The visual art of Singapore, or Singaporean art, refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with Singapore throughout its history and towards the present-day. The history of Singaporean art includes the indigenous artistic traditions of the Malay Archipelago and the diverse visual practices of itinerant artists and migrants from China, the Indian subcontinent, and Europe.
Singaporean art includes the sculptural, textile, and decorative art traditions of the Malay world; portraiture, landscapes, sculpture, printmaking, and natural history drawings from the country's British colonial period; along with Nanyang style paintings, social realist art, abstract art, and photography practices emerging in the post-war period. Today, it includes the contemporary art practices of post-independence Singapore, such as performance art, conceptual art, installation art, video art, sound art, and new media art.
The emergence of modern Singaporean art, or more specifically, "the emergence of self-aware artistic expression" is often tied to the rise of art associations, art schools, and exhibitions in the 20th century, though this has since been expanded to include earlier forms of visual representation, such as from Singapore's pre-colonial periods.
Presently, the contemporary art of Singapore also circulates internationally through art biennales and other major international exhibitions. Contemporary art in Singapore tends to examine themes of "hyper-modernity and the built environment; alienation and changing social mores; post-colonial identities and multiculturalism." Across these tendencies, "the exploration of performance and the performative body" is a common running thread. Singapore carries a notable history of performance art, with the government historically having enacted a no-funding rule for that specific art form from 1994 to 2003, following a controversial performance artwork at the 5th Passage art space.
Ancient Singapore Artefacts and artistic traditions of the Malay world Situated in the Malay Archipelago, Singapore is connected to the broader sculptural, textile, and decorative art traditions of the Malay world.
A 14th-century golden armlet bearing a repoussé plaque of the Javanese Kala was excavated from Bukit Larangan (Fort Canning Hill) in 1926, demonstrating a link between Singapore and classical Malay sultanates. The kala motif draws from Hindu mythology, and traditionally adorns the top of main entrances of temples and is found in many parts of Indonesia. Demonstrating the use of metalworking techniques, the armlet dates back to the 14th century, around the time a possible Kingdom of Singapura would have been thriving on the island, complementing indigenous Malay writings about the presence of a state in Singapore headed by a Malay elite. The armlet also demonstrates the influence of the Hindu cosmology for Malays in their pre-Islamic past.
Another significant artefact is the Singapore Stone, a surviving fragment of a large sandstone slab inscribed with Indic script that stood at the mouth of the Singapore River, measuring 3 metres in height and width. Believed to date back to at least the 13th century and possibly as early as the 10th or 11th century, the inscription remains undeciphered. More recent theories suggest that the inscription is either in Old Javanese or in Sanskrit, which suggests the possibility that the island was an extension of the Majapahit civilisation in the past. About January 1843,Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, Hikayat Abdullah, above, at 166 n. 18. the slab was blown to pieces to widen the passageway at the mouth of the Singapore River to make space for Fort Fullerton and for the quarters of its commander, leaving only fragments of the slab. The information is referred to in .
Early cartographic references The earliest depictions of ancient Singapore existed predominantly in textual and cartographical forms, with the first possible mention being a 2nd-century CE cartographic reference in Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy's Geographia. A place called Sabana or Sabara was marked on the 11th Map of Asia at the southern tip of the Golden Khersonese (meaning the Malay Peninsula) where Singapore may lie.
Early Singapore came to be known as "Temasek", a name possibly deriving from "tasik" (Malay for lake or sea) and taken to mean Sea-town in Malay. The landscape of Temasek (淡馬錫) is visually depicted in the Mao Kun map, a set of navigation charts published in the Ming dynasty military treatise Wubei Zhi. Long Ya Men (龍牙門, Dragon's Teeth Gate) is also depicted within the map, believed to be the entrance to Keppel Harbour. In his work Daoyi Zhilüe, Wang Dayuan described Long Ya Men as the two hills of Temasek that looked like "Dragon's teeth" between which a strait runs; Longyamen was written about here as one of two settlements in Temasek, the second being Banzu. The map is often regarded as a surviving document from the expeditions of Zheng He, in addition to accounts written by Zheng's officers.
Sometime in its history, the name of Temasek was changed to Singapura. The Sejarah Melayu (Malay Annals) contains a tale of a prince of Srivijaya, Sri Tri Buana (also known as Sang Nila Utama), who landed on Temasek after surviving a storm in the 13th century. According to the tale, the prince saw a strange creature, which he was told was a lion; believing this to be an auspicious sign, he decided to found a settlement called Singapura, which means "Lion City" in Sanskrit. It is unlikely there ever were lions in Singapore, though tigers continued to roam the island until the early 20th century.
