Introduction: Chuah Thean
Teng - Artist of Malaysia
(by
Professor Ungku A. Aziz
Vice-Chancellor, University of Malaya. )
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To
know his art is to know a friend. Al- though my personal
acquaintance with Chuah Thean Teng spans hardly a decade,
because I have been able to study so many of his works,
I feel I know Teng better than mant of my other friends.
I
am delighted and I consider myself privileged to be able
to put down a few words in this brief introduction to
Teng’s book
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his batek art. Some people may assert that pictures need no
words and good art needs no introduction. However, even the
greatest artists known to man, have been the subject of written
and spoken appreciation. Therefore, within our modest scale
some introduction should not be considered out of place.
I will try to answer two questions. Who is Teng? And, why does
he deserve the accolade: Malaysia’s Leading Artist?
Teng’s life is for a biographer to write. Or, better still,
some day it is for Teng to write his autobiography.
He is a creative personality. His experience is deep. He has
a craftsman’s knowledge and skill of his tools and his media.
He has a fine appreciation of the whole reality that makes up
the Malaysian environment. He has a special eye for the rural
scene which as an economist whose main interest is poverty and
rural development, I find most appealing.
Teng also has a well-developed capacity to tune into the international
wave-lengths in the currents of modern art.
Combining these three talents (and the list is by no means exhaustive)
we find a Malaysian who can be a modern artist and whose works
of art are permeated by a truly native atmosphere.
Such is the artist: Teng.
The second question concerns our evaluation of Teng. Let me
be clear- I have neither the ambition to be, nor the illusion
that I am, an amateur art critic. I enjoy appreciating works
of art, I am keenly interested in art. I believe that until
the people of Malaysia receive works of art that they can understand
and enjoy, neither the people’s taste for culture nor the art
itself will develop on a national scale. I also believe that
sensibility for fine art must be deepened in the upper echelons
if our society. With these thoughts I have contributed some
time and energy to the Board of Trustees of the National Art
Gallery and to the Fine Arts Committee of the University of
Malaya.
Now, art criticism is a subjective matter. It is highly personal.
There are none of the absolute propositions of mathematics or
chemistry. Not- withstanding the absence of hard laws for artists
and their critics to abide by, from time to time, certain critics
have become acknowledged and their works have been accepted
sufficiently widely, socially and historically, that we can
with a measure of confidence refer to them as measuring rods
for the performance of any particular artist.
While I am fully conscious of the perils of transferring systems
of measurement from one context to another, I would suggest
that what I am about to present below is not wholely outrageous
or incongruous, if everything is taken into account in its totality
and of I am given the benefit of the customary licence that
is freely allowed to au- thors, poets and artists.
In China about 1500 years ago, there lived a man who is thought
by some to have written the most influential piece ever written
about the art of Chinese Paintings. This man was Hsieh Ho and
his great book was (Notes on the Classification of Old Paintings).
Hsieh Ho has laid down six techniques for evaluating paintings.
Unfortunately for those of us who are not well acquainted with
the ideographs of written Chinese, the six techniques are impossible
to translate satisfactorily. We must accept this as being a
natural consequence of having a system of ideographic script.
However for the interest of the readers of this foreword, I
will embolden myself to contrib- ute a few suggestions as to
how these six tech- niques can be interpreted in our terms.
And later, to make some remarks as to the extent to which Teng’s
merits meet the stringent requirements of these criteria. Hsieh
Ho’s techniques are:
1. Tone corresponds to real life.
2. Brush strokes construct the anatomy.
3. Shapes are according to nature.
4. Colouring is appropriate to the species.
5. Composition follow a plan.
6. Guidance is accepted from the old masters.
I would suggest that a thorough study of hundreds of Teng’s
batek paintings will enable a serious student of art to conclude
that in his own way, in our time and in our country, Teng fulfills
the requirements of the six principles of Hsieh Ho - as we say
in university language, "with Honours".
His tone, his colouring and his forms correspond to our life
and light. His composition and his ‘strokes’ seem just right.
In many a painting he has experimented with the modes of modern
masters - to name one (my personal favorite): Picasso. Let is
therefore enjoy reading this book of Teng’s. Let him be in his
terms, a model for others to follow.
