S08 THE ART OF REVERSE GLASS PAINTINGS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: A NEW PERSPECTIVE
17 June 2019, Galleria 3, 1330-1700 hours
Convener:Catherine Raymond
craymond@niu.edu
Rarely considered amongst the religious visual media within mainland Southeast Asian Buddhism, “reverse” paintings on glass used to be very popular throughout the 19th and 20th century. But its origins could be traced as early as the 17th century, while European used to offer high-quality Reverse Glass Paintings, produced in many European ateliers, to the Asian courts. Consequently China quickly adopted this artform which became popular and became part of their export-trade. Through its Chinese “artisanal diaspora” firstly the finished paintings; and in due course, the technologies, materials, and skill-sets for creating Reverse Glass Paintings were re-exported across Southeast Asia. But real popularisation and price reduction to the degree where Reverse Glass Paintings became ubiquitous — displayed even in modest home altars— required technology transfer for locally manufacturing flat transparent glass panes. In comparing the iconography within the neighboring countries of mainland and insular Southeast Asia this panel will question how this popular artform practiced in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia is informing us of various forms of religious practices for popular devotion through Southeast Asia as well as exploring the use of early photographic technique leading to the success of this vanishing artform fast disappearing in the region.
Block 1: 1330-1500 hrs
Catherine Raymond
School of Art and Design, Center for Burma Studies,
Northern Illinois University, USA
craymond@niu.edu
Reverse Glass Paintings in Mainland Buddhist Southeast Asia —which in Myanmar/Burma particularly, flourished in the mid-19th century— are proving a fascinating, yet comparatively-unknown aspect of Southeast Asian artistic traditions.
Originally of European provenance, these exotic productions in luminous colors were re-created by Chinese and Indian artists who had been introduced to this medium by Europeans missionaries and favor-seeking merchants.
Much admired by royal patrons, and later by prosperous landowners and city merchants during the colonial period, Reverse Glass Painting (RGP) techniques became favored within mainland Southeast Asia as producing sacred objects for Buddhist merit-making, and for delineating sacred places: as we could see in the Lan Na (NW Thailand) and Burmese traditions. In Lan Na this sacred geography was defined by the ancient pilgrimage circuit of twelve temples: each one specifically enshrining Buddhist relics and later dedicated to one of the animals of the Twelve-Year cycle attributed by Khruba Siwichai. While in Myanmar/Burma the medium became associated firstly with major Buddhist pilgrimage centers —such as the Shwedagon and Mahamuni— but later in supporting practices of nat-spirits and weikza devotées. Based on our fieldwork conducted throughout Mainland Southeast Asia between 2014 and 2018, this paper looks for the origins of RGPs across Southeast Asia and analyses how these popular artforms express Buddhist and pre-Buddhist traditions, as reflected by local variants of the iconography.
In the larger historical and religious context this paper explores how a now-vanishing art came to play so notable a role in the trans-Asian trade between European visitors and Asian courts; and later, more directly between China and Southeast Asia. Based on our wide-ranging research we discovered how local artisans within the Chinese diaspora particularly, spread the emerging Reverse Glass Painting medium as especially suitable for Buddhist religious iconography across mainland Southeast Asia.
Tin Naing Win
Professor, Department of History, University of Mandalay, Myanmar
dr.tinnaingwin@gmail.com
Reverse glass painting (RGP) in Myanmar dates from the middle Konbaung period (1782-1859) extending through the present and has had its high, as well as it low points in the face of its inherent technical difficulty and relatively low market value, those competing innovative artforms, and the embrace of modernism by other Burmese artists and fashionable galleries. So there now survive very few still producing these unique and worthy pieces. While it is clear that heretofore, there has not been much scholarly interest in this topic, its appearance at long last within international academic symposia —and due course, in the university syllabus as well— could and should lead to heightened coverage by the mass media; and ideally, towards collectors more realistically recompensing artists conserving a precious skill set while encouraging younger talent to go there now to prevent the extinction of a worthy medium of striking and intense visual engagement. My research has entailed identifying all those still living and having worked in the Mandalay area using traditional RGP techniques and subjects and archiving both the process and the products.
