If Chinese art is a subset of Chinese culture — both of which are difficult terms to pin down — what could the term mean in the Singapore context? In this approach, Chinese art may refer to a painting style, an art form, an art lineage, a set of aesthetic values and characteristics, creative outputs by artists who are ethnic Chinese, or a narrative of Singapore’s modern art history that is closely associated with another much-discussed term, Nanyang feng or Nanyang (Southeast Asian) style. Chinese art may also designate an “interpretive community”, which refers to a discursive and aesthetic community with a keen interest in Chinese art in its different manifestations.

It is challenging, especially given Singapore’s multicultural context, to work through the various definitions of Chinese art and how they relate to one another. But such an approach is necessary to examine how they relate to categories such as ethnicity, multiculturalism, modernity, and especially in Singapore’s case, language. Such considerations will in turn enrich the conversation about Chinese art in Singapore’s cultural and historical context.

On one hand, nailing down “Chinese art” is an attempt to build the definition from “core” elements, such as Chinese aesthetic history, stylistic lineages, ink painting, and relation of painting to calligraphy, literature, crafts, and philosophy. On the other hand, it involves deconstructing the core elements: examining 20th-century social and cultural transformations, modernity, relations to languages, geographies (the focus here being Singapore), and Nanyang as the Southeast Asian context of cultural transformations, lived experiences, and cultural productions.

Liu Kang’s idea of Chinese art

The complex personality and dispositions of the artist Liu Kang (1911–2004), celebrated as a “pioneer artist” of Singapore, offer insights into what defines Chinese art. Born in Fujian, China, Liu spent his childhood and formative years in Malaya. He returned to China for his art education in Shanghai and graduated when he was 17. He then went on to study in Paris and returned to Shanghai to teach Western art when he was 22. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), Liu returned to Malaya and Singapore in 1937 when he was 26. For the subsequent seven decades or so, he became a key figure in the Singapore art scene. Liu’s writings, art, and biography spanned a broad spectrum of dimensions, such as in public discourse, education, community leadership, and social engagement.

Liu Kang, Mountain Scene, 1995. Gift of the artist’s family, National Gallery Singapore Collection, courtesy of National Heritage Board.

We consider two themes in Liu’s writings, with selected quotes from his important collections of writings: the original collection in Chinese with Liu’s own foreword in 1981,1 and the collection translated into English in an expanded edition by National Gallery Singapore in 2011. The two themes are: an overview of modernity in art as seen through the assessments of key 20th-century art movements and artists; and the purposes and functions of art articulated through cultural and collective frames (“Chinese”, “multicultural”).

Many art historical writings on 1940s to 1980s emphasised the emergence of nationalism in Singapore art following the end of World War II. Liu’s writings, too, showed these transitions. However, there were also themes about art and aesthetics that were more fundamental but, for the lack of more suitable terms, were expressed in relation to essentialism and nationalism, such as xiandai zhongguoren (“modern Chinese”; see the 1948 quote below). This is important in the question of Chinese art, as there could be themes that cancelled out possibilities of broader global and historical depth in art and aesthetics as they had to attach to a certain collective frame, be it “Chinese” or formulaic multiculturalism.

Liu wrote this about the art of two towering figures in 20th century art — Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)/Cubism, and Huang Binhong (1865–1955)/Shanghai School:

…performs diffusion of subjective vision into the object, subtly permeates and then deconstructs the object, dissolving it into various elements and then combining these fragments to form a new self-constructed form. (1948)

Binhong was not as well known as Beihong in Nanyang. Even if people knew him, it is not certain if they understood him. In fact, his artistic aspirations were an accumulation of the merits of past and current masters, a unique style that could very well be the peak of artistic perfection in the history of local art. (1955, trans in 2011: 63)

In comparison, Liu Kang thought less of the art of Xu Beihong (1895–1953):

Beihong’s art is predicated on realism. The artist attaches great importance to formal likeness in his Chinese and Western paintings. To achieve formal likeness, one must have proficient skills. As a result, skills are ranked first in art, while the consciousness of the times and national style become secondary. (1967)

Xu Beihong, Lion and Snake, 1938. From the Xiang Xue Zhuang Collection in memory of Dr Tan Tsze Chor, Asian Civilisations Museum Collection, courtesy of National Heritage Board.

Liu’s weighing in on Picasso and Huang underpinned his own search, within the parameters of tradition and innovation, of something dynamic that reflected the zeitgeist of the age as expressed through art. However, with minzu fengge (ethnic style), we get into the tricky question of (ethnic-, civic-, cultural-) nationalism/collectivism. Liu spoke of a higher or fundamental purpose of art. Unfortunately, such an ideal had to be expressed with the aid of some nationalistic/collective framing:

We have experienced what kind of society we encounter …We know better what is the correct goal and the right path. Putting aside many details, what we want to create is: art that can express ‘modern Chinese people’. (1948)

With cultural exchange, mental wellbeing, and spiritual cultivation, a foundation is built, and only then will the entire human race be able to realise a higher realm beyond material comforts. (1950)

The transition to multiculturalism and nationalism in Singapore has been regarded positively in most of the art historical writings by Liu. Take these 1960 and 1969 quotes by him:

We also have a sense of pride because we enjoy the culture of multiple ethnicities and therefore adopt a unique creative direction… (1960)

…while the power of art transcends national boundaries, artistic concepts and formal aspects may still vary greatly… Singapore is a newly independent country… in terms of its resident ethnic groups, Singapore’s cultural makeup is not only rich and complex but is also a few thousand years old… Our cultural tradition is not only enriched by the different races, it also straddles both East and West. (1969, trans in 2011: 111)

In fact, in Liu’s own foreword to the 1981 collections, he spoke, rightfully so, of his many writings forming a historical archive of Singapore’s art and culture:

Much of the content relates to promoting art and creative trends in our nation in the past half-century. It would not be incorrect to regard it as part of our country’s historical documents. (1981)

Liu painted primarily in the oil medium but also produced some ink works. He also practised calligraphy. To a 20th-century artist, art was naturally a trans-cultural practice, as seen in how Liu articulated the need to combine East and West, along with multicultural sources and inspirations. One could just end the story here, which the post-1960s writings of Liu somewhat did. However, what was missing in this later period of his writings was the attempt to speak of art in a higher order, where the human race is “able to realise a higher realm beyond material comforts”. Liu appeared to have involved himself with the organisational and administrative aspects of art, given his role as a key arts leader in Singapore.

