
Sikkim,
Afghanistan, Turkey, Germany and France.
Although one could argue that the ancient
trade routes helped to disseminate this
technology, the building technique of kathkhuni is indigenous to Himachal Pradesh.
Kath-khuni architecture appears like a sentinel
in the landscape. In the mid hills districts of
Kullu and Kinnaur (altitudes of up to 2700
metres), one can observe in Old Manali, for
example, two or three storey homes built
around a courtyard with alternate courses of
dry stone masonry and timber without any
cementing mortar. The regular placement of
horizontal timbers between layers of rock in
walls is said by locals to permit flexing of the
walls in times of earth tremors.
The ground floor which is raised and finished
with adobe, functions as an insulating layer. A
cut is made in the ceiling to connect the first
and second floors internally by wooden stairs.
The lower floor or guashala is for cattle that
also help warm the upper floors. Solid, plank
shutters enclose small windows on all four
sides to keep out the fierce cold and may be
carved in rhythmic, floral designs on the outer
face. The upper floors are for residing, storing
food and cooking. A wide balcony may
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
contain external weaving looms. The living
area is capped off by a pent and gable slate
or wooden shingled roof. Slate stones weigh
down the roof structure against strong winds.
This timeless method of construction has
many advantages. No external help is
required enabling locals to build their own
houses. All materials are available in the
vicinity thereby being time and resource
efficient. Hardly any wastage occurs and
since materials deteriorate slowly, they can
be reused. No synthetic materials are used,
nor much metal, although this is beginning
to change with ferro-concrete structures
appearing right beside traditional homes.
Maintenance requires little effort and the
non rigid construction of the buildings helps
to dissipate the stresses of frequent seismic
tremors. Fallen blocks can easily be replaced.
The infill used within the walls creates an
insulation zone. The buildings are energy
efficient as they employ a cuboidal stacking
pattern along contours receiving maximum
sunshine and the slope of the roof allows
snow to fall off whereas the flatter part holds
some snow which acts as insulation layer.
Temples are at the heart of most Himachal
settlements and are usually sited at the highest
spots to celebrate festivals and religious
gatherings. Religion is represented by a
diversity of practices; Hinduism, Buddhism
or syncretic Buddhist/ Hindu beliefs are
intertwined with local deities. The numerous
variations of hill architecture temples as
classified by O.C. Handa (2001) include gable
roofed, composite-roofed, canopied, circular
roofed, tower and multi-tiered pyramidal
temples.
Perhaps the most eye catching are tower
temples which are characterised by their tall
superstructures, covered with pent or pent
and gable composite roofs. These may rise
from single to seven stories. There are usually
wooden projecting cantilever balconies on the
top floor. The wooden members supporting
the balcony rest on the wall. All vertical posts
are connected through a horizontal member on
top, on which sit the perpendicular members
(connected with a lap joint) projecting from a
wall. Sometimes the balcony facade is open
with a parapet or may be closed but with a
series of openings to catch the sun’s warmth.
The seldom visited castle temple at Chaini
Village illustrates a spectacular example of
a tower temple (c. 17th/18th century). It is
located behind a defensive fort, enhanced by
its position on the shoulder of a spur above
Shoja. The castle temple is the tallest, freestanding structure built in the traditional
local architectural style in the entire Western
Himalayan region. The Great Tower is 45
metres tall having lost two of its upper storeys
in the 1905 Kangra earthquake. The remaining
five storeys are made in the kath-khuni style
19
Hadimba Devi Pyramidal Temple, 16th century,
Ibex horns and wood carvings, Hadimba Devi Temple, Manali, India. Photo: Richard White
with the ground floor dug into a huge plinth
masonry pit. The only access to the tower is
by means of a long and massive notched tree
trunk ladder (sanghah) placed diagonally
against the wall. It once housed a room for a
garrison, supplies and ammunition.
On the fifth storey, a small, elevated, wooden
altar houses seven small, metal images of the
protective goddesses, locally called yoginis.
These are in fact masks (mohra) of the deities.
Unique to Himachal Pradesh, these prevent
the gaze of the viewer profaning the deity
under the mask. The masks themselves take
on a ritual sanctity of their own – the deity can
only be approached and ritually questioned
when masked and the masks themselves are
more frequently seen in temples than the
images themselves.
The Bhimakali temple cum palace tower
complex at Sarahan, the former capital of
the Bushahr kings, is the most majestic early
timber temple in the Sutlej Valley - an area
renowned for housing holy shrines on raised
wooden platforms. Its exact age is unknown
but it is associated with historical events
dating to the 7th century while parts of it
are around 800 years old displaying a mix of
Hindu and Buddhist styles. Its layout consists
of a series of elaborate courtyards connected
by beautiful gateways encompassing the
original temple tower. The residing deity,
Bhimakali, one of the myriad forms of the
Hindu goddess, Kali, is housed on the first
floor of the temple.
Some special features of the Bhimakali complex
include the uppermost storey of the renovated
temple which is edged by overhanging
20
balconies with exquisitely carved panels.
Turned, wooden fringes or jhallars hang from
the eaves of the slate tiled temple roofs. A pair
of massive, elaborately carved, metal doors
lead into a large courtyard flanked by rest
rooms and a small carved Shiva shrine. Silver
doors leading to the second courtyard are
embellished with repoussé work in silver inlaid
with gold, the panels depicting various Hindu
gods and goddesses. The Leaning Tower was
the main temple until it was damaged during
the Kangra earthquake. The adjoining tower
has since become the main shrine. The golden
finials atop the roof are symbols of the sun
and the moon, representing the deity and
royal patrons.
The 16th century Hadimba Devi Temple at
Manali is a rectangular, four-tiered stone and
wooden pyramidal structure with successive
roofs placed one over the other. This style is
believed to be Tibetan or Chinese influenced.
It is crowned by crimson pennants, a brass
bell and a trident built around a small natural
cave enshrining the footprints of the demon
goddess Hadimba, wife of Bhima, the mighty
Pandava brother of Mahabharata lore. The
facade writhes with wonderful wood carvings
of elephants, crocodiles, lions, leopards,
stylized makaras and folk deities.
Manali, India. Photo: Richard White
The significance of the ibex horns relates to
the broader Iranian cult of the pairika from
which we get the word ‘fairy.’ Belief in the
pairika is still strong in the mountainous
regions of Pakistan and through the
Karakorams in Swat. These pairika are female
spirits appearing as hags or beautiful maidens
who haunt the mountain tops, accompanied
by their ibex steeds. They are greatly feared
by mountain people as they tempt people
to exceed their limits and they play a major
role in the afterlife where they aid or terrify
the deceased’s soul while the deceased is on
the hair- thin Chinvat bridge between this
birth and heaven or hell. Their appearance in
Himachal Pradesh demonstrates links with
the broader Iranian world. Hamachal Pradesh hill architecture has
successfully incorporated and even exploited
the regional climatic conditions by carefully
selecting building materials to create the
best possible conditions in which to live.
However, the introduction of new nonrenewable materials (concrete, steel, glass)
and construction techniques which do not
harmonise with the hill settings is bringing
gradual change. What cost is progress?
Margaret White is former President of the Friends
of Museums, Singapore with a special interest in
Entered by a door surmounted by wild ibex
horns, the shrine is dominated by several large
boulders, one of which previously sheltered
the goats and buffalo to be sacrificed during
important rituals (outlawed September 2014
as Hadimba is now a declared vegetarian).