Nyein Chan Soe
Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Yadanabon University
Amarapura, Mandalay Region, Burma/Myanmar
anthro.nyeinchansoe@gmail.com
Since the Bagan Period in Burma, there has been a Sambuddhe verse mentioning worship to the 521,028 Enlightened Buddhas. In Bagan mural painting there are some temples wherein these Sambuddhe Buddhas were depicted in various sizes. During the colonial time, Sambuddhe verse was materialized by Venerable Moe Nhyin Sayadaw by establishing the Sambuddhe Temple in Moe Nhyin, Monywa Town, Upper Burma. It is believed that Sambuddhe verse could evade all mishaps and dangers including wrath of the World War II.
Then, reverse glass painting came into vogue in the environs of the temple. Artists depicted the Sambuddhe Temple as well as portraits of some renowned monks sold as souvenirs to the pilgrims. For decades, reverse glass paintings had been voguish but later they have been endangered because of printing technique. Meanwhile reverse glass paintings of nat spirits have been popular due to the prevalence of spirit worships in the country. This paper is questioning why the number of Sambuddhe Buddhas described by Venerable Shwegaingtha is different from that of reverse glass painting of the temple.
Soe Win Naing
Myanmar Archaeology Association, Yangon
winnaing.arch@gmail.com
The use of glass is familiar in Myanmar society: dating possibly from very early times. Ancient glass objects found in Myanmar suggest that they may have served religious purposes. Glass came into ritual usage for decorative and sacramental objects in the stupas and temples, including images for ritual worship. One such variant was as a glitter foreground for figurative image painted behind it. Another traditional technique in Myanmar was the assembling of glass mosaics, but this also may have indicated a shortage of larger colored glass panels. Some relatively early statuary employed reverse glass painting techniques for the Buddha’s eyes: a practice which may have been an expression of the Buddhist belief that glass symbolizes purity; and explains in part why artists and craftsmen then used reverse glass painting only for the eyes. Although reverse glass painting is generally considered a popular modern technique, it was in part influenced by traditional methods. There was apparently an alternative approach using polished copper plates to make a reflection on the glass. This paper will discuss different methodologies of reverse glass painting using different materials.
Block 2: 1530-1700 hrs
Jérôme SAMUEL
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris, France)
jeromesamuel@yahoo.com
For almost a century (ca. 1870s-1970s) glass has been widely used on the island of Java as a medium for painting. Thus, millions of pieces have been produced, probably, for the Javanese public and almost all common Javanese iconographic themes and topics of the modern era (whatever its sources) have been reproduced on glass. Popular themes include figures and scenes of wayang (the so-called shadow theater), buraq (mount of the Prophet), Arab calligraphy, mosques and representations of bride and groom.
According to a late 1930s testimony, these painted couples used to be even more numerous than representations of mosques. Beside these highly stereotyped figures, the only real and very rare portraits are portraits of sultans and reproduction of foreign works. Painted representations of bride and groom show certainly the development of new decorative practices in 20th century Java, but one can question their status as portraits. In the frame of a colonial modernity, it reflects rather the intertwining of very attractive new medium (glass) and products (photography), with old artifacts; i.e., pairs of Javanese divinities (Dewi Sri and Sadono), which are considered to ensure the fertility of the married couple.
The aim of this communication is to explain the links between glass painting and photography as popular modern products in colonial Java and early independent Indonesia. It will also try to show that portraiture remained almost unknown to common uses until the mid-20th century with very few and significant exceptions.
Carmín Berchiolly
Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies
cberchiolly1@niu.edu
This presentation explores how and why Burmese artists adapted a European nineteenth-century photographic process to facilitate the mass production of reverse glass paintings. Currently, the rural village of Se Gyi Taw, near Monywa city, is the last known location to continue to work with this technique. Artist U Ko Shan, his wife, and a few appointed members of his village, work seasonally to create hundreds of reverse glass paintings for the major nat (spirit) festivals in and near Mandalay, such as the festival of Taungbyone.
