People
An Artist of the Miniature by Cheah Hon Yin
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People
An Artist of the Miniature by Cheah Hon Yin |
| Choong Tein Chew CHINESE WHO WERE RICH enough to own gardens were obsessed with artificial hills, pot culture and potted landscapes. This traditional garden art has been described as "poetry without words, three dimensional painting." The artist's art has been described as the ability to "reduce the dragon to an inch". Mountains and rivers are reduced and confined within the dimensions of a pot. You catch a mood and relax. The artist creates a feeling of bliss, extremely pleasing to the senses This is the art of the East Like other art forms there must be first a draft and then a study of the mountain and the trees growing on that mountain. Then the placing of fishermen, wood cutters, fishing boats, pagodas, thatched huts, a bridge, flowing water and so on has to be carefully planned. Authenticity is achieved by a close study of nature in real life so that the viewer becomes one with the mountains and its rivers; only then can it be claimed that the miniature appears to be alive. Creating a miniature mountain is not just putting stones together. It needs an understanding of the dimension of the mountain, its contours and its cliffs. It is like the photography with changing perspectives The art gains by experience. 
With the cultural changes resulting from the Malayanisation of Chinese here the art is dying. It was a pleasant surprise to find, hidden in Pepper Estate, Mr Choong Tein Chew, a self taught artist who has become famous in this field. His customers include the Sultan of Kedah, a Selangor mentri besar and a factory in Bangkok. The last was a huge project which used 40 lorry loads of stone. His modest house in Pepper Estate is surrounded by his miniature mountains, bridges and rivers. "I collect stones where I can find them" he says. "The varieties you see here are what I have collected from a vast area stretching from Ipoh to Kedah" Mr Choong explains that landscapes usually used themes from Tang Dynasty poetry; they were mainly " views" using trees, stone figures, pavilions and so on. "What about Bonsai?", I ask. "Bonsai is different. Only one plant is potted. The roots must not show and the tree must have sufficient leaves. I don't do bonsai though I have been asked."#
A hut in the mountains |
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