The hollow in the middle is believed to be
Vishnu’s footprint which channelled the ritual
blood into Hadimba’s mouth.
Southeast Asian art.
REFERENCES
Handa OC, 2001. Temple Architecture in the Western Himalaya,
Wooden Temples, Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi.
Sharma S. and Sharma P. Traditional and Vernacular buildings are
ecological, sensitive responsive designs Study of Himachal Pradesh,
International Journal of Chemical, Environmental and Biological
Sciences (IJCEBS), Volume 1 Issue 4 (2013).
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
I N T H E P U B L I C D O M A I N : CA M B O D I A N L O A N S T O T H E N G A
Melanie Eastburn
Churning of the Sea of Milk, Svay Rieng, Cambodia, Angkor period, mid to late 10th century,
sandstone, 52.5 x 139 x 20 cm. Collection: National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh
t is a great privilege to have three
exceptional Khmer sculptures from the
National Museum of Cambodia on longterm loan to the National Gallery of Australia
(NGA). The two institutions have been
working together, formally and informally,
since the beginning of the 1990s and are
currently collaborating on a textiles storage
and conservation project in Phnom Penh.
I
In 1992 the exhibition The Age of Angkor:
treasures from the National Museum of Cambodia
opened in Canberra. Curated by Michael
Brand, it featured 35 sculptures and was the
first exhibition to travel from Cambodia after
decades of unrest, including civil war and
the Khmer Rouge period. Many of the objects
had never previously left the country. One
of the works, a delicate representation of the
Buddhist goddess Prajnaparamita in the form
of a child, returned to Canberra in 2014 as part
of the long-term loan. The other two sculptures
borrowed are a 10th century lintel and an
elegant pre-Angkorian standing Buddha.
Depicting a child, the Prajnaparamita from
the Bayon period of the late 12th or early
13th century, is exceptionally rare. Identified
by a worn image of the Amitabha Buddha in
her chignon, Prajnaparamita represents the
deification of the Perfection of wisdom sutra
and may have once held a manuscript of
the sutra. Art historian and former director
of the National Museum of Cambodia Jean
Boisselier suggested that it may have been
created to honour a young princess who
had died. (Boisselier 1989: 91). The child
Prajnaparamita relates to the renowned
portrait images of the same period showing
King Jayavarman VII as a devotee of the
Buddha and his consort Queen Jayarajadevi
as connected to the saviour goddess Tara.
Designed to be installed above a temple
entrance, the lintel is carved with the famous
Churning of the sea of milk narrative. Rather
than a whole series of characters, just one
god and one demon work to stir up the
elixir of immortality by twisting the body of
the serpent Vasuki around the post-shaped
Mount Mandara. The shaft stands on the
back of Vishnu’s turtle avatar Kurma. Seated
on a lotus base above the action is four-faced
Brahma. The lintel is possibly the earliest
recorded example of this scene, and is one
of the few to feature Brahma (Polkinghorne,
unpublished report, 22 August 2014). A series
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
of bearded sages (rishis) appear across the
upper register.
The lintel is an excellent example of a lively
mid-late 10th century regional style. Dr
Martin Polkinghorne, an expert on Khmer
lintels from the University of Sydney, was
able to determine that it almost certainly
came from Bassac in Svay Rieng. He located
photographs from a 1902 L’Ecole française
d’Extrême-Orient (French School of Asian
Studies) excavation of the temple led by
archaeologist Jean Commaille, apparently the
first official excavation to take place beyond
Angkor. While this particular lintel did not
appear in the photographs, lintel fragments
with mythical naga serpents and composite
makara beasts remarkably similar in style and
placement to those on the Svay Rieng lintel
support the likelihood of Bassac as its origin.
The seventh-century pre-Angkorian standing
Buddha is another exciting recent discovery.
It was excavated in 2010 and is remarkably
intact. Its hands, missing on most equivalent
figures, are held in vitarka mudra, a gesture
of discussion and explanation of Buddhist
teaching. The influence of Buddhist sculpture
from Sarnath in India is evident in the
modeling, including the serene expression,
treatment of the hair and the monastic robes
which cover both shoulders and drape gently
around the ankles.
prepared for house building. It is among
several early Buddhist and Hindu sculptures
of various scale, quality and age found in
Kampong Speu and associated with the
ancient pre-Angkorian sites of Phnom Da
and Angkor Borei. Museum staff were alerted
to the find and visited shortly afterwards to
record the site and transport the works to
Phnom Penh.
Ranging in date from the seventh century
to the late 12th or early 13th century, it is
magnificent to be able to show these three fine
Khmer works of art from the collection of the
National Museum of Cambodia at the NGA.
The sculptures will be on display until 2017.
The author wishes to thank Hab Touch,
Martin Polkinghorne, Bertrand Porte and
Darryl Collins for their contributions.
Melanie Eastburn is Curator of Asian art at the
National Gallery of Australia. In 2003-4 she worked
at the National Museum of Cambodia.
REFERENCES
Jean Boisselier, 1989. Trends in Khmer art, Southeast Asia Arts
Program, Cornell University, New York. (transl. by Natasha
Eilenberg and Melvin Elliott)
The Buddha was discovered in Trapeang
Russei village in Kampong Speu province at
the site known as Tuol Ang Gnil near Ang
Khmao Temple while ground was being
21
T R AV E L L E R ’ S C H O I C E : R E V I S I T I N G H I S TO RY I N W E S T B E N G A L
Claudia Hyles
A truck loaded with jute, Guptipara District, Hugli. Photo: Claudia Hyles.
alfway up West Bengal a few years ago,
political disturbances in Darjeeling meant
returning to Kolkata instead of travelling
further north. On the way I saw the signpost
to Plassey and vowed to return. “Oh there’s
nothing there except a monument” was
the usual reaction. Indeed this is true but
it was worth the journey to see it at sunset
last September. It is “only a monument”, an
obelisk with a later bust of Siraj-ud-Daulah
placed prominently in front, but its historical
importance is undeniable. Here the East India
Company under Robert Clive decisively
defeated the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-uddaulah, and his French allies on 23 June 1757,
establishing Company rule in Bengal and
eventual British supremacy over the other
European colonial powers. The Company
expanded the British Empire in India for 100
years until the 1858 Government of India Act
gave direct control to the British Crown.
H
Departing the National Highway from
Kolkata, we travelled through the fertile
Gangetic Delta on pretty roads winding
through emerald fields of rice, mustard and
jute, criss-crossed by rivers. Mango trees,
bananas, bamboo and palms clustered around
villages with neat, swept compounds. The jute
harvest had begun. Bundles of slender stems,
up to four metres in length, are submerged in
slow running water for about 10 days then
placed in still water where the fibre is stripped
from the stalk, washed and hung to dry.
Everywhere ‘clotheslines’ of silvery Rapunzel
tresses contrasted with conical clusters of
stalks. Used for house construction, fuel and
fencing, industrial researchers are developing
new uses for stalk in paper, chemical and
textile production.
Near Sukharia a shady laneway led to beautiful
scene. Across a small lake and reflected in its
waters lay the Ananda Bhairavi Temple, a
rare form of terracotta temple architecture,
three storeyed and crowned by 25 pinnacles.
It was flanked by two parallel rows of six
smaller temples symmetrically-arranged,
each row with five aatchalas, eight-sloped
roofs and a pancharatna, five-pinnacle roof.
The temples were built in 1813 by Bireshwar
Mustafi, whose ancestral rajbari stands
nearby, an example of the once majestic and
palatial 18th and 19th century mansions seen
in Kolkata and throughout undivided Bengal.
Combining elements of Greek, Mughal and
Victorian architecture, V. S. Naipaul named
22
the style “Calcutta Corinthian”, others call it
“Bengal Baroque” or “Rotten Rococo”. The
buildings evoke delight when well-preserved
but ineffable sadness when ruinous which is
generally the case.
it and was later shown his horse’s hoof-marks
as proof. The cloth now in production is woven
from 500 count cotton, the finest hand-spun
yarn in the world: if laid wet on a patch of grass
it is almost impossible to see.
Lack of stone in the vast southern Bengal
flood-plains generated the development
of the terracotta temple in West Bengal
and neighbouring Bangladesh. Fired clay
brick was the logical substitute for temples,
frequently crowned by roofs referencing the
shape of indigenous thatched dwellings.
This distinctive convex bangaldar roof was
developed to cope with the spectacularly
heavy Bengali rainfall. Many walls are covered
with sophisticated and elaborate relief tiles
which, as well as depicting the divine, give a
splendid picture of contemporary secular life.
Rabindranath Saha, a 13th generation master
weaver has achieved this feat. He learned of
the legendary cloth from his grandfather, told
him by his great-grandfather. The Industrial
Revolution and British protectionist policies,
cruelly enforced in India, had a devastating
effect on Indian textiles such as Bengal
muslin. The looms and spinning machines
were silent for a different reason at the time
of our afternoon visit. The heat of the day
snaps threads so work takes place during
cooler hours. A team of three weavers takes
two months to weave 60,000 metres of yarn
into a complete sari of five and a half metres
weighing 100 grams which fits into a coconut
shell. Saha has formed a cooperative to train
and mentor weavers from all over Bengal.
In Kalna District, Brindaban Chandra’s Math
(a group of four late mediaeval temples) and
the 108 Siva Temples built by Maharaja Teja
Chandra Bahadur in 1809 are fine examples.
The superb Char Bangla Temples built by
Rani Bhabani of Natore at Baranagore in
c.1755 were to have been part of another 108
temples, a sacred number for Hindus, but the
Rani stopped at 107 of which few remain.
Kalna is also the location for the successful
revival of a forgotten textile technique. The
Romans admired the gossamer Dhakai
muslin, so fine that they called it nebula venti or
woven air. In one story, Emperor Aurangzeb,
disbelieving its fineness, failed to notice a length
his daughter had laid on the grass. He rode over
In 1658 Bengal’s first English factory
at Cossimbazar housed the East India
Company’s largest silk emporium. The
weaving of plain tussar silk continues as an
important local industry and the famous
Baluchari and Jamdani saris are hand-woven
in nearby towns. Visiting a weaving village
brought the dilemma of which family to
approach as every household produced
perfect creations.
Although each river has its own name, all are
known to the Bengali people as the Ganga.
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Immersing the image of Vishwakarma in the Ganga
The 108 Siva temples at Kalna symbolically represent beads in a rosary. Photo: Claudia Hyles.
They meander on the last slow journey to
the sea, often changing course to affect the
history of towns and cities. On river banks
and in pastures a beautiful perennial grass
was flowering. Kash phul grows to three
graceful metres, crested with feathery white
flowers heralding the Bengali festive season,
particularly Durga Puja, West Bengal’s best
loved festival. The image of kash phul was
immortalised in Satyajit Ray’s first film “Pather
Panchali” (Song of the Little Road, 1955).
Another reminder of Satyajit Ray, Bengal’s and
India’s most honoured film director, was the
Nimtita Rajbari, 10 miles from Murshidabad,
another once magnificent but crumbling
palace. “Jalsagar” (The Music Room, 1958)
was shot here. Said to be Ray’s most masterly
work it was the first film to extensively
incorporate classical Indian dance and music.
Based on a popular short story about the
efforts of a decadent zamindar (landlord) to
maintain family status, the story uncannily
reflects the real history of the palace owners.
In Kolkata’s potter’s quarter at Kumortuli,
preparations for Durga Puja had started.
Clay images of the goddess were in early
stages of production. Others in a finished
state were of Vishwakarma, the divine
architect or carpenter who invented the wheel
and created the universe. All over the city
and in every provincial town huge pandals
(temporary shrines) were under construction
for Durga, smaller ones were already
honouring Vishwakarma accompanied by
his faithful elephant. Handsome, four-armed
and muscular, he wears golden jewellery and
holds craftsman’s tools. He is worshipped by
architects, artisans, mechanics, factory and
now IT workers who pray for the continued
smooth functioning of the machines on which
they rely. Cars and buses are decorated and
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
simple engines are garlanded. At the festival’s
end at Malda, groups joyfully gathered at the
Ganges for the bishorjon or immersion of their
images - chanting, drumming and cheering
when Vishwakarma in all his glory was
consigned to the waters.
By the mid-18th century, India was the source
of all kinds of luxury goods. Murshidabad
was famous for its textiles, gold and silver
embroidery and inlaid ivory furniture. An
ivory chair once owned by Warren Hastings
may be seen in London’s Victoria & Albert
Museum which also holds a large collection
of Murshidabad paintings. The city, the last
independent capital of Bengal, was once
under Mughal rule and may have been
founded by Emperor Akbar.
In 1704 Nawab Murshid Quli Khan,
the Dewan of Bengal, Orissa and Bihar,
transferred his administration from Dhaka
to the town he renamed after himself. It
became the provincial capital in 1717 and
flourished as a trade centre, ideally located
on the Bhagirathi River. With fine mansions,
mosques and temples, Clive said it was “as
extensive, populous and rich as the city of
London”. After Plassey, Murshidabad was
eclipsed by Calcutta and further diminished
when British revenue and judicial officers
transferred in 1790.
at Malda. Photo: Claudia Hyles.
beautiful. A rather different atmosphere exists
in the vegetable market located within ruined
nawabi barracks and stables where shops and
dwellings are located within or attached to
remnant walls.
Today Murshidabad is not even the district
headquarters. It lies 14 kilometres away
at Berhampore, established as a British
cantonment established in 1765. Here the
parade ground and surrounding 18th century
buildings are unusually, largely intact. The old
cemetery is evocative and one of the unmarked
graves is of a small boy whose name became
that of the saintly child hero of an improving
book, “Little Henry and his Bearer” (1814),
written by Mary Martha Sherwood, little
Henry’s mother. Another cemetery contains
graves of members of Burma’s exiled Royal
Family, within a lush mulberry plantation on
the Sericultural Institute campus.
A week later, driving from Darjeeling through
tea gardens which stretched down to the
plains I saw the sign to Naxalbari at a turnoff.
I know there would be “nothing to see” there,
not even “only a monument” but I think it
might be worth another journey to wonderful
West Bengal.
Claudia Hyles is an independent researcher with a
great love for South Asia, and a founding life member
of TAASA.