The collection of Liu’s writings published by the National Gallery Singapore in 2011 reorganised his essays chronologically and under different thematic headings, with book and section introductions written by Yow Siew Kah. By Yow’s argument, Liu’s oil paintings could be regarded as Chinese art, as “Liu’s works in the 1950s show figures and objects defined by bold lines of variable thickness, meant to emulate a type of Chinese literati painting brushstroke”.2 Yow further noted that Liu’s paintings were “characterised by its use of empty spaces, stylised depiction, and lines… to convey texture and movement”3 and Liu understood literati painting to be an expression of an artist’s interiority”. Yow added that Liu “appropriated European artistic ideas for the sake of creating a modern Chinese art”.4

These were all commendatory. However, Yow’s critique also made clear that “Liu never wholly intended to create a national art, but was primarily preoccupied with modernising traditional Chinese painting” (2011:100). Yow did not say what “national art” should otherwise be like. Did the line about appropriating European artistic ideas indicate that a “national art” should be predicated fully on European artistic ideas? Shouldn’t Chinese art, along with other traditions in the Singapore context, be the very source of this “national art”?

What makes ‘national art’

In his speech at the book launch of Wang Gungwu’s Living with Civilisations on 5 December 2023, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam recalled that “Professor Wang emphasises… the distinction between the Sinic civilisation and contemporary China’s national culture as it keeps evolving.” He adds that “the same can be said about the Indic civilisation and the evolving contemporary Indian culture, and likewise Islamic. For each of the civilisations that have shaped us and continue to shape us, we should always distinguish between the enduring civilisational ideas and values and the contemporary national cultures, temperaments and impulses in the parts of the world that they came from. ”5

This is relevant to the discussion on Chinese art in Singapore, as having a long historical lineage, along with other aesthetic sources such as Indic and Islamic, form the foundation of art even as we speak of a “national art”. The historical layers cannot be confined to just the decades following the emergence of 20th-century nationalism, whether in inspirations or expressions. Even more important is the recognition of the necessary detachment of an artist’s aesthetic resources with forms of collectivism, such as the uncoupling of Chinese culture with “contemporary China’s national culture” and even multiculturalism, unless it is a formula that an artist finds productive. Cultural sources, collectivism, and notions of multiculturalism operate on different registers in art practice.

The eminent art historian Wu Hung highlights some key characteristics of Chinese painting that are totally different from the Western painting tradition.6 The term “landscape painting” as a standalone category in Western art emerged only in the 16th century. The Chinese “landscape painting”, which predated Western landscape painting by more than a millennium, may not be read using Western perspectives. The ink landscapes first emerged as a transcendental experience rather than to capture the physical sceneries as the eyes encountered them. Instead of a specific landscape, the paintings presented a conceptual schema of a broad geography incorporating the metaphysical. By the 11th century, the monumental ink landscapes had become further composites of viewing experiences through multiple perspectives, distances, and times, so as for the mountains to transcend a specific human experience and to be “alive” in their own right.7

Chinese paintings, particularly in the handscroll format, entailed very different conceptions of space and time. Even if “we imagined them as ancient forms of films or videos; in films and videos the viewers still do not control the speed of the screening; and therefore there were still fundamental differences in essence”. 8

Chinese art and Chinese culture may be constituting dimensions in Wang’s “Sinic civilisation”. But unlike Wang’s view on the timelessness of the latter, Wu sees Chinese art, particularly in the context of global art history, as one that is always changing: “The content and concept of Chinese art are bound to be constantly changing; the identification of its characteristics and language is to find the reasons for the change and the perennial, within the ever-changing art form and content and its social environment.” 9

There may be gaps in the timeframes of Chinese art, Chinese culture, and Sinic (Chinese) civilisation in the different ways these terms were looked at above. Whether highlighting permanence or transience, in so far as art practice is concerned, a rich history of lengthy temporal range is needed as references and resources. This was what Liu attempted to do.

Nanyang feng/style

In Tharman’s speech, he also noted that Singapore is “unique in the region, in that the community which came to be in the majority in Singapore, the Chinese, had a long experience of being a minority community in Southeast Asia”.10The discussion on Chinese art in Singapore in this paper is not centred on the Chinese ethnicity as the majoritarian. Rather, it is about the need for a fuller picture of the art historical development that was closely linked to a large group of Chinese migrant artists here, such as Liu.

These artists not only advanced, practised, and taught art, but also forged a lineage of engagement with cultural modernity following the May Fourth Movement, the Shanghai modern art education, and Chinese art as an aesthetic source and value. The extent of the work and ideas of these artists formed an art historical topic outlined as the Nanyang feng in the work of art historians Yeo Mang Thong, T. K. Sabapathy, and others.

The Nanyang style is not the only story of Singapore art. Tharman’s description of that disposition of being concurrently majoritarian but always appended by awareness and sensitivity of being a minority parallels the methodological approach of needing to be thorough in art historical understanding of art developments here, and yet always framed by its “exteriorities”, decentring and breaking down categories, in thinking through the challenging notions of “Chinese art” and “Chinese culture” in Singapore.