Through archival findings, this research demonstrates that the use of this photographic technique in Burma/Myanmar began in the early colonial period and was employed at King Thibaw’s palace in Mandalay before the British exiled him to India in 1885. The importance and geographical location of sacred pilgrimage sites such as Sambuddhe Pagoda in Monywa, near Mandalay, provide an important locus for the development of this tradition in Se Gyi Taw.
The aim and broader purpose of this work is to document the adaptations that U Ko Shan and his workshop made to the nineteenth-century technique in order to satisfy customer demand. Additionally, access to chemicals and materials, and changes in photographic technologies, have impacted U Ko Shan’s process throughout the decades. Because the last remaining traditional and commercial reverse glass painting artists in Myanmar are aging, it is imperative that these processes are documented for use by interested future generations.
Rosalia Sciortino
Associate Professor, Institute for Population and Social Research
Mahidol University & Director, SEA Junction
rosaliasciortino@yahoo.com
The paper will provide an overview of Indonesian reverse glass paintings as 'learned' from collecting them for the past 30 years. Starting in the late 1980s my late husband O'ong Maryono (original name Sumaryono) and myself collected more than 300 reverse glass from different parts of Indonesia and few additional paintings from other parts of Southeast Asia while living and working in the region. What started as an appreciation of the vivid colors and naif figures of the paintings, became an interest to learn more about their history, content and context, including about and with those who made them. We aimed to discover how glass paintings related to the various localities, how they reflected on social life and cultural expressions and how their decorative and functional purposes have changed in time and are still changing today. Here, some of the findings made in the process will be selectively discussed focusing mainly on a description of geographical variations and the identification of major painting themes through a study of the collected paintings. Literature review and material from interviews with the artists will help frame the presentation of this personal journey into the fascinating world of Indonesian reverse glass paintings.
Alan POTKIN
Digital Conservation Facility, Laos
Center for Southeast Asian Studies Northern Illinois University
apotkin@niu.edu
Notwithstanding the visual intensity and spectral brilliance of reverse glass paintings (“RGPs”), as an art form —when created with either traditional (completely by hand and by eye), or modernized(with photosensitive emulsions for the cartooning) technologies— RGP is today largely extinct. Brushwork and pigmentation in RGP technique are as challenging as working in oil or acrylic, but correcting errors in execution, or refining the coloration are nearly impossible. Also inherently-fragile RGPs are vulnerable to breakage: especially in the seismic regions where many of the best RGP assemblages are still in situ.
Given the complex —and essentially counter-intuitive— layering entailed in producing an RGP, repairing a damaged original is generally a lost cause. Replicating a RGP by superimposing a clear pane onto shards of the shattered original will produces an incorrect mirror imaged copy and the further an artist proceeds with creating the replicant, the less visible are the details of the ruined source.
An adaptation of conventional inkjet printing —which, like RGP, is applied to the back of the glass pane, then flipped and viewed through the clear side— is available. Versions of this technology use UV-cured ceramic pigments because of the impermeability of the media, but rather than the print-head moving across a 1D platen, a 2D platen is maneuvered below a fixed print-head. The hardware is expensive and the clientele for the product are typically architects and interior designers who have been struck by the special qualities of RGPs, and desire incorporating them into interior installations: even wall-sized panels.
We are using this technology to “rehabilitate” antique RGPs, or to create replicants of lost paintings which were fortunately photographed before disappearing. Central to this approach is intensive digital manipulation in Photoshop, and then outputting the edited image onto glass.