Its earlier splendour is hard to imagine in
what is now a peaceful backwater. The city’s
decline however did not mark the end of
grand designs. The vast Hazarduari (one
thousand doors) Palace, was not completed
until 1837, a huge extravagance for a realm
of little political relevance. The neo-classical
monument to opulence is now a museum
housing treasures of all descriptions and a
large collection of family portraits, some very
REFERENCES
Das, Neeta and Llewellyn-Jones, Rosie (eds), 2013. Murshidabad,
Forgotten Capital of Bengal, The Marg Foundation, Mumbai 2013
Mehta, Vinod (ed-in-chief), 2008. Weekend breaks from Kolkata.
Outlook Publishing, New Delhi
Taylor, Joanne, 2012. The Forgotten Palaces of Calcutta. Niyogi
Books, New Delhi
23
AUSTRALIAN CENTRE ON CHINA IN THE WORLD AT THE ANU
Geremie R Barmé
An Australian setting. Photo: Ben Wrigley
he Australian Centre on China in the
World is located at the heart of the
campus of The Australian National University
(ANU) in Canberra. At a crossroads between
the humanities and sciences, student
accommodation and learning facilities, the
building features elements of both Australian
and Chinese design. The Centre reflects aspects
of the vernacular architecture of Australia
while achieving a sympathetic engagement
with the underlying design principles of the
national capital as envisioned by Walter Burley
Griffin and Marion Mahoney over a century
ago. It reinterprets, synthesises and transforms
Chinese architectural forms and elements into
language particular to its environment. The
building, which opened in 2014, was designed
by Gerald Szeto of Mo Atelier Szeto Architects,
Beijing, in conjunction with the Canberra
firm Munns Sly Moore and was built by the
construction company Hindmarsh.
T
Situated next to Sullivan’s Creek, the ‘dragon
vein’ of the University, the site includes views
towards Black Mountain over the meandering
creek and towards parallel lines of poplar
trees and stands of willows. The position
of hills and water (shanshui) is of geomantic
importance in the orientation of a building.
Furthermore, the site was ideally suited to a
creative application of the key Chinese garden
and building design principle of ‘borrowing
the landscape’ or jiejing, a principle whereby
the natural surrounds of a structure can
be ‘invited into’, enliven and organically
transform an architectural space. An example
of this is a long, side wall in the auditorium
where the floor to ceiling windows are framed
by pillars that echo, in colour and form, the
copse of trees beyond, blurring the division
between interior and exterior.
Gate refers to the ancient Chinese symbolism
of heaven as a circle and earth as a square: a
pattern repeated elsewhere in the building.
Throughout the complex, the use of Chinese
symbolism in a contemporary manner is both
thought provoking and beautiful.
from a northern Canberra suburb. These
granite rocks are positioned to accord with
the location and relative heights of the Five
Sacred Mountains of China or Wuyue: Mt Tai
(East), Mt Heng (South), Mt Hua (West), Mt
Heng (North) and Mt Song (Centre).
Beyond the Spirit Wall a fan-shaped terraced
garden leads to the main building of the
Centre. The terraces, reminiscent of rice fields,
are planted with flowers and trees of the four
seasons. The first terrace features spring with
flowering peach. The next is emblematic
of winter with miniature pines. Maples are
found in the autumn terrace and, for summer,
a magnolia provides the focus.
The reception area of the Centre is called
the Bamboo Hall.
University security
arrangements required a screen between
public and office areas, however, rather than
the usual solid doors or plate glass, this
building has a ‘bamboo forest’ of wooden
posts dividing public and office areas. A
large circular stone in the Bamboo Hall was
inspired by the stone art of the Ming and Qing
dynasties. The ‘bookmatched’ stone, where
two surfaces are paired to give the impression
of an opened book, is round, representing
The five large rocks in the forecourt at the
base of the terraced garden are originally
These topographical elements enabled the
architect to engage with unique Chinese
traditional garden design and thought – a
tradition, much emulated in China today,
where gardens and their integral structures,
in particular the study or zhai, are essential
to intellectual and cultural life. It recalls the
traditional ‘academies’ or shuyuan where
Chinese learning was concentrated.
On approaching the Centre one is met by
a Spirit Wall, typically used to shield an
entryway in Chinese architecture. A striking
red Moon Gate has been incorporated into the
wall. The circle in a square that forms the Moon
View through the moongate. Photo: Ben Wrigley
24
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
the world; its colours, the dun tones of the
Australian landscape.
To one side of the hall is the Gallery, well set
up for a changing program of exhibitions. On
the other side, through the Bamboo forest,
is the Executive Floor. The executive spaces
are clad in hand-worked, raised-seam zinc,
making reference to the Chinese tradition of
grouping a collection of soft-bound books in a
board and cloth case. The cladding represents
the case and the Centre’s scholars and staff are
the precious fascicles within.
The building features two window patterns:
the Plum-blossom and the Pinwheel. The
Plum-blossom design was inspired by the
carved windows found in dividing walls in
Ming and Qing gardens. The Plum-blossom
windows frame a cracked-ice pattern.
Originating in the 17th century, it was used
widely in window and door panels. The
Pinwheel is another characteristic motif,
though normally seen on a smaller scale than
in the magnified scale in the CIW centre. The
colours used to frame the Pinwheel Windows
are imperial red and traditional book-binding
blue. The Pinwheel design is also used in the
screens surrounding the Lotus Hall reception
area of the Auditorium, the Gallery and
the Reading Room, where it has been given
an Art Deco inflection, making reference
to Canberra’s building heritage. A striking
feature of the Lotus Hall are four large
photographs featuring lotus in cracked ice.
The Centre has two special collections of
furniture. The first is of reconditioned and
renovated Fred Ward (1900-1990) tables and
chairs. Ward was a pioneer of the modern
industrial design movement in Australia who
designed an entire range of furniture for the
ANU from the late 1940s onwards. The Centre
houses boardroom tables and chairs that were
used by the first ANU Council. To complement
these pieces, the Centre commissioned a
circular, Fred Ward-inspired boardroom table,
using a slab of Queensland Maple cut in the
1950s. The second collection is of teahouse
furniture and Zen stools from the Taiwanese
furniture design company Chunzai.
The Australian Centre on China in the World
is a research institution for China studies
and the understanding of Greater China:
the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong,
Macau, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora.
The complex provides a sympathetic and
stimulating environment for the pursuit of
such scholarship.
Geremie R Barmé is Director, Australian Centre on
China in the World, ANU.
B O O K R E V I E W : B U R M E S E M A N U S CR I P T B I N D I N G T A P E S
Gill Green
Sazigyo, Woven Miniatures of Buddhist
Art: Burmese Manuscript Binding Tapes
Ralph Isaacs
Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai 2014
RRP AUD $ 92.00; hardcover 256 pages
Sazigyo are mini-marvels of a woven art
specific to Burma. They take the form of
narrow bands, usually between 1.5 – 3.0 cm
wide and some 6 metres long. Their practical
function is to bind bundles of palm leaf
manuscripts stored in the wat. What raises
sazigyo above the mundane is the Buddhist
imagery woven into this narrow band as
well as the wealth of detail revealed by their
woven text. The late Peter Collingwood,
a foremost British weaver instrumental in
encouraging Ralph Isaacs to undertake this
book, apparently was left “gasping with
admiration! They are terrific…so fine and
beautifully woven and so imaginative…
They are the work of some real experts who
deserve some posthumous fame” (p. 8).
