U Kyar Nyunt
Description: Master artist
By Ma Thanegi
The first known Burmese painter whose works survive to this day is U Kyar Nyunt, court artist who served the last two kings of Myanmar King Mindon (r. 1853-1878) and his son King Thibaw (r. 1878-1885). With an elegant name meaning 'Tendril of a Lotus' he was believed born in 1844, but no records are left of where he came from. Considering the fact that he passed away at age 36 he was probably still a young boy with impressive talent when he was accepted as apprentice to the royal art master. U Kyar Nyunt probably met a few foreign artists who visited Mandalay and his works showed attempts at using line and colour perspective, techniques not seen before in classical painting.
He was one of a team of seventeen artists but he soon rose to the rank of master, considered good enough to do the recording of Court Ceremonies or Jataka stories etc. on the parabeik folding books.
From that period, there were also records of contemporary events on the parabeik folding books complete with drawings, including such rare phenomena as the sighting of mermaids, a calf born with two heads, or a gift of a Giraffe from a foreign emissary. These 'news bulletins' possibly were circulated at court, but they were drawn by lesser members of the team and not by the master himself.
Old Myanmar art could be seen on pagoda walls and etched on lacquer wares, but there was no tradition of painting on silk scrolls, or if indeed paintings were done on silk or thin cotton, there was none that survived from before the 19th century.
To make the parabeik, large sheets of paper handmade from Mulberry bark by the Shans, were glued in several staggered layers to give a firm thickness, as well as a length of about 3 metres or even more. The resulting long sheet was then rubbed smooth and neatly folded into accordion pleats and trimmed at top and bottom to give an approximate size of 18 cm x 40 cm.
Parabeik of this size were called 'white' parabeik with a white background on which coloured illustrations could be painted. Illustrated ones are called 'Yoke Son' parabeik. Gold leaf or gold paint is used to emphasise the glory of Buddha if the story was religious. A border of yellow was painted around each unfolded double page for individual scenes or else only along the top and bottom when the scenes run into each other, in which case rows of trees, rivers or a line of hills were used to separate the scenes. The traditional style of staggered layers of scenes to show perspective was commonly seen in these paintings. The text of each scene was written on the yellow border with black paint.
The 'black' parabeik are mostly smaller, and made of paper lightly coated with black paint obtained from soot. A pointed stylus is used to write or draw things like blue print plans and boat designs so that white lines appear to stand out starkly against the black. Three of Master U Kyar Nyunt's parabeik are to be seen at the Musee Guimet in Paris. The catalogue numbers are MA 565, MA 4806, and MA 4807.
The MA 565 'Yoke Son' parabeik is the narrative of the Nemi Jataka, including scenes of the Bodhisattva King Nemi taken for a tour of purgatory. The height of the parabeik is 13 cm and the whole, unfolded length measures 2.5 metres. It has 128 folds with one scene covering four folds. A text on the cover said: "Read it in its entirety and call blessings upon this work of merit." There was also the date of completion: 1868. It was painted during King Mindon's time but there was no record of whether it was the king or a member of the royal family who commissioned it. The Nemi Parabeik was obtained by the Guimet in 1949 and not long after the event a Burmese scholar named Maung Hpyoo arrived in Paris to study literature. He was able to translate the text into English which was then translated into French by the Charge Mission of Guimet at the time, Madam Marguerite Marie Denek who published her paper in 1952. (Un Manuscript Birman au Musee Guimet. Le Nemi-Jataka. Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoise, XXVII, 1.1952)
The 'Yoke Son' parabeik MA 4806 has 18 sheets of various sportive subjects. The covers are decorated with brown lacquer relief figures. Its folded size is 40 cm x 17.5 cm. There is no record of how this parabeik came to the Guimet. The last parabeik, number MA 4807, was presented by King Thibaw to a French engineer Philibert Bonvillain who lived in Myanmar, possibly in Mandalay, from 1875 to 1885. In 1955 his family donated the parabeik to the Guimet.
This one shows the twelve ceremonies of the year performed at court, and include such scenes as the palace buildings, princes and nobility paying ritual homage to the King and Chief Queen, the parade of elephants, horses, military troops, princes of other nationalities, the Light festival celebrations, the welcome given to a white elephant with all honours, the royal regatta, equestrian shows, pagoda festivals, etc. It also includes a ten-page series of one single scene of the pagoda festival at Shwesettaw Hill, with Mann Stream coiling around its foot. This pilgrimage site has two shrines, one on top of the hill and the other at the bottom, each with a foot print of the Buddha. It is still a popular pilgrimage site today and the scene remains much the same, apart from the change from carts to cars.
The exquisitely detailed parabeik, lovingly painted in colours that remain bright to this day, shows the pomp and ceremony, the costumes of various levels of officialdom, the participation or not only nobles but common people, the elaborate harness of the royal elephants and horses and all their frisky movements. The kings and their retinues are long gone, the magnificent elephants and stallions turned to dust, but they live on in the works of Master U Kyar Nyunt.
It is thought that he passed away in 1880. His son Maung Sar took over his rank but as far as could be ascertained no work of his survived. Five years after Saya U Kyar Nyunt passed away the country fell into British hands and King Thibaw was exiled to India. Philibert Bonvillain returned to France, taking with him the treasured gift of a king. Perhaps U Kyar Nyunt would not have minded such an early death, to be spared the destruction of a life he loved and recorded so well.
From : Enchanting Myanmar (A Guide to Tourism Destinations and Beyond) Vol.5 No.4 October – December 2006
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