Convener:Catherine Raymond
craymond@niu.edu
Rarely considered amongst the religious visual media within mainland Southeast Asian Buddhism, “reverse” paintings on glass used to be very popular throughout the 19th and 20th century. But its origins could be traced as early as the 17th century, while European used to offer high-quality Reverse Glass Paintings, produced in many European ateliers, to the Asian courts. Consequently China quickly adopted this artform which became popular and became part of their export-trade. Through its Chinese “artisanal diaspora” firstly the finished paintings; and in due course, the technologies, materials, and skill-sets for creating Reverse Glass Paintings were re-exported across Southeast Asia. But real popularisation and price reduction to the degree where Reverse Glass Paintings became ubiquitous — displayed even in modest home altars— required technology transfer for locally manufacturing flat transparent glass panes. In comparing the iconography within the neighboring countries of mainland and insular Southeast Asia this panel will question how this popular artform practiced in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia is informing us of various forms of religious practices for popular devotion through Southeast Asia as well as exploring the use of early photographic technique leading to the success of this vanishing artform fast disappearing in the region.
Block 1: 1330-1500 hrs
Sacred Places, the Art of Making Merit and the Trans-Asian Trade
Catherine Raymond
School of Art and Design, Center for Burma Studies,
Northern Illinois University, USA
craymond@niu.edu
Reverse Glass Paintings in Mainland Buddhist Southeast Asia —which in Myanmar/Burma particularly, flourished in the mid-19th century— are proving a fascinating, yet comparatively-unknown aspect of Southeast Asian artistic traditions.
Originally of European provenance, these exotic productions in luminous colors were re-created by Chinese and Indian artists who had been introduced to this medium by Europeans missionaries and favor-seeking merchants.
Much admired by royal patrons, and later by prosperous landowners and city merchants during the colonial period, Reverse Glass Painting (RGP) techniques became favored within mainland Southeast Asia as producing sacred objects for Buddhist merit-making, and for delineating sacred places: as we could see in the Lan Na (NW Thailand) and Burmese traditions. In Lan Na this sacred geography was defined by the ancient pilgrimage circuit of twelve temples: each one specifically enshrining Buddhist relics and later dedicated to one of the animals of the Twelve-Year cycle attributed by Khruba Siwichai. While in Myanmar/Burma the medium became associated firstly with major Buddhist pilgrimage centers —such as the Shwedagon and Mahamuni— but later in supporting practices of nat-spirits and weikza devotées. Based on our fieldwork conducted throughout Mainland Southeast Asia between 2014 and 2018, this paper looks for the origins of RGPs across Southeast Asia and analyses how these popular artforms express Buddhist and pre-Buddhist traditions, as reflected by local variants of the iconography.
In the larger historical and religious context this paper explores how a now-vanishing art came to play so notable a role in the trans-Asian trade between European visitors and Asian courts; and later, more directly between China and Southeast Asia. Based on our wide-ranging research we discovered how local artisans within the Chinese diaspora particularly, spread the emerging Reverse Glass Painting medium as especially suitable for Buddhist religious iconography across mainland Southeast Asia.
Searching the Surviving Reverse Glass Paintings and Artists: Recording and Recommending | ရွင္သန္က်န္ရစ္ဆဲ မွန္ပန္းခ်ီကားမ်ားႏွင့္ မွန္ပန္းခ်ီပညာရွင္မ်ားကို ေဖြရွာျခင္း၊ မွတ္တမ္းတင္ထိန္းသိမ္းျခင္းႏွင့္ အၾကံျပဳတိုက္တြန္းျခင္း
Tin Naing Win
Professor, Department of History, University of Mandalay, Myanmar
dr.tinnaingwin@gmail.com
Reverse glass painting (RGP) in Myanmar dates from the middle Konbaung period (1782-1859) extending through the present and has had its high, as well as it low points in the face of its inherent technical difficulty and relatively low market value, those competing innovative artforms, and the embrace of modernism by other Burmese artists and fashionable galleries. So there now survive very few still producing these unique and worthy pieces. While it is clear that heretofore, there has not been much scholarly interest in this topic, its appearance at long last within international academic symposia —and due course, in the university syllabus as well— could and should lead to heightened coverage by the mass media; and ideally, towards collectors more realistically recompensing artists conserving a precious skill set while encouraging younger talent to go there now to prevent the extinction of a worthy medium of striking and intense visual engagement. My research has entailed identifying all those still living and having worked in the Mandalay area using traditional RGP techniques and subjects and archiving both the process and the products.
