Saya Aye
| Saya Aye | |
|---|---|
Saya Aye
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| Born |
Saya Aye 1872 Mandalay, Burma |
| Died | 1930 (aged 58) |
| Nationality | Burmese |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Traditional School |
| Patron(s) | U Khandi |
Saya Aye (Burmese: ဆရာအေး; 1872–1930) was a major painter from Mandalay of the Traditional School who took some of the earliest steps in Burma in modernizing and Westernizing his painting, both religious and secular. He had a major influence on the history of Burmese painting in the first decades of the 20th century.
Saya Aye received an early monastic education where his artistic talents were noticed and thus he was given training in art from the age of 12 from a professional Traditional artist. He later became an apprentice to the Mandalay painter Saya Chone (1866–1917) who had been a royal artist in Burma during the reign of King Thibaw, and learned Traditional painting by copying the works of Chone and Chone’s predecessors, the royal artists Saya Sar and Kyar Nyunt. However, while Saya Aye acquired an extensive background in Traditional painting, his style was partly Westernized from the outset because Saya Chone himself had been influenced by Western painting and had begun to introduce techniques such as linear and tonal perspective in his work, which were fairly new to Burma in the colonial period. Ultimately, Saya Aye stood on his own and opened up his own studio in Mandalay and began to make a reputation for himself with illustrations and art decoration for funereal ceremonies. It had been his dream to become a royal Traditional artist, but the dream was thwarted when King Thibaw and the Konbaung Dynasty fell in 1885 to the British.
Saya Aye’s first taste of fame arrived with the patronage of U Khandi, a hermit monk of Mandalay who was keen to preserve the habits, customs and values of the Konbaung Dynasty through the imagery of painting. Thus, much of the early period of Saya Aye's career was spent in documenting scenes of the old Burmese monarchy, and also painting many Buddhist works (scenes of the life stories of the historical Buddha and Jataka Tales) for pagodas and religious buildings in Upper Burma, especially on Mandalay Hill. It is said that he acquired broad knowledge of Burmese traditions and religious rituals through these paintings, was particularly adept at depicting royal articles and ornaments, and became, along with another painter, Saya Mya Gyi, the most acclaimed artist in the old Traditional painting genre.
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Wikipedia