Colonial Singapore (1819–1942) From the 16th to 19th centuries, starting with the arrival of the Portuguese at Malacca in 1509, the Malay Archipelago was gradually taken over by European colonial powers. During the 17th century, the early dominance of the Portuguese was challenged by the Dutch, who came to control most of the ports in the region, while colonial powers such as the British had a relatively minor presence. Sir Stamford Raffles, appointed as the Lieutenant Governor of the British colony at Bencoolen in 1818, arrived in Singapore on 28 January 1819 and soon recognised the island as a choice for a new port. Raffles sought to challenge the Dutch by establishing a new port along the Straits of Malacca, which served as the main ship passageway for India-China trade. A formal treaty was signed on 6 February 1819, ushering in Singapore's colonial period. The British concentrated on building infrastructure such as housing, roads, and hospitals in order to maintain the economy, and did not set up an art academy. While Raffles did intend for the teaching of art, the first British art teacher, Richard Walker, would only arrive almost a hundred years after Raffles' death in 1923.
During this period, the art of Singapore was diverse, influenced by travellers, itinerant artists, and migrants from China, the Indian subcontinent, as well as the West, all bringing different pictorial traditions. From the 19th century, European perecptions of Singapore are seen through art that depicted "tropical" motifs like palm trees, kampungs, and studies of locals. These motifs appear in the works of Singapore artists from the 1930s onwards.
Early visual records as a British settlement (19th century)
The earliest visual records of Singapore as a British settlement are 19th century images produced for marine coastal surveying. One of the earliest is Singapore from the Rocky Point, 1819, a wash drawing by John Michael Houghton, a midshipman on board the HMS Discovery, part of the naval escort accompanying Raffles on his journey to Singapore in 1819. Created when Raffles first set foot on Singapore, it is one of 41 drawings from the Houghton Album, a compilation of views drawn by Houghton. Other early hydrographic sketches include Philip Jackson's A View of Singapore from the Sea, dated 1823, and others by an unknown draughtsman on a marine ship accompanying Raffles during his survey of Karimun Islands, Sketch of the Land round Singapore Harbour, dated February 1819, and Sketch of the Settlement of Singapore at anchor in 4 fathoms, dated April 1819.
These sketches were used for navigational purposes, though they visually resemble later landscape works created mainly for artistic expression. For example, Robert Wilson Wiber's watercolour painting, Panoramic View of Singapore from the Harbour (1849) depicts the island from the perspective of the sea. Singapore was largely known as a British port in the 19th century, with popular representations of Singapore including harbour and port scenes. Some of the early artists painting Singapore include John Turnbull Thomson and Charles Andrew Dyce, British officers in colonial Singapore who also worked in fields like surveying, architecture, and engineering.
In 1865, the German popular spreadsheet Die Gartenlaube published the article "Die Tigernoth in Singapore," which includes George Drumgoole Coleman's encounter with a tiger during a surveying trip near a jungle in Singapore in 1835, a lithographic print by Heinrich Leutemann accompanying the article. Titled Unterbrochene Straßenmessung auf Singapore (Road Surveying Interrupted in Singapore) (c. 1865–1885), it depicts the dramatic scene of the tiger leaping out from the jungle, knocking over Coleman's theodolite. The work has been of significant interest to recent scholarship, which focuses on the historical and metaphorical significance of the tiger. It has been suggested that the incident was exaggerated or did not truly occur, emphasising the imaginary surrounding the supposed dangers of the Southeast Asian jungle.
Natural history drawings William Farquhar commissioned natural history drawings during his time as Resident of Malacca from 1803 to 1818. Part of ongoing colonial scientific projects to study and gather knowledge about the Malay Archipelago, these were some of the earliest visual practices of the region. While the artists are unknown, it is theorised that Chinese artists in mid-19th century Malaya were commissioned to produce these drawings. Rock and tree motifs in the landscapes of these natural history drawings bear resemblance to the Chinese ink tradition.
Early photography
The earliest surviving photographic views of Singapore as a British settlement are Jules Itier's 1844 daguerreotype of Boat Quay and Singapore River from Government Hill. Prominent commercial studios were founded by the 19th century, including Japanese and Chinese photography studios. One of these studios was founded by the German photographer August Sachtler, with A. Sachtler & Co.'s views of Singapore showing the advances in photography 20 years after Itier's daguerreotype.
Popular photographs by commercial studios in the late 19th to early 20th century included photographs of locals from different ethnic communities, which set up visual tropes to be associated with specific identities.
Malay printed material Singapore holds examples of the Malay Archipelago's tradition of illuminated manuscripts and early illustrated Malay newspapers, demonstrating the presence of visual modernity in the region during the 19th century.
Scribes created illustrated motifs and decorations within books, as seen in the decorated frontispiece for the lithographic edition of Hikayat Abdullah (The Tale of Abdullah). This autobiography by Abdullah Abdul Kadir, better known as Munshi Abdullah, was lithographed at the Mission Press in Singapore in 1849, one of the first Malay language books published in print and written by someone who identified as Malay. The manuscript for Hikayat Abdullah has a frontispiece decorated with sketches of red and green floral motifs, including a simple frame. Here, the illustrator experiments with scripts darkened to suggest forms and shadows, providing the illusion of depth to the decorative patterns.