Art & History of Singapore

The art & history of Singapore states that Singapore is the world's busiest port. The modern nation of the Republic of Singapore, was founded as a British trading post on the Strait of Malacca in 1819. Singapore's location on the major sea route between India and China, its excellent harbor, and the free trade status conferred on it by its visionary founder, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, made the port an overnight success. By 1990 the multi ethnic population attracted to the island had grown from a few thousand to 2.6 million Singaporeans, frequently referred to by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as his nation's greatest resource.

According to the art & history of Singapore it was favorably located at the southern end of the Strait of Malacca, the shortest sea route between China and India, the island of Singapore was known to mariners as early as the third century A.D. By the seventh century, the Srivijaya Empire, the first in a succession of maritime states to arise in the region of the Malay Archipelago, linked numerous ports and cities along the coasts of Sumatra, Java, and the Malay Peninsula. Singapore probably was one of many outposts of Srivijaya, serving as an entrepot and supply point for Chinese, Thai, Javanese, Malay, Indian, and Arab traders.

An early art & history of Singapore refers to the island as Temasek and recounts the founding there, in 1299, of the city of Singapura or the"lion city". In the following three centuries, Singapura came under the sway of successive Southeast Asian powers, including the empires of Srivijaya, Majapahit, and Ayutthaya and the Malacca and Johore sultanates. In 1613 the Portuguese, the newest power in the region, burned down a trading post at the mouth of the Singapore River, and the curtain came down on the tiny island for two centuries.

In 1818 Singapore was settled by a Malay official of the Johore Sultanate and his followers, who shared the island with several hundred indigenous tribes people and some Chinese planters. The following year, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, an official of the British East India Company, arrived in Singapore and secured permission from its Malay rulers to establish a trading post on the island. Named by Raffles for its ancient predecessor, Singapore quickly became a successful port open to free trade and free immigration. Before the trading post's founding, the Dutch had a monopoly on the lucrative three-way trade among China, India, and the East Indies. Now Indian, Arab, European, Chinese, Thai, Javanese, and Bugis traders alike stopped in their passage through the Strait of Malacca to anchor in the excellent harbor and exchange their wares. Malays, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, and Europeans flocked to the growing settlement to make their fortunes servicing the needs of the sea traders.

While commissioning and traditionalism formed a parameter for art activities in the early part of the twentieth century in Singapore, visiting artists and art educationists from China. England and Europe gave another dimension to the art circle, contributing very significantly to the subsequent development of art in Singapore. The Chinese art world in the 1920s was characterized by the introduction of Western artistic idioms and concepts arising from the 1919 May Fourth Movement - an intellectual and political movement in China aimed at modernizing and strengthening China via cultural reform.

By 1924, there were sufficient Chinese art students in Europe from countries like France, Germany, Belgium, England and Italy for the formation of two Chinese art student associations on the continent and the organization of a student art exhibition in Strasbourg. Another significant event in the history of Singapore art held in 1927 was the Singapore Art Exhibition organized by the Youth Encouragement Association. The Youth Encouragement Association was established in 1920 with a member-ship of mainly alumni of Tuan Mong School. The group aimed to advance the use of Mandarin which is an early version of the Speak Mandarin Campaign to unite the dialect speaking groups and to promote the articulation of Chinese culture in tune with the spirit of the May Fourth Movement. This was a turning point in the art & history of Singapore.

Singapore is today is the most densely populated independent country in the world. It happens to be a popular holiday destinations in the world. Its strategic location combined with a largely corruption-free government, a skilled work force, pro-foreign investment and export-oriented, led to a successful free-market economy which attracts international investment funds on a large scale despite its relatively high-cost operating environment.