Sambuddhe Painting in Burma
Nyein Chan Soe
Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Yadanabon University
Amarapura, Mandalay Region, Burma/Myanmar
anthro.nyeinchansoe@gmail.com
Since the Bagan Period in Burma, there has been a Sambuddhe verse mentioning worship to the 521,028 Enlightened Buddhas. In Bagan mural painting there are some temples wherein these Sambuddhe Buddhas were depicted in various sizes. During the colonial time, Sambuddhe verse was materialized by Venerable Moe Nhyin Sayadaw by establishing the Sambuddhe Temple in Moe Nhyin, Monywa Town, Upper Burma. It is believed that Sambuddhe verse could evade all mishaps and dangers including wrath of the World War II.
Then, reverse glass painting came into vogue in the environs of the temple. Artists depicted the Sambuddhe Temple as well as portraits of some renowned monks sold as souvenirs to the pilgrims. For decades, reverse glass paintings had been voguish but later they have been endangered because of printing technique. Meanwhile reverse glass paintings of nat spirits have been popular due to the prevalence of spirit worships in the country. This paper is questioning why the number of Sambuddhe Buddhas described by Venerable Shwegaingtha is different from that of reverse glass painting of the temple.
Differing techniques for creating Reverse Glass paintings: divergences from the traditional glass mosaics of Myanmar
Soe Win Naing
Myanmar Archaeology Association, Yangon
winnaing.arch@gmail.com
The use of glass is familiar in Myanmar society: dating possibly from very early times. Ancient glass objects found in Myanmar suggest that they may have served religious purposes. Glass came into ritual usage for decorative and sacramental objects in the stupas and temples, including images for ritual worship. One such variant was as a glitter foreground for figurative image painted behind it. Another traditional technique in Myanmar was the assembling of glass mosaics, but this also may have indicated a shortage of larger colored glass panels. Some relatively early statuary employed reverse glass painting techniques for the Buddha’s eyes: a practice which may have been an expression of the Buddhist belief that glass symbolizes purity; and explains in part why artists and craftsmen then used reverse glass painting only for the eyes. Although reverse glass painting is generally considered a popular modern technique, it was in part influenced by traditional methods. There was apparently an alternative approach using polished copper plates to make a reflection on the glass. This paper will discuss different methodologies of reverse glass painting using different materials.
Block 2: 1530-1700 hrs
Human figure in Javanese reverse glass painting
Jérôme SAMUEL
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris, France)
jeromesamuel@yahoo.com
For almost a century (ca. 1870s-1970s) glass has been widely used on the island of Java as a medium for painting. Thus, millions of pieces have been produced, probably, for the Javanese public and almost all common Javanese iconographic themes and topics of the modern era (whatever its sources) have been reproduced on glass. Popular themes include figures and scenes of wayang (the so-called shadow theater), buraq (mount of the Prophet), Arab calligraphy, mosques and representations of bride and groom.
According to a late 1930s testimony, these painted couples used to be even more numerous than representations of mosques. Beside these highly stereotyped figures, the only real and very rare portraits are portraits of sultans and reproduction of foreign works. Painted representations of bride and groom show certainly the development of new decorative practices in 20th century Java, but one can question their status as portraits. In the frame of a colonial modernity, it reflects rather the intertwining of very attractive new medium (glass) and products (photography), with old artifacts; i.e., pairs of Javanese divinities (Dewi Sri and Sadono), which are considered to ensure the fertility of the married couple.
The aim of this communication is to explain the links between glass painting and photography as popular modern products in colonial Java and early independent Indonesia. It will also try to show that portraiture remained almost unknown to common uses until the mid-20th century with very few and significant exceptions.