Teng, Master Of Batik
(By
Frank Sullivan, Kuala Lumpur, 24th September, 1963)
With the astonishing effervescene of art in Malaya during her
six years of independence, one question is frequently asked,
"Is there a Malayan School of Art?" There are those who say
it is evolving; others contend a Malayan outlook in art is here
already.
Now that Malaya is part of the wider concept of Malaysia, debate
on this issue must take in wider horizons; only the passing
years will bring the answer.
There is no doubt, however, that there is one form of fine art
uniquely Malayan in origin which fits naturally into the pattern
of the way of life in Malaysia.
This is the unusual art of batik painting which owes its development
to a remarkable and industrious artist, 49-year old Chuah Thean
Teng, of Penang. Throughout the art world in South-East Asia
he is known simply by the name he signs Teng.
The craft of making batik cloth for everyday wear has been known
and used for centuries past throughout South-East Asia. This
loose wrap- around garment, known simply as kain in Malaya but
more familiarly throughout the world as the sarong, is worn
by millions in the Asian tropics.
In various forms it appears throughout Indonesia, South India,
Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaya, Borneo and the Southern Philippines.
In fact, some commentators refer to these areas as the "sarong
belt".
Sarongs may be printed or woven of cotton or silk, but among
Malaysians and Indonesians it is the indigenous batik form that
is popularly loved. First brought to perfection in Java, batik-making
is a complicated process of wax-dyeing, producing local motifs
in vivid and lasting colours.
It is astonishing to think that although making batik has been
common for hundreds of years, no one before Teng everthought
of adapting this ageold craft as a medium for fine art. Teng,
and Teng alone, is responsible forthis most original contribution
to the whole world of art. As an artist in this old and new
medium Teng is the unquestioned mas.
The evolution of batik painting did not come easily to Teng
but it is a natural result of a wandering and varied life. He
came to Malaya 27 years ago from Amoy. He has trundled a stall
as a hawker, manufactured paper, planted tapioca. He has been
a shopkeeper, a baker, an umbrella maker, a cook, an import
and export trader, a designer of cloth, a maker of sarongs,
and is now a schoool teacher. Throughout all these adaptable
years of his life he has always been an artist.
As an artist Teng says he first started to draw when he was
only a few years old. He acquired his own formal training at
the Amoy Art School which he left at the age of 17 to emigrate
to Malaya with his parents.
Although trained in the Chinese tradition he came to prefer
Western styles. His early work as a part-time painter reflected
sound draftsmanship, and this was his chief asset. Teng as a
painter in oils was not outstanding, but his works, usually
in water-colour, were always acceptable in any exhibition.
Painting by the batik method germinated from Teng’s own idea
and determination. In 1956 1 asked him how he managed to work
out the concept and method of batik art. He told me that one
day i n 1953 he was reflecting.
"Suddenly I thought to myself", said Teng, gesturing with his
left hand, "as an artist I can paint like this", and gesturing
with his right hand, "as a batik craftsman I can do good work
like that." "Then I suddenly asked myself why can’t I do them
both at once?" and as he spoke he brought both his hands together
in a clap.
That simple question was the beginning of two years of personal
struggle to match his talents as an artist with his skill as
a batik-maker.
Time and again he tried and was on the verge of giving up hope.
Then he decided to work out his idea once again in a small self
potrait, executed in pointilliste technique, using red green,
yellow and black dyes on white cloth. To Teng’s great relief
this key experiment was a success.
As he told me later, "I sat back, my eyes wet with joy, thinking
that if I could do this in batik I could do anything." That
was the beginning of batik painting, and from that night forward
Teng has never looked back.
Now that he had wrested the secret from nights of patient toil
he plunged into a flurry of activity trying various types of
wax and dyes, producing one painting after another until he
had assembled a small collection of works in the new medium.
He showed his batik paintings to Miss Patricia Lim of the Penang
Library and otherart-lovers with the result that Miss Lim presented
his first show of batik art at her Library in September, 1955.
The exhibition was an immediate success.
The news spread rapidly to Singapore, where the Art Society,
at that time the leading art group in Malaya, decided to give
Teng a full one-man show of nearly 100 works. This exhibition,
a tn- umph for Teng, astonished the artists in Singapore and
proved very popular with the viewing and buying public.