Ralph Isaacs’ publication is the culmination
of some 20 years’ research into these esoteric
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
examples of women’s weaving skills,
which flourished for at least 170 years prior
to the 1970s when the printed word made
redundant traditional bundles of palm leaf
manuscripts and their binder tapes. The
sazigyo illustrated and examined in this
publication are principally sourced from
the collection of Digna Cruz Ryan and Neil
Ryan, long time TAASA members, as well
from the author’s and a number of other
collectors around the world.
These silk or cotton artefacts are woven by
the tablet technique. This complex process
employs a minimal form of a loom but
requires innate mathematical skills as well
as sophisticated technical ability on the part
of the weaver: a mastery demonstrated by
the precise execution of the Burmese script
extending along much of the tape’s length.
The texts record that donors were generally
not individuals but married couples whose
names and occupations are often precisely
recorded. They thus become records of
family member names, relationships
and celebratory occasions, fortuitously
contributing a wealth of information about
the historical and cultural life of Burma
during the 19th and 20th centuries. The date
of donation is usually recorded in Burmese
years. The pictorial woven elements flanking
particular text segments represent many
recognisable symbols of Buddhism - a variety
of figurative forms, animals and birds, and
symbolic Buddhist icons such as the stupa.
What of the weavers themselves? One
wonders how the process of commissioning
these meritorious artefacts operated. Often
the weaver’s name was included in the text
which may suggest that this was a form of
self-recommendation, a way of soliciting
further commissions. Did the weaver herself
gain merit from the act of weaving? It would
be interesting to know the answers to these
questions.
Chapters cover the context of the sazigyo, the
variety of iconic images and the individual
texts. Very commendably, the process
of tablet weaving is comprehensively
explained
in
diagrammatic
form.
Appendices include snippets of related
history and many fascinating historic
photographs; sazigyo oddities including
one tape with Khmer script; a detailed list
of the dimensions and sources of all tapes
illustrated or cited; a glossary, bibliography,
index and list of illustrations. The book is
beautifully designed and produced. Sazigyo
images adorn the covers and an actual
sazigyo bookmark, based on one in the
Ryan collection, ensures you don’t lose your
place. This publication is a testament to the
role played by the passion of collectors of
lesser-known arts in preserving not only the
objects but also their cultural heritage.
Gill Green is President of TAASA and an Honorary
Associate in the Department of Art History and
Film Studies, University of Sydney.
25
B O O K R E V I E W: L E M PA D O F B A L I
Siobhan Campbell
including many previously unpublished
works. The process of tracking down these
drawings from private and public collections
in Asia, Europe and the United States is the
cumulative result of years of work by some
of the foremost scholars of Balinese art, who
have contributed a series of essays as well as
substantial captions to elucidate Lempad’s
drawings.
Lempad of Bali: The Illuminating Line
Bruce W. Carpenter, John Darling, Hedi Hinzler, Kaja
McGowan, Adrian Vickers & Soemantri Widagdo
Editions Didier Millet, Museum Puri Lukisan,
Singpore, 2014
RRP US$200, hardcover, 424 pages c.600 illus.
It is not unusual to read the biographies
of acclaimed artists whose lives achieved
seemingly legendary proportions. Yet such
a designation is far from redundant in the
case of I Gusti Nyoman Lempad (18621978), the subject of this colossal publication,
launched in conjunction with a major
exhibition of the artist’s work at Puri Lukisan
Museum in Ubud, Bali from September to
November 2014.
While the authors are conscious that his
legendary status may have ‘blurred the
line between fact and fiction’ (p.413), the
annals of Balinese art history have accorded
far more legendary status to the names
of expatriate rather than local artists. The
shelves of bookshops and libraries attest
to this imbalance. Thus while Lempad is
legendary in Bali, this book represents a
much-needed catalogue raisonné of his life
and work as a Balinese artist, possibly the
first ever such undertaking. It documents the
many achievements of this ‘traditional’ artist
in his own right, reminding us that Balinese
artists, working within communal traditions,
do have individual histories of articulation.
The essays in the first section focus on little
known aspects of Lempad’s career, his
sources of inspiration and stylistic analysis of
his work. Hedi Hinzler examines the creative
collaboration between Lempad and Louis van
den Noorda and identifies colonial-era interest
in Lempad’s work in the context of Dutch
academic projects, while Kaja McGowan looks
at Lempad’s fundamental role in the research
undertaken by art historian Claire Holt.
These essays detail the circumstances
under which some of Lempad’s work was
commissioned, for instance, to document
dance forms and styles or to record particular
narratives. Soemantri Widagdo and Bruce
W. Carpenter discuss Lempad’s sketching
technique and style in terms of his ‘splendid
sense of line’ (p.45), and in a separate essay
Carpenter explores his fluid line in terms of
the early sculpture of India and Southeast
Asia.
The book can be read as an informative
introduction to the Hindu-Buddhist art of
Indonesia, relating how classical Indian art
came to Bali via the culture of the Majapahit
kingdom and its predecessors. Albeit
tentative, we learn that Lempad’s rerajahan
or magical, protective drawings relate to the
esoteric Buddhist drawings on Tibetan prayer
flags of the Pala Dynasty, and that the formal
attributes, composition, symbolism and
decorative motifs suggest the appeal of Gupta
art as well as highlighting the connections
between Lempad’s own sculptural work and
drawings.
and cinnabar (vermillion) detailing, include
the studies for several finished drawings.
They are ordered thematically, according to
the narratives or subjects they depict, these
being epics of Indian or indigenous origin,
daily life, erotica, ritual and religion, dance
and music. Edifying captions not only relate
the narrative subjects depicted, but identify
other snippets of noteworthy detail in the
pictures - the ritual and traditional objects and
cultural practices depicted.
Lempad’s style went through phases over the
course of the 40 or so years that he produced
these works on paper, yet his narrative
interests remained largely consistent. More
than once described in the text as ‘disturbing’,
these images are also instructive in that they
relate how Lempad was at once immersed
in the world of traditional Balinese culture
while experimenting with new materials
and ideas and engaging with foreign visitors
to the island. Some elements of his pictures
are regarded as self portraits or having
autobiographic undertones, less in terms of
their physical depictions but in terms of the
ideas they refer to, such as his ‘preoccupation
with the intensity of human feeling’ (p.375)
and gender conflict.
Finally to a minor gripe, that despite having
a rich bibliography, publication references
and, in some cases, page numbers are lacking
in some of the essays and picture captions.
Readers of the text in the first section will
find the weight and size of the book a little
unwieldy, but will no doubt appreciate
this attribute when it comes to the images.
That said, this imposing tome certainly
makes its presence felt amidst a plethora of
lesser volumes. Not only have few studies
of Balinese art been as well executed, the
richness of Lempad’s work ensures broad
appeal beyond the world of Bali.
Siobhan Campbell is a scholar based in the
Department of Indonesian Studies at the University of
Sydney with a particular interest in Balinese art and
The ‘illuminating line’ referred to in the
book’s title reflects the intent to cast light
upon the ‘line between fact and fiction’ with
regard to the artist’s oeuvre as well as the
writing of Balinese art history. It also describes
Lempad’s black and white drawings on
paper, for which the artist is best known. The
crowning accomplishment of this publication
is the presentation of 600 illustrations,
26
The second and greater part of Lempad of Bali
is rightfully dedicated to reproductions of
the drawings and it is in this section that the
format and ordering is truly accomplished.
Lempad’s drawings are ideally suited to
publication and the landscape format of this
book means that many are reproduced near to
their actual dimensions. The drawings, mostly
black and white, though some have gold leaf
material culture. TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
QUEEN MOTHER OF BHUTAN’S VISIT TO THE NGA
Meredith Hinchliffe
er Majesty Gyalyum Sangay Choden
Wangchuck, Queen Mother of Bhutan,
has two big passions: the creation and display
of traditional Bhutanese textiles and the
welfare of women in Bhutan.
H
In 2005 Her Majesty established the Royal
Textile Academy of Bhutan as an educational
centre for training individuals in the
traditional art of weaving to preserve and
promote the culture of Bhutan and she is the
Patron of the National Textile Museum.
In 2004 she established RENEW – Respect,
Educate, Nurture and Empower Women – a
non-governmental organisation dedicated
to empowerment of women and girls in
Bhutan, especially the victims and survivors
of domestic violence.
The Australian Himalayan Foundation, which
supports RENEW, brought the Queen Mother
to Australia in October 2014. It was a perfect
opportunity to promote Bhutanese textiles.
At a function at the National Gallery of
Australia, Her Majesty donated a Kira – the fulllength garment worn by women – to mark her
visit. A display of items from the NGA collection
was arranged and guests could compare these
with the items Her Majesty had brought with
her to promote the nation’s culture.
The donated Kira was woven specifically for
the Queen Mother’s tour to Australia and
was one of several she brought with her. It
was woven in 2013 and 2014 by Ms Lhamo
from Nanglam, Samdrupjongkhar, in silk
and metallic yarn. Two panels were woven
separately and sewn together, to achieve the
width. The superb work has a blue silk plain
warp-faced ground with extra supplementary
weft patterning, also in silk. The design is a
rich combination of many traditional motifs in
a range of luscious colours.
The mark of Bhutanese textiles is the use of
elaborate supplementary-weft patterning.
Unlike other cultures which also use
supplementary-weft designs, the threads
are left loose so the textile can only be worn
one way. This also gives the weaver more
flexibility in designing the combination of
motifs and colours.
economic significance for many women. In
almost every home there will be a backstrap
loom for the women of the household to
weave textiles for Kiras, the Gho or man’s
costume, and other textiles used in the home.
We were shown an innovation that Bhutanese
women have recently embraced – the skirt.
Rather than wrapping the large, rectangular
textile around the body, they now wear
skirts that wrap and fold at the front, which
is worn with a Tego (a light outer jacket) and
Wonju (an inner layer). Over the years, fashion
has determined the popularity of different
designs and patterns. While there are no rules
limiting what a weaver can create, quality
is still associated with intricate designs and
remains the ultimate arbiter.
Meredith Hinchliffe is a freelance writer, curator and
arts advocate based in Canberra. She is approved
to value Australian decorative arts from 1950 for the
Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program.
Handwoven textiles are deeply embedded in
the culture and history of Bhutan. They are
integral to the culture and are of important
Her Majesty the Queen Ashi Wangchuck with
Mrs Catherine Rossi Harris AO PSM, Member, Council
of the National Gallery of Australia and Honorary
Consul General for Bhutan. Image courtesy of the
National Gallery of Australia Imaging
Her Majesty the Queen Ashi Wangchuck with His Excellency Mr Kesang Wangdi, Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, who is based in Bangkok. His Excellency is wearing a Gho with
embroidered, knee-length boots. A Kira with both a Tego and Wonju, brought for display by Her Majesty
is shown on a mannequin. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia Imaging
T AA S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O . 1
27
RECENT TAASA ACTIVITIES
TAASA IN VICTORIA
TAASA END OF YEAR PARTY, SYDNEY
TAASA END OF YEAR PARTY,
MELBOURNE
Thursday, 4 December 2014
A small group of TAASA members enjoyed
an end-of-year celebratory meal at an
authentic Gujarati restaurant, Gujju’s, in
Malvern East. Gujju’s is strictly vegetarian,
and is known for its thali and extensive
menu of chaat dishes. Members reminisced
about travels in India while enjoying Gujju’s
relaxed and hospitable atmosphere.
Wednesday, 3 December 2014
Generously hosted again this year by the
Korean Cultural Office in their spacious
CBD premises, around 80 TAASA members
met despite a heavy Sydney downpour to
celebrate the end of a busy year of TAASA
activities. Members were offered a walkthrough of the finalists’ works for the annual
Korea-Australia Arts Foundation Prize, by
Juno Do, Exhibition Manager.
Our raffle added to the fun and helped raise
money for TAASA’s ongoing activities.
TAASA would like to express its appreciation
for the support offered by Dr Lee Dong-ok,
Chief Officer of the Korean Cultural Office
and Juno Do. Thanks also go to TAASA
Committee members who assisted on the
night and to Richard White, Ian Guild and
Todd Sunderman for manning the bar.
Special thanks to Todd for his usual calm
efficiency, despite having to fight through an
appalling Sydney traffic jam to deliver our
food and wine – just in time!
A T T AA S A ' S E N D O F Y E AR P AR T Y I N S Y D N E Y
Yvett Klein, Jackie Menzies & Natalie Seiz
Chris Manning & Sandy Watson
Jim Masselos & Ian Guild
Margaret McAleese, Moonyeen Atkinson & Louise Metcalfe
Gill Green welcoming members
Ann Guild, Judith & Ken Rutherford
Jillian Kennedy & Christina Sumner
Robert FarraR & friends
Mary-Jane Brodribb & Col Draper
Photos courtesy of Irene Langlands
28
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
TAASA MEMBERS’ DIARY
MARCH 2015 – MAY 2015
TAASA IN NSW
TAASA TEXTILE STUDY GROUP
TAASA IN VICTORIA
TAASA Archaeology in Asia Lecture Series
March – July 2015, 6 – 8pm
Sydney Mechanics School of Arts
280 Pitt St Sydney
After drinks and light refreshments,
join experts on archaeological sites from
Central to East Asia as they share their
discoveries while in the field.
See further details on p31.
The TSG is changing venue this year,
meeting in the Annie Wyatt Room at the
S.H. Ervin Gallery, Observatory Hill in
Millers Point from 6.30 – 8.30pm.
Light refreshments provided. $15
members, $20 non-members. The venue
is in close proximity to Wynyard Station
and parking is available on site.
Email enquiries to Helen Perry at
[email protected].
Visit to the Islamic Museum of Australia,
15A Anderson Road, Thornbury, Victoria
3071, and lunch at Samira’s Modern
Middle Eastern Café.
Saturday 21 March 2015. Lunch:
12.00 - 1.30pm. Tour: 1.30pm - 3.00pm.
Cost: $12 ($10 concession) per person for
the tour, payable at the door on arrival.
Lunch as ordered a la carte.
RSVP: [email protected] by 13 March
2015. Further information: Boris Kaspiev
on 0421 038 491.
TAASA Member Talk & Auction Preview
– Bonhams
76 Paddington St, Paddington, Sydney
Wednesday 18 March 2015, 6 -7.30pm
Bonhams will be holding (on 22 March)
both a general Asian Art auction and an
auction of a major collection of Chinese
snuff bottles collected over 20 years in
HK and covering more than 360 bottles
of various material: inside painted glass,
ivory, rock crystal, horn, cloisonné,
ceramics, lacquer and hardstones, mostly
late 19th century to 20th century.
Bonham’s Asian Art Specialist, Yvett Klein,
will walk TAASA members through the
collections on offer, pointing out highlights
and providing background information.
Cost: $10 members, $15 non-members.
Refreshments provided. RSVP to Jillian
Kennedy at: [email protected]
essential by Monday 16 March. Payment
at door.
Member viewing of the Powerhouse
Museum, Sydney’s Asian jewellery
exhibition & collection - repeat event
Thursday 19 March 2015, 2- 3.30pm
Offered a second time due to heavy
demand, TAASA members will enjoy
expert guidance of the Asian jewellery
component of the exhibition A Fine
Possession: Jewellery and Identity by MinJung Kim, Curator of Asian Arts and
Design, plus a trip to the basement to see
a selection of the PHM’s extensive Asian
jewellery holdings.
TAASA members only and limited to 20.
Only a few places left. Cost: $15. RSVP to
Jillian Kennedy at: taasabookings@gmail.
com. Meet at main entry.
Lecture: Bhutan – the Kingdom of the
Thunder Dragon
30 April, 6-8 pm
SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney
Zara Fleming, British-based independent
art consultant and exhibition curator will
explore the history, art and culture of Bhutan.
$20 members, $25 non-members.
RSVP: [email protected]
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Mnēmonikos Oikogéneias
(A Family Remembered)
10 March 2015
Marianne Hulsbosch will explore a selection
of the Asian-inspired textile sculptures she
made, that formed part of a larger body
of objects entitled ‘Family’ exhibited in
Australia, the Netherlands and the US.
Asian Influences in Australian
Indigenous Textiles
14 April 2015
Di Stevens, owner/curator of the Tali
Gallery in Rozelle, discusses how Asian
inspirations have influenced traditional
and modern Australian Indigenous
artefacts and textiles.
Indigo: A Universal Obsession
12 May 2015
In this illustrated talk, Margaret White
introduces us to the magic of Indigo dye
and why its shades engender cult status.
TAASA CERAMICS STUDY GROUP
The Greenware Ceramic Tradition
Tuesday 3 March, 6 – 8pm
COFA, Oxford St, Paddington, Sydney
(Elwyn Lynn Meeting Room –Block G,
level 1)
We explore the various greenware ceramic
traditions across Asia with Merran Esson,
Head of Ceramics at the National Art
School, Sydney who will provide an
outline of the materials and processes
involved in their production. Members are
invited to bring along an example from
their collection (historic or contemporary)
to discuss with the group.
Light refreshments. $15 members;
$20 non-members. Payment at the door.
Bookings to Gill Green at: gillians@
ozemail.com.au. or 0466 977 313.
Please advise when booking if you intend
to bring along ceramic pieces. Brief
guidelines to assist in presenting these
pieces can be obtained from Gill Green.
Walk through of the Qianlong exhibition
at the National Gallery of Victoria
Tuesday 7 April 2015, 2-3.30pm.
Senior Curator of Asian Art, Dr Mae Anna
Pang will provide an expert guided visit to
this exhibition from the Palace Museum,
Beijing.
Cost: $18 ($16 concession). Book online or
purchase ticket at door. Maximum of 20.
RSVP: [email protected] by 31 March.
Walk through of the Gods, Heroes and
Clowns: Performance and Narrative in
South and Southeast Asian Art exhibition
at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Sunday 3 May, 2015, 2- 3pm
Join Carol Cains, Curator, Asian Art NGV
at this free event.
RSVP: [email protected] by
24 April 2015.
TAASA IN QUEENSLAND
TAASA QLD Ceramics Interest Group
Meets 7-9pm, 2nd Tuesday of the month Commencing Tuesday 7 April.
In 2015, TAASA QLD invites members to our
new monthly Asian Ceramics interest group.
The events - to be held in members’ homes
- will include light refreshments, a themed
presentation each month, show and tell,
history corner and book review.
RSVP for 7 April meeting to James
MacKean at [email protected]. Venue
advised when booking.
TAASA QLD Textile Interest Group
The Queensland events committee hopes
to announce the launch of a textile interest
group at our International lunch in March.
More information will be provided as
details are finalised.
Register your interest with Mandy Ridley
at [email protected].
29
W H A T ’ S O N : M ARCH 2 0 1 5 – M A Y 2 0 1 5
A S E L E C T I V E R O U N D U P O F E XH I B I T I O N S A N D E V E N T S
Compiled by Tina Burge
ACT
The story of Rama: Indian miniatures from
the National Museum, New Delhi
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
End April/May (TBA) – 23 August 2015
This exhibition tells the Ramayana through
101 paintings, each illustrating a key moment
from the narrative. A tale of love, loyalty,
betrayal and the victory of good over evil, the
Ramayana is one of the world’s great epics.
The paintings were created between the 16th
and 19th centuries in locations across India
and present the diversity of regional painting
styles. The exhibition was curated by the
National Museum, New Delhi, from their
extensive collection.
In association with the exhibition will be a
series of talks:
Curator’s perspective - Melanie Eastburn,
Curator, Asian Art, will talk about the
exhibition on 28 April at 12.45pm.
Ramayana: myths and realities - Dr Richard
Barz will discuss aspects of the Ramayana
story that have impacted on the political and
religious development of societies across South
and Southeast Asia on 12 May at 12.45 pm.
Hanuman and the monkey army - Claudia
Hyles, independent researcher will examine
the role of the Monkey God Hanuman in the
Ramayana story on 19 May at 12.45 pm.
For further information go to:
www.nga.gov.au
Art of India lecture series
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
April and May 2015, 12 – 1pm on Wednesdays
The topics in this lecture series will be
arranged chronologically from the 10th to
21st century, with each lecture focusing on
an artistic highpoint or intriguing strand of
India’s cultural heritage.
Lecture details can be found in the insert to
this issue.
For further information go to: www.ag.nsw.
gov.au or call 02 9225 1878.
INTERCHANGE: Contemporary Printmaking
from Australia and Thailand
Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
9 May – 12 July 2015
Features 30 artists from Thailand and
Australia, selected to showcase the diversity
30
of print as a contemporary art discipline.
All artists work within the traditions of
printmaking such as etching, lithography,
screen printing, relief printing with many
artists extending their work to create nonconventional pieces with an emphasis on
innovation.
For further information go to: www.
mosmanartgallery.org.au/exhibitions/
interchange-contemporary-printmakingfrom-australia-and-thailand
of MASS GROUP INCIDENT’s five month
rolling exhibition. Featuring short works
through to longer durational performances,
48HR Incident is a call to action, a test of
audiences’ will and commitment to meet
the challenges that artists present them.
Some of the artists participating are Frances
Barrett, Dadang Christanto, Blak Douglas
(a.k.a Adam Hill), Salote Tawale, Latai
Taumoepeau and Tony Schwensen.
For further information go to:
www.4a.com.au
Go East - Gene and Brian Sherman
Contemporary Asian Art Collection
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
14 May – 26 July 2015
Brush and ink: Contemporary Asian
calligraphy
Showcases Australian philanthropists
Gene and Brian Sherman’s collection of
contemporary Asian art, including artists
from the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan,
Indonesia, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam and
China. A monumental installation by Indian
artist Jitish Kallat will transform the Gallery’s
entrance court.
For further information go to:
www.ag.nsw.gov.au
Tell Me My Truth
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
27 March – 16 May 2015
This is the second exhibition instalment
of MASS GROUP INCIDENT, the five
month multi-stage program of exhibitions,
site-specific projects, performances, film
screenings and public programs from 17
January to 31 May 2015. Tell Me My Truth
looks to pertinent and often contentious
questions around the mediation of history,
memory, mass communication, surveillance,
control and the central question of the
subjectivity of the individual in relation
to the group. Participating artists include
Simon Fujiwara, Helen Grace, Amala Groom,
Shilpa Gupta, FX Harsono, He Xiangyu,
James Newitt, Tony Schwensen and John von
Sturmer.
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Now until 19 April 2015
Presents recent works from Japan, Mongolia
and China portraying a subtle play of words
and imagery, depicted in black and white,
and imbued with a new sense of energy. For
the first time in Australia, AGSA will present
the monumental, calligraphic installations
of artist and commercial designer Hiroko
Watanabe (b. 1970, Nagoya, Japan). In
addition, there are a selection of recent
works by Mongolian calligraphers, as well as
calligraphy from some of Shandong’s most
well-known calligraphers.
For further information go to:
www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
VICTORIA
A Golden Age of China Qianlong Emperor, 1736–1795
NGV International
27 March – 21 June 2015
29 May 2015, 6pm – Sunday 31 May 2015, 6pm
The Qianlong emperor’s diverse and eclectic
interest in the arts is reflected in the items
he collected. The exhibition of 120 works
includes a lavish display of paintings in silk
and paper, silk court robes, precious-stone
inlayed objet d’art and portraits of members
of the imperial household; paintings of
hunting scenes, court ceremonies and private
life of the Qianlong emperor, ceremonial
weapons and other palace treasures.
48HR Incident will be a continuous program
of live performance works and other forms of
artistic actions running over 48 hours in 4A’s
gallery spaces and marks the final program
On 28 March, 11am, Dr Mae Anna Pang,
Senior Curator of Asian Art, will discuss
Emperor Qianlong’s collection. At 12pm,
Laurie Benson, Curator of International
48HR INCIDENT
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
Art, will discuss Italian Jesuit Giuseppe
Castiglione, the principal painter at the Royal
Court of Emperor Qianlong, and his role in
the influence of European artistic styles on
Chinese painting.
Gods, Heroes and Clowns - Performance and
Narrative in South and Southeast Asian Art
NGV International, Melbourne
1 May – 30 August 2015
Gods, Heroes and Clowns explores historical
and contemporary visual and performance art
inspired by the many narratives that pervade
South and Southeast Asia, including the
great Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the
Ramayana, and ballads describing the exploits
of local folk heroes. Works on display come
from India, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia and
Cambodia and include storyteller’s cloths,
shrine and temple hangings, manuscripts
and paintings, masks and puppets. The
works were used in a wide range of contexts,
including religious festivals, as painted
backdrops to storyteller’s performances
and in lively puppet plays. Contemporary
works include a patachitra (painted narrative
textile) from Orissa, India, a sculpture by
Indonesian artist Entang WIharso inspired
by wayang kulit puppet performances, and a
commissioned ‘soft sculpture’ by Cambodian
artist Svay Sareth which critiques the message
of the Buddhist Vessantara tale.
For further information go to:
www.ngv.vic.gov.au
archaeology in asia
A series of TAASA lectures by eminent specialists
Venue: Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street Sydney
All events 6 – 8pm. Drinks & light refreshments served.
Monday 2 March 2015
The relics and monuments of
Buddhist Kashgar
Marika Vicziany, Emeritus Professor, and Angelo Andrea Di Castro, Senior Lecturer,
Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne.
A comparison of the oasis environment of western China (c.100 - 800 CE) with the
monsoon civilisations of Bagan, Anuradhapura and Angkor.
Monday 13 April 2015
Everybody hates the archaeology
department
Bob Hudson, an archaeologist specialising in pre-modern Myanmar,
reviews the successful Pyu Cities World Heritage campaign, exploring issues that may affect
the bid to inscribe Bagan’s more than 3000 Buddhist monuments on the World Heritage list.
Monday 11 May 2015
The Akchakhan-kala Wall Paintings:
kingship and religion in ancient Khorezm
Alison Betts, Professor of Silk Road Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of
Sydney. NB: This lecture will be held at UNSW Art and Design (COFA) Paddington in Lecture
Theatre EG02
Monday 1 June 2015
Casting for the King - The Royal Palace
Bronze Workshop of Angkor
Martin Polkinghorne, Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Sydney Southeast
Asia Centre, University of Sydney describes how, for the first time in Southeast Asia, a
multi-disciplinary project has identified a historic bronze workshop where both statues
and objects were crafted.
Monday 6 July 2015
Archaeology in China
Speaker to be confirmed
INSIDE BURMA: THE ESSENTIAL
EXPERIENCE
22 October - 10 November 2015
Burma is changing rapidly. Archaeologist and
TAASA contributor Dr Bob Hudson is the doyen
of Burma guides and his longstanding annual
tour is now available. As usual, extended stays
are featured in medieval Mrauk U (capital of the
lost ancient kingdom of Arakan) and in Bagan,
rivalling Angkor Wat as Southeast Asia’s richest
archaeological precinct (and seeking Burma's
second World Heritage Listing). Interesting
segments in Yangon, Inle Lake, Mandalay
and private riverboat cruises down the mighty
Ayeyarwady and the Kaladan are included. See
Burma now before 'progress' changes it forever.
Contact us for the full tour brochure.
Land Only cost estimate per person
twinshare $6200 ex Yangon
BURMA: WORLD HERITAGE
JOURNEY
09 November - 26 November 2015
Burma's initial entry onto the World Heritage List
was in June 2014 with the inclusion of Pyu Ancient
Cities. This site includes the remains of the brick,
walled and moated cities of Halin, Beikthano and
Sri Ksetra who practised intensive agriculture in vast
irrigated landscapes. They reflect the Pyu Kingdoms
that flourished for over 1000 years between 200 BC
and AD 900. Our schedule includes these three cities
and their environs, Yangon and other interesting
out-of-the-way places in the river valleys of the
Ayeyarwady and Chindwin. Designed primarily
for those who have previously visited, the journey
would suit first-time Burma travellers with an added
extension. Archaeologist and TAASA contributor
Dr Bob Hudson, adviser to UNESCO and the
Myanmar Ministry of Culture for the successful
World Heritage Bid, is our program leader.
Contact us for the full tour brochure.
Land Only cost estimate per person
twinshare $5900 ex Yangon
To receive a brochure or for further
information contact Ray Boniface
Cost and booking
H E R I TA G E D E S T I N AT I O N S
Members $20 per lecture; $25 non-members
By email to Jillian: [email protected] or phone: Jillian Kennedy 02 9958 7378
Bookings and payment in advance essential. No refunds.
Payment methods: EFT or credit card.
PO Box U237
University of Wollongong NSW 2500 Australia
p: +61 2 4228 3887 m: 0409 927 129
e: [email protected]
TA A S A R E V I E W V O L U M E 2 4 N O. 1
N AT U R E • B U I L D I N G S • P E O P L E • T R AV E L L E R S
ABN 21 071 079 859 Lic No TAG1747
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