Introduction To Nanyang Painting Style

Malaysian Chinese painting is an important part of Nanyang art. Malaysia’s unique geographical location, with its ethnic diversity, religious, cultural and lifestyle practices constitute Nanyang unique regional painting, different from both western and eastern painting systems. This thesis takes a Malaysian Chinese painting as a starting point. It discusses the Chinese people migration to the south in early 20-th century and bringing the traditional Chinese painting into Malaysia. Those artists wantd to express life of the people who lives in the south Asia and their styles of living. Southeast Asia with great enthusiasm and interest. As well they displayed tropical landscape scenery and Malay customs. Some of those artists represent Chinese traditional culture, some of them learned modern Western painting, while some absorbed Malay’s ethnic traditional crafts. After a long process of absorbing, learning, improving and evolving, the unique Nanyang Chinese painting style was gradually formed.