작품 상세

This 1953 watercolour of the Kek Lok Si Temple complex truly strikes Yong Mun Sen, dubbed the Father of Malaysian Painting, for his immaculate composition, deft attention to details and superb control of the medium, especially in the rendition of the clouds to exude the spirituality and good feng shui and which takes up nearly half of the work. The panoramic sweep was obviously painted from a vantage point on a higher elevation. Centrepiece is the seven-tier pagoda of a thousand buddhas (built 1930) surrounded by lush vegetation on Crane Hill. The first phase of the temple complex was completed in 1904, and the prime-mover behind the construction, Venerable Beow Lean, made its first chief abbot. The year 1953, the chief abbot, the third, Ven. Yuan Ying, died, leaving no successor, until it was filled by Ven. Pai Sheng of Taiwan, in 1968. It was not until 2002 that the chief abbot, the 6th, was a Malaysian, Ven. Jit Heng, who was instrumental in building the bronze Guan Yin statue. It was in 1953 that Mun Sen formed the Penang Art Society, together with philanthropist Loh Cheng Chuan, who assumed the presidency with Mun Sen as vice-president. The next year, Mun Sen suffered a mild stroke, and a full stroke in 1956. The great Xu Beihong lavished praise on Mun Sen as one of the few top artists in the tropics. Mun Sen was a Taipu Hakka, a fourth-generation Malayan. Born Yen Lang, he changed his name to Mun Sen in 1922. He only started painting in watercolours in 1930. He died of stomach cancer in 1962, and was given a Memorial exhibition in Singapore in 1966 and by Gallery 11 in Kuala Lumpur in 1966, followed by two in 1972 by the National Art Gallery Malaysia and the Penang State Art Gallery (PSAG). A more complete retrospective was given by the PSAG in 1999.