Wet Collodion in Burmese Reverse Glass Paintings
Carmín Berchiolly
Northern Illinois University, Center for Burma Studies
cberchiolly1@niu.edu
This presentation explores how and why Burmese artists adapted a European nineteenth-century photographic process to facilitate the mass production of reverse glass paintings. Currently, the rural village of Se Gyi Taw, near Monywa city, is the last known location to continue to work with this technique. Artist U Ko Shan, his wife, and a few appointed members of his village, work seasonally to create hundreds of reverse glass paintings for the major nat (spirit) festivals in and near Mandalay, such as the festival of Taungbyone.
Through archival findings, this research demonstrates that the use of this photographic technique in Burma/Myanmar began in the early colonial period and was employed at King Thibaw’s palace in Mandalay before the British exiled him to India in 1885. The importance and geographical location of sacred pilgrimage sites such as Sambuddhe Pagoda in Monywa, near Mandalay, provide an important locus for the development of this tradition in Se Gyi Taw.
The aim and broader purpose of this work is to document the adaptations that U Ko Shan and his workshop made to the nineteenth-century technique in order to satisfy customer demand. Additionally, access to chemicals and materials, and changes in photographic technologies, have impacted U Ko Shan’s process throughout the decades. Because the last remaining traditional and commercial reverse glass painting artists in Myanmar are aging, it is imperative that these processes are documented for use by interested future generations.
Glimpses of Indonesia: An Exploration of Represented Realities in Collected Glass Paintings
Rosalia Sciortino
Associate Professor, Institute for Population and Social Research
Mahidol University & Director, SEA Junction
rosaliasciortino@yahoo.com
The paper will provide an overview of Indonesian reverse glass paintings as 'learned' from collecting them for the past 30 years. Starting in the late 1980s my late husband O'ong Maryono (original name Sumaryono) and myself collected more than 300 reverse glass from different parts of Indonesia and few additional paintings from other parts of Southeast Asia while living and working in the region. What started as an appreciation of the vivid colors and naif figures of the paintings, became an interest to learn more about their history, content and context, including about and with those who made them. We aimed to discover how glass paintings related to the various localities, how they reflected on social life and cultural expressions and how their decorative and functional purposes have changed in time and are still changing today. Here, some of the findings made in the process will be selectively discussed focusing mainly on a description of geographical variations and the identification of major painting themes through a study of the collected paintings. Literature review and material from interviews with the artists will help frame the presentation of this personal journey into the fascinating world of Indonesian reverse glass paintings.
High-tech alternatives for the repair/replication of damaged, destroyed, or disappeared Reverse Glass Paintings
Alan POTKIN
Digital Conservation Facility, Laos
Center for Southeast Asian Studies Northern Illinois University
apotkin@niu.edu
Notwithstanding the visual intensity and spectral brilliance of reverse glass paintings (“RGPs”), as an art form —when created with either traditional (completely by hand and by eye), or modernized(with photosensitive emulsions for the cartooning) technologies— RGP is today largely extinct. Brushwork and pigmentation in RGP technique are as challenging as working in oil or acrylic, but correcting errors in execution, or refining the coloration are nearly impossible. Also inherently-fragile RGPs are vulnerable to breakage: especially in the seismic regions where many of the best RGP assemblages are still in situ.
Given the complex —and essentially counter-intuitive— layering entailed in producing an RGP, repairing a damaged original is generally a lost cause. Replicating a RGP by superimposing a clear pane onto shards of the shattered original will produces an incorrect mirror imaged copy and the further an artist proceeds with creating the replicant, the less visible are the details of the ruined source.
An adaptation of conventional inkjet printing —which, like RGP, is applied to the back of the glass pane, then flipped and viewed through the clear side— is available. Versions of this technology use UV-cured ceramic pigments because of the impermeability of the media, but rather than the print-head moving across a 1D platen, a 2D platen is maneuvered below a fixed print-head. The hardware is expensive and the clientele for the product are typically architects and interior designers who have been struck by the special qualities of RGPs, and desire incorporating them into interior installations: even wall-sized panels.
We are using this technology to “rehabilitate” antique RGPs, or to create replicants of lost paintings which were fortunately photographed before disappearing. Central to this approach is intensive digital manipulation in Photoshop, and then outputting the edited image onto glass.
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