Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The Problem of Language in Cross-Cultural Studies (Reflection 01)
Translation is a conceptual model used as a tool to interpret one’s understanding of a background through his own experience and cultural background. By translating, we are giving new meanings to the object of inquiry. Translation is problematic, yet many are constantly making meanings out of things, for instant, art. Understanding Georgette Chen been categorized as a “Nanyang Style” artist by her combination of Asian themes and her influences from the Western ideas and painting techniques is a preconceived knowledge I've read from references. It is understood from her painting techniques, that her education abroad in Europe during the early days has marked a significant influence from the Western Post-Impressionist artists. Nevertheless, Georgette Chen’s paintings displayed a strong Asian pictorial symbol.
How did the artist decide on which aspect of the foreign influence and the taste of Asian essence?(This inquisitive question was brought up during a presentation)
I think Georgette Chen as a Chinese, she had wanted very much to break through as an unique individual artist, using a hybrid of her Western influence with her Asian culture. Her choice of Asian pictorial images may be a direct sign, even to the layman, that her works were obviously categorised as Asian. This may mean that she had prioritised her identity as an Asian Chinese and strongly grounded her cultural roots. Even the image she had portrayed in Self-Portrait was very "Chinese". The search for modernity at that period may also be the cause for her influence of Post-Imppressionist painting style.
Why Modernity?
We must understand that the Euro-America was the dominance of the world and the colonization of Southeast Asia had the effect on the Asians being categorized as “the others” or being inferior. As the Post-Impressionism allows personal expression, the opportunity came for the artists as their main concern at that time was to build a strong culture in the Chinese nation so as not to be lacking behind with the progress of the economic globalization in the world.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Georgette Chen -Chang Li Ying
(b. 1906, Zejiang Province, China - d. 15 March 1993, Singapore)
The Artist
Georgette Chen is considered one of Singapore’s pioneer artists to have established the Nanyang style of painting. She was born into a family of wealth. The daughter of a businessman, she had lived a privileged life, traveling through China, to Paris and New York during her youth. She was exposed to the Western culture and art in her early youth when her family left Shanghai in 1909. She was educated in New York where she attended art classes at the Art Students League (1926-1927), and later studied art at the Academie Colarossi and Academie Biloul in Paris. In 1930, Whilst in Paris, she married her second husband, the Chinese Foreign Minister to the Republic of China, Eugene Chen Youren. He had an immerse intellectual and passionate influence in her life.
Portrait of Eugene Chen by Georgette Chen.
Year: 1940. Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 92 x 91.5cm.
This was also the year (1930) that the first of her art works was accepted for exhibition, at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. Her early work, for example, Still Life with Cut Apple and Orange (circa 1928 - 1930) revealed clearly the influence of the late nineteenth century French Impressionists such as Jean Baptiste Corot and Paul Cezanne, with her heavy brush strokes with dark tones filled with vigour and energy to emphasis on the volume and texture. The apples and oranges in the painting were made more definite through a focused and compact composition, giving closeness and representative quality to the still-life, a quality which is consistently found in Chen's paintings. She also emphasized strongly on the harmonious characteristics in her paintings, throughout her earlier works to her later ones.
One example is shown in this painting- the exuberance of the colours of the fruits and the different textures contrast with the vague and gray background colours were shown achieve a intended and sensitive balance of elements in the painting.
Still Life with Cut Apple and Orange by Georgette Chen.
Year: 1928-1930. Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 26 x 34 cm.
Georgette Chen is well-known for her still life paintings and portraits in oils. Following her husband’s demise, Georgette Chen settled in Singapore in 1954 and subsequently became an art teacher at Nanyang Academy of Fine Art for twenty-six years. In recognition of her contribution to the Singapore art, the artist was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1982, eight years before she passed away.
Georgette Chen's paintings from 1951 onwards display her maturity as an artist. Her Western-style training with her use of local subject matter placed her as a 'Nanyang Style' artist, a style that was characterised by its hybrid art form incorporating Asian themes and Western ideas and techniques.
The Artist’s Work (1)
Self Portrait by Georgette Chen
Year: 1946 Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 23 x 18 m.
This is one of my favourite of Georgette Chen’s paintings. The painting is a close-up, full-sized and hauntlngly-real likeness of herself.
"Self Portrait" was painted in 1946. There is a remarkable sense of detachment that she portrayed herself with a disciplined approach to method while engaging the viewer with the personality behind the face. The artist gazed from a side angle at the viewer with her head slightly tilted back, seemingly as if in appraisal. The most distinguished feature in this painting was her eyes. They were sharp and piercing, as though they exhibited a steady sense of determination beyond all the struggles as a woman artist in her times.
Her face is complemented by the warm sandy glow of the background with the fresh shades of beige, light pink and white hightlights on her face. Minimum lines were shown to delineate the contours of her face and hair, and the meagre use of colours to differentiate shades of her facial complexion from the simple background and clear articulation of features such as the curly fringe above her ear and the starched Chinese collar of her dress. Her sharply defined cerise vermillion lips, and her clear articulation of her curly fringe above her ear, as well as the glossy black of her dress adds more contrast to the soft effects of her supple skin. Nevertheless, the artist had displayed an elegant and sophisticated demeanour and we could see that from her stiffness of her cheongsum collar, the elegance of the rolled hairstyle and the subtle delineations of her jawline.
The Artist’s Work (2)
Still Life: Moon Festival Table by Georgette Chen
Year: 1965-1968 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 73 x 60 cm.
As we could see in this painting, Georgette Chen was inspired by the rich images and practices of the Singaporean culture and I feel that this painting is one of her most conspicuous still-lifes. The artist’s concept of colour in this painting invoked the mood of Asia in its festivity. There might be traces of European art influence here but primarily this still life revealed a mood that the artist wished to convey. The brushstrokes still detects the bold, texturised Westernized characteristics, yet the subject in the painting belies the conscious and thoughtful effort that she put into her selection of objects, the composition and choices of colours, which I feel was very Asian.
The work is a ceremonious and yet unpretentious arrangement of festive goods, in reds and greens, against a simple, pale yellow background. In spite of the presentation being so direct, the viewer cannot but be affected by the colourful exuberance of the festive table and the spiritedness of the occasion. Today in this generation, many custom practices have been forgotten or taken for granted, therefore, I think this representation perfectly embraces the simplicity of the joyous mood of the occasion enjoyed by everyday folks.
(b. 1906, Zejiang Province, China - d. 15 March 1993, Singapore)
The Artist
Georgette Chen is considered one of Singapore’s pioneer artists to have established the Nanyang style of painting. She was born into a family of wealth. The daughter of a businessman, she had lived a privileged life, traveling through China, to Paris and New York during her youth. She was exposed to the Western culture and art in her early youth when her family left Shanghai in 1909. She was educated in New York where she attended art classes at the Art Students League (1926-1927), and later studied art at the Academie Colarossi and Academie Biloul in Paris. In 1930, Whilst in Paris, she married her second husband, the Chinese Foreign Minister to the Republic of China, Eugene Chen Youren. He had an immerse intellectual and passionate influence in her life.
Portrait of Eugene Chen by Georgette Chen.
Year: 1940. Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 92 x 91.5cm.
This was also the year (1930) that the first of her art works was accepted for exhibition, at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. Her early work, for example, Still Life with Cut Apple and Orange (circa 1928 - 1930) revealed clearly the influence of the late nineteenth century French Impressionists such as Jean Baptiste Corot and Paul Cezanne, with her heavy brush strokes with dark tones filled with vigour and energy to emphasis on the volume and texture. The apples and oranges in the painting were made more definite through a focused and compact composition, giving closeness and representative quality to the still-life, a quality which is consistently found in Chen's paintings. She also emphasized strongly on the harmonious characteristics in her paintings, throughout her earlier works to her later ones.
One example is shown in this painting- the exuberance of the colours of the fruits and the different textures contrast with the vague and gray background colours were shown achieve a intended and sensitive balance of elements in the painting.
Still Life with Cut Apple and Orange by Georgette Chen.
Year: 1928-1930. Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 26 x 34 cm.
Georgette Chen is well-known for her still life paintings and portraits in oils. Following her husband’s demise, Georgette Chen settled in Singapore in 1954 and subsequently became an art teacher at Nanyang Academy of Fine Art for twenty-six years. In recognition of her contribution to the Singapore art, the artist was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1982, eight years before she passed away.
Georgette Chen's paintings from 1951 onwards display her maturity as an artist. Her Western-style training with her use of local subject matter placed her as a 'Nanyang Style' artist, a style that was characterised by its hybrid art form incorporating Asian themes and Western ideas and techniques.
The Artist’s Work (1)
Self Portrait by Georgette Chen
Year: 1946 Medium: Oil on canvas. Size: 23 x 18 m.
This is one of my favourite of Georgette Chen’s paintings. The painting is a close-up, full-sized and hauntlngly-real likeness of herself.
"Self Portrait" was painted in 1946. There is a remarkable sense of detachment that she portrayed herself with a disciplined approach to method while engaging the viewer with the personality behind the face. The artist gazed from a side angle at the viewer with her head slightly tilted back, seemingly as if in appraisal. The most distinguished feature in this painting was her eyes. They were sharp and piercing, as though they exhibited a steady sense of determination beyond all the struggles as a woman artist in her times.
Her face is complemented by the warm sandy glow of the background with the fresh shades of beige, light pink and white hightlights on her face. Minimum lines were shown to delineate the contours of her face and hair, and the meagre use of colours to differentiate shades of her facial complexion from the simple background and clear articulation of features such as the curly fringe above her ear and the starched Chinese collar of her dress. Her sharply defined cerise vermillion lips, and her clear articulation of her curly fringe above her ear, as well as the glossy black of her dress adds more contrast to the soft effects of her supple skin. Nevertheless, the artist had displayed an elegant and sophisticated demeanour and we could see that from her stiffness of her cheongsum collar, the elegance of the rolled hairstyle and the subtle delineations of her jawline.
The Artist’s Work (2)
Still Life: Moon Festival Table by Georgette Chen
Year: 1965-1968 Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 73 x 60 cm.
As we could see in this painting, Georgette Chen was inspired by the rich images and practices of the Singaporean culture and I feel that this painting is one of her most conspicuous still-lifes. The artist’s concept of colour in this painting invoked the mood of Asia in its festivity. There might be traces of European art influence here but primarily this still life revealed a mood that the artist wished to convey. The brushstrokes still detects the bold, texturised Westernized characteristics, yet the subject in the painting belies the conscious and thoughtful effort that she put into her selection of objects, the composition and choices of colours, which I feel was very Asian.
The work is a ceremonious and yet unpretentious arrangement of festive goods, in reds and greens, against a simple, pale yellow background. In spite of the presentation being so direct, the viewer cannot but be affected by the colourful exuberance of the festive table and the spiritedness of the occasion. Today in this generation, many custom practices have been forgotten or taken for granted, therefore, I think this representation perfectly embraces the simplicity of the joyous mood of the occasion enjoyed by everyday folks.
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