The possiblities of batik painting as a fine art was a revelation,
but equally remarkable was the revolution which occured in Teng’s
own approach to art.
At the age of 41 after twenty-one years of painting he was suddenly
born again. The batik medium seemed to release all his latent
abilities in a sudden flowering of maturity.
His draftsmanship acquired sweep and rhythm; colours flared
from his canvas. His themes opened up new vistas of Malayan
life, not only the scene but the people and all their daily
activities. Women feedng chickens, children playing, farmers
gathering the harvest-all warm human, simple and everyday subjects
no other Malayan artist seemed to have tackled with such relish
before.
In the space of a few months Teng, a quiet simple man of endless
industry, emerged in the top ranks of Malayan art as a happy
philosopher of the human condition, embracing all Malaya and
her people of many races.
Following up his Singapore triumph, Teng presented another exhibition
of 103 works in various media in Kuala Lumpur in April 1957,
sixty-two paintings being in batik.
Glowing with life and colour and vitality, these batik paintings
revealed the incredible range of his observations of a life-time.
The titles alone evoked the variety of the Malayan way of life-"Shoeing
a Cow", "Making Pottery", "Baking Pulot Rice",
"Bersilat", "Shadow Show", "Road Under Repair",
"Attap Weaving", "Orchestra", "Plucking
Coconuts", "Reading Aloud", "Worshipping",
"UnderConstruction", "Setting Sail", and "Sleep".
No scene, large or small, no activity or emo- tion, escaped
his roving eye, his adept cheanta (the wax pen) or his ready
brush and pencil. Needless to say the Kuala Lumpur exhibition
was another great success.
Now a top Malayan master artist, his works sellingwell,Teng
lookedfurtherafield. In 1959 the Federation Government, at the
request of the Arts Council, financed the presentation of Teng’s
first one-man show in London, held at the Royal Commonwealth
Institute in June. His original colourful exhibition was an
impressive debut in the West; in the first half hour 25 works
were sold.
Unfortunately, Teng could not be present himself, but the London
Exhibition was a great honour for him. It was the first time
(and still remains so) that the Federation Government had sponsored
abroad an exhibitiion by any Malayan artist.
Teng, while continuing to show his works in every available
Malayan exhibition, made a new mark for himself as a top painter
in murals. The Federation Government commissioned a mural on
"Malayan Life" for its new High Commission in Canberra in 1959.
In 1960 Teng executed a mural on "Malayan Products" forthe Malayan
Tobacco Company, the same year he won an open competition on
the theme of "Malayan Agriculture" for the newly established
Faculty of Agriculture in the University of Malaya.
It is given to few men to lead a life so full of creative activity
as Teng does in Penang. His energy and industry are quite amazing.
Not only is he a full-time art teacher, but he also owns and
runs a shop for artists’ supplies. When and where he finds time
to paint seems a mystery; I doubt if he ever sleeps more than
a few hours a night.
His productivity in batik painting is enormous, but even more
incredible is the high standard and quality of his work. Never
satisfied, he is always experimenting, seeking to give new depth
and range to his batik art. Realism, impressionism, abstracts-he
changes about and essays them all. No matter what style he chooses,
the result in batik is always indelibly and individually Teng.
His art is always in touch with the people, his own smiling
happiness frequently bubbling out in sly touches of humour,
but always and at all times he is an artist in love with life.
Teng seems to say. "There is grace and beauty all around you
if you only have the eyes to see, As an artist I must try and
put down all the fascination of God’s creatures and nature’s
moods while I can, for life is too short, there is not a moment
to spare."
The heart and mind and spirit of Teng breathe the very soul
of Malaya. Soon I have no doubt that Teng, footloose and eager,
sketch book to hand, will be travelling all over Malaysia absorbing
fresh inspiration from this newest nation in Asiato transmute
all its life and variety into his glowing batiks.
He will do so not only because the inner compulsion of being
truly a gifted artist drives him on, but because he has a new
goal to reach, having been promised a second one-man show by
the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1965.
Through his receptive eyes and masterly hands Teng can show
a rich vision of Malaysia to the world in his medium of batik
art.
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