Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [14]
At press time, Abhisit clung to power, but divisions within Thailand's military and red-yellow animosity are serious challenges for the prime minister. Meanwhile, seething discontent among UDD supporters over the crackdown and Thaksin's continuing influence from abroad ensure that the Red Shirt movement is anything but defeated.
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ARTS
Despite the utterly utilitarian face of the modern city, Bangkok is among Southeast Asia’s contemporary art capitals. This tradition stems back to the founding of the city in the late 18th century, when the early Chakri kings weren’t satisfied to merely invite artists and artisans from previous Thai royal capitals such as Ayuthaya, Sukhothai and Chiang Mai. Whether via political coercion of neighbouring countries or seductive promises of wealