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CHEN WEN HSI
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Description
CHEN WEN HSI
1906-1991
BALINESE BOATMAN
Signed lower left
Oil on canvas
112 by 85 cm.; 44 by 35 3/4 in.
Literature
T.K Sabapathy, 'Reminiscence of Singapore's Pioneer Art Masters', Toppan Printing Co., Singapore 1994, page 117, colourplate
Exhibited
Singapore, 'Reminiscence of Singapore's Pioneer Art Masters', Singapore, March 11-22, 1994
Singapore, "From Ritual to Romance, Paintings Inspired by Bali", National Museum Art Gallery, January 22- February 20, 1994
S$280000-380000
US$169690-230300
Chen Wen Hsi's well-known trip to Bali in 1952, which he made with fellow artists Liu Kang, Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Chong Swee, precipitated the formulation of a new brand of Asian Modernism in Singapore. All four artists were graduates of the Xinhua Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai and were familiar with both the Chinese tradition and with Western academic techniques. The trip to Bali inspired the group to explore more personal styles in an attempt to establish a relevant form of Modern art in Singapore.
For several reasons these painters are situated at an interesting point in the history of Southeast Asian art. Chen Wen Hsi was born and raised in China and received his formal education there. He arrived in Singapore in 1949 at the relatively late age of 43. In the 1950s, Singapore was still very much a British colony with a multi-racial population. Without the fervour of an ethnicity-based nationalism which motivated Indonesian and Filipino artists, modern art in Malaya did not have that sense of crisis, urgency or excitement with which the radical approach of Modernism was so suited to. In any case, having escaped the political turmoil of Communist China, Chen and his fellow artists were intent not to politicise their art in a British colony on the verge of a Communist insurgency.
In this sense the early history of Modern Art in Singapore is one that carries with it an underlying sense of displacement, impotence and soul-searching. Without a suitably relevant cause, Singapore's pioneer Modernists turned to Bali for inspiration.
Not surprisingly then, Balinese Boatman expresses Chen's artistic liberation. In Bali he was able to channel his sentiments about modern art techniques, which, he had come to realise, shared the technical freedom of classical Chinese xieyi, or 'free-form' brush painting. The visual and cultural stimulation of Bali triggered off the translation of these sentiments onto canvas.
Chen's traditional Chinese ink paintings are exceptionally muted and elegant in mood and tone, and sparse in composition. In contrast, Balinese Boatman is a crowded, graphic canvas saturated with colour. A boatman who, with his colourful sarong and headscarf, seems to be dressed for a ceremony, sits cross-legged by the edge of his brightly painted perahu. Behind him, two more gleaming boats float on the choppy surface of the luminously azure sea. The painting's colour, dynamic spatial geometry (with its energetic web of linear forms) as well as its expressive brushwork reveal the artist's excitement and optimism in being able to express himself in the language of modern art.
The supremely Singaporean flavour of pioneer Singaporean modernists like Chen Wen Hsi lies not so much in the fact that he painted this kind of exuberantly colourful and graphically dynamic canvases, but that he did all this in tandem with delicate, supremely elegant Chinese style paintings. The point at where these two different currents meet is where the perfume of Singaporean modernism emanates.
1906-1991
BALINESE BOATMAN
Signed lower left
Oil on canvas
112 by 85 cm.; 44 by 35 3/4 in.
Literature
T.K Sabapathy, 'Reminiscence of Singapore's Pioneer Art Masters', Toppan Printing Co., Singapore 1994, page 117, colourplate
Exhibited
Singapore, 'Reminiscence of Singapore's Pioneer Art Masters', Singapore, March 11-22, 1994
Singapore, "From Ritual to Romance, Paintings Inspired by Bali", National Museum Art Gallery, January 22- February 20, 1994
S$280000-380000
US$169690-230300
Chen Wen Hsi's well-known trip to Bali in 1952, which he made with fellow artists Liu Kang, Cheong Soo Pieng and Chen Chong Swee, precipitated the formulation of a new brand of Asian Modernism in Singapore. All four artists were graduates of the Xinhua Fine Arts Academy in Shanghai and were familiar with both the Chinese tradition and with Western academic techniques. The trip to Bali inspired the group to explore more personal styles in an attempt to establish a relevant form of Modern art in Singapore.
For several reasons these painters are situated at an interesting point in the history of Southeast Asian art. Chen Wen Hsi was born and raised in China and received his formal education there. He arrived in Singapore in 1949 at the relatively late age of 43. In the 1950s, Singapore was still very much a British colony with a multi-racial population. Without the fervour of an ethnicity-based nationalism which motivated Indonesian and Filipino artists, modern art in Malaya did not have that sense of crisis, urgency or excitement with which the radical approach of Modernism was so suited to. In any case, having escaped the political turmoil of Communist China, Chen and his fellow artists were intent not to politicise their art in a British colony on the verge of a Communist insurgency.
In this sense the early history of Modern Art in Singapore is one that carries with it an underlying sense of displacement, impotence and soul-searching. Without a suitably relevant cause, Singapore's pioneer Modernists turned to Bali for inspiration.
Not surprisingly then, Balinese Boatman expresses Chen's artistic liberation. In Bali he was able to channel his sentiments about modern art techniques, which, he had come to realise, shared the technical freedom of classical Chinese xieyi, or 'free-form' brush painting. The visual and cultural stimulation of Bali triggered off the translation of these sentiments onto canvas.
Chen's traditional Chinese ink paintings are exceptionally muted and elegant in mood and tone, and sparse in composition. In contrast, Balinese Boatman is a crowded, graphic canvas saturated with colour. A boatman who, with his colourful sarong and headscarf, seems to be dressed for a ceremony, sits cross-legged by the edge of his brightly painted perahu. Behind him, two more gleaming boats float on the choppy surface of the luminously azure sea. The painting's colour, dynamic spatial geometry (with its energetic web of linear forms) as well as its expressive brushwork reveal the artist's excitement and optimism in being able to express himself in the language of modern art.
The supremely Singaporean flavour of pioneer Singaporean modernists like Chen Wen Hsi lies not so much in the fact that he painted this kind of exuberantly colourful and graphically dynamic canvases, but that he did all this in tandem with delicate, supremely elegant Chinese style paintings. The point at where these two different currents meet is where the perfume of Singaporean modernism emanates.