Nanyang Style

What is the Nanyang Style? 
The Nanyang Style refers to the use of a mix of styles and techniques from Chinese pictorial traditions and the School of Paris, which was practised by a group of artists who featured prominently within the local cultural scene in the years after the end of the Second World War.

• Nanyang artists painted outdoors to capture everyday existences.
• Colours were quite subjectively used, and symbols were adopted.
• In addition, the artists’ brushworks were executed with the skill of traditional Chinese painting.
• The artists were also striving to represent the region’s culture and lifestyle– the word “南洋”(nanyang) means “Southern Seas” in Chinese, and referred to the entire South China Sea region.

The Pioneer Nanyang Artists

Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi, Liu Kang and Georgette Chen.
Four stand out from these, for their growth as artists was spurred tremendously by their trip to Bali in 1952.
These painters are Cheong Soo Pieng, Chen Chong Swee, Chen Wen Hsi and Liu Kang.
The artists were struck by the exoticism of Bali, and having gained inspiration from the bright colours, sights and sounds of Bali.
All four were graduates of Shanghai’s Xin Hua Academy of Fine Arts, all taught at NAFA at some point, and all had exposure to the varied French schools of art– whether through self-exploration by living in European cities for periods at a time, or via art journals and communication with European artists based in Southeast Asia.

My work focused on using Chen Chong Swee’s Scenery as an example and by analysing it, helps to introduce viewers to the different characteristics of the Nanyang Style.

Chen Chong Swee was the first person to attempt a synthesis of distinctive aesthetic traditions of the East and the West, which later became known as “Nanyang School” Chinese painting style. He, being extremely outstanding in the field of watercolours, was one of the founding members of Singapore’s Watercolour Society. He and the four other pioneer artists (Liu Kang, Chen Wen Hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng took a lot of trips to Bali and Malaysia in search of inspiration and what was authentically Southeast Asian. The trips hence provided the artists with a lot of material for the visual expression that is uniquely Southeast Asian and also revealing Southeast Asian art to be ritualistic, experimental and decorative. Not only was he keen on developing the Nanyang Style, he was also interested in letting more people learn about the style and the goals behind the style. He was a large contributor to written reviews and reflections of works and trends in art. He also wrote an issue where he discussed the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western art, the need to combine both to produce a completely new style and the need to develop traditional Chinese painting as to be relevant to the multicultural environment of that time. He was also the first artist to incorporate the local subject matter of Singapore into Chinese ink painting.

Chen Chong Swee believes that there are 6 principles, all of which must be sustained, in the ink painting tradition:

1. Spirit Resonance and Life Movement
2. Bone Manner (structure): use of the brush
3. Conform with the Objects to give likeness
4. Apply the colors according to the characteristics
5. Plan and design (composition)
6. To transmit models by drawing

He believed that a student of ink painting needed to fully comprehend all the six principles in order to create a good ink work.
Chen Chong Swee believed that “Art is a part of life and cannot exist independently from real life.  If it fails to be accepted by another (as it is subjective), it looses its essence of universality and can no longer exist as art”.

In his work, Scenery, a combination of elements from the Western art and the Eastern art. His arrangement and portrayal of the subject matter is very similar to the Chinese ink paintings and also his brushstrokes were executed with the skill of traditional Chinese painting, seemingly realistic but painterly. This was one of the most important characteristics of Nanyang Style.

The colours used in this painting are also very bright and rich. It captures the colours of the scenery really well and maintains the original feel of the scenery even in his painting. The colours in the foreground are very rich and as it goes further into the background, the colours slowly fade, similar in technique to the Chinese ink paintings. With the influence of the Western art, the colours used are more vibrant and eye-catching, rather than dull and mundane or even monochrome. Hence, the vibrant colours used by the artists are also a notable characteristic in the Nanyang Style.

The background of the painting is of the mountains shrouded by clouds and this kind of background is normally found in Chinese ink painting , which retains qualities of the vast and infinite space for the viewers to imagine . This, in fact, is also one of the characteristics infused into the Nanyang Styleand is normally evident in paintings of other sceneries.

The subject matter is outdoors. This trait possessed by the Nanyang Style artists helps them to observe the environment that they live in better. They like to paint outdoors so that they can fully feel the air around the subject matter and energy that it carries and translate all of this into a painting, hence, essentially capturing the essence of the scenery.

Other characteristics of Nanyang Style:

• White/Black/Dark outlines are often used (influenced by the Batik paintings)
• Subject matter normally based on Bali (sceneries and people etc)
• Normally tells audiences of the society’s culture

Written Review:

I feel that my work is quite successful in capturing the spirit of Nanyang because I’ve incorporated the backbone of the Nanyang Style, which is the combination of the Western art and the Eastern art. My artwork starts from the right, resembling a Chinese scroll and the chinese words, which is the introduction to Nanyang Style and Chen Chong Swee, are written from down to up, left to right, which is the traditional style of chinese writing in the past. For my artwork, I’ve decided to use Chen Chong Swee’s Scenery to depict the characteristics of Nanyang Style as I feel that the viewers would be able to relate the style to a specific artwork more and realise how the characteristics appear in an actaul Nnanyang Style artwork. Hence, by analysing Scenery, I brought out the characteristics of the Nanyang Style. On the left side, I introduced Nanyang Style in English, along with the pioneers of Nanyang Style, also, introducing some of the notable works by these pioneer artists. I feel that my artwork is  able to capture the spirit of the Nanyang Style by using the simple layouts and introductions to the most imporatant parts of Nanyang Style.

 

 

2014 Life Skills Camp (Graces) Logo Tshirt

Graces Tee Design 2014

For the last year, I decided to design something of a different style from the previous years. While drawing up my mindmap, I thought of elements of grace and how colours can also bring out beauty and gracefulness with the softness of the pastels. I thought of elements like ribbons, heels, brushes and a fawn but the one that I’m most pleased with would be the make-up brushes and the softness of the brush itself and the colours from the powder seem to represent a change towards a part of life that would be richer in colour and presents more possibilities.

Mindmap

Next I worked on my thoughts and how I would want the style of the product to come about. I got my inspirations from a graphic design books that talkes about various famous graphic design pioneers and I was really inspired and influenced by some of their style and how it all linked to marketing and advertising. And since, the tshirt logo is something that I want the viewers to be able to remember at a short glance, I need the logo to be really attention seeking and the words must be visually paired with the graphics(drawings). Hence, i wrote out a page to organise my thoughts nad objectives for the design.

Organisation of thoughts and Objectives

As I mentioned earlier, my inspirations came from the graphic designer pioneers, people like Lucian Bernhard, Hans Rudi Erdt, Ludwig Hohlwein, Filippo Tommaso Marinett etc. Hence, for my artist references, I decided to anaylse some of their designs and see what points I can learn from them and what would be suitable for the Graces tee design. I felt that I was able to learn a lot of technical and reasonings behind the arrangements of the words and the graphins and what the design was trying to tell the viewers. The designs really had a dynamic effect on the viewers as they were direct and bold, conveying exactly what had been intended by the designer. Tonal values and textures also help a lot in the design, making it stand out more as they would look more 3-D and with the appropriate pairing of words with the graphics, one would easily associate the graphics to the word or the brand that it was marketing for. Through anaylsing the artists’ work, I also felt that I had learnt a lot about how graphic design came to be and how it changed throughout the years, and even how the Bauhaus was included in this rich history.

Artists’ Reference 1

Artists’ Reference 2

Firstly, I’ve decided to work on the logo that would be on the tshirt front, the smaller logo. I’ve picked make-up brushes as a main subject matter and tried out the different styles of presenting it and the orientation of the brush. I’ve also made some notations as to where I think each draft can be improved or whether it is suitable for the tshirt design or not. Then I worked on my draft designs for the front logo, onw which is inked and one which is dotted. The inked one allowed me to play with the positive and negative spaces and also the arrangements of the words. The dotted on on the other hand, is richer in tonal values and present a fresher idea unlike the over-used mathod of inking.

Sketch

Draft

Next, I started to work on the back design. I was deciding between using a more asian model or a more eurasian model but I’ve decided to go with the more asian one as Graces is held in Singapore and logically speaking, it would be more relatable to design using an asian model as the subject matter. I pointed out some similarities and differences between the two models and added a little of my thoughts on the right hand side. Then, i drew up two drafts which are both inked. The first one would show a more elegant and mature woman as compared to the second one, which looks more childish.

Selecting Models

Draft

Since, I’ve decided to use the ‘pointilism’ style for the logo, I wanted to make the logos simliar in style so that they complement each other. I thought I like the front logo design better as I thought that the different elements in the design really complemented each other well, even the drawings and the words; hence, it I thought that it really represented Graces as a whole. As fot the back design, I felt that it could be worked on more as it doesn’t really stand out yetand the style of the words are rather different from the design itself, however, I still thought that it was an improvement from breaking away from my usual inking style.

Front Logo Design

Back Logo Design

After this project, I felt that other than coming up with two designs that I’m quite satisfied with, I’ve also learnt another form of art, which is the graphics design and also a bit of its history, giving me more inspirations and techniques that I can venture into. I felt that it has also equipped me with another style of design and not just stick to the norm, but make my designs more unique and outstanding. However, I feel that I still have a long way to go and I would work harder towards improving my techniques and of course, the study of visual arts.

Inspired Work from ‘Herons’–Chen Wen Hsi

Herons–Chen Wen Hsi (1990), Chinese ink and colours

Theme: Space/Structure

Topics: Pictorial Space, The treatment of space and structure in 2-D artworks

Artists use different methods to represent pictorial space on the 2-D surface. These methods range from attempts to recreate an illusionist space to exploration of space and structure on the 2-D surface itself.

The subject matter of this painting is a flock of herons of many different colours, against a white background. The painting also seems to include a pond with fishes in it, which shows that the artist somehow miraculously combined two separate spaces into one in this 2-D work– the sky and the pond. The flock of herons seems to be fighting to feed on the fishes in the pond.

The theme that the artist has selected in this painting conveys to the viewers his fascination for clutter and his love to interplay light and forms in chaotic subjects. The elements are being very cleverly used in this painting. For example, the shapes are geometric and are experimented by placing them in different perspectives without any noticeable patterns. The colours are also placed at random. Hence, this use of colour and shape cause a visual fragmentation, with the lines and tonal value adding to this effect, bringing out the spacial and structural properties of this painting.

The middle of the painting is more concentrated as the artist manipulates space, making the centre look more crwoded with herons as compared to the other two sides of the painting. He achieved this by placing the herons in the centre vertically with lesser spacing between them and placing lesser herons at the two sides with a mix of both vertical and horizontal arrangement. This compacted rhythm and guidance from the herons of the two sides (using lines) enables a line of visual contact to be made with the centre of the painting.

The artist makes use the depth to bring out his theme further. Firstly, his herons are of different shapes and sizes. The smaller herons thus mean that they are further away from the herons that are bigger in size. He also uses overlapping to achieve this. Hence, these methods help to prevent the painting from looking too “flat” and also creates depth in a 2-D painting with a zero point perspective.

The warm colours of the herons make the painting feel warm and peaceful although the subject matter is of the herons fighting for fishes (or survival). The brushworks used in this painting is greatly similar to the traditional Chinesee painting style, especially the fishes in the pond. For the herons, they are painted in a more abstract style, using angular and geometric shapes, probably inspired by the Cubists, where the objects are broken up and re-assembled in an abstract form. Hence, it can be seen that the artist gave Chinese traditional painting a twist but perserved its symbolism.

The colours used in the painting are mostly made up of orange and grey. Both balances each other out to give a warm and calm feeling to the overall mood of the painting . This balance also symbolises the balance of both the East and the West in this painting as the artist created this painting using Chinese painting and Western oil paint and yet, managed to create and acheive harmony and balance throughout the whole painting, indirectly conveying to the viewers a very important message: Telling the wolrd to be more opened-minded and always be ready to accept changes and in this case, Western and Chinese painting can also be combined seamlessly to create a new form of art.

Our Group’s Response

Inspired by this artwork, my group has decided to recreate Chen Wen Hsi’s “Heron” but with a slight twist, which is making the work 3-D. We felt that this would better represent the harmony between the many different natural elements in the painting. We made origami herons and paper with frilled ends to represent trees. We did our own interpretation of the harmony between the pond and the sky, with the herons being 3-D, it gives a stronger image of the herons flying in the sky but at the same time, fighting for the fishes in the pond, giving the viewers a wider imagination space. The pond is represented by the reflection of the water so that its brings out more depth instead of just painting the whole base blue, or using blue paper. Fishes are also drawn or pasted on the base, the pasted ones means that they are much closer to the surface than those that are being drawn and thus help to show depth of the work. By working on this artwork that is inspired by Chen Wen Hsi, we felt that we had surely learnt a lot and of course, different perspectives of viewing spacial and structural usage and also the wonders of the combination of Chinese art elements and the Western art elements, which results in a genre that has a story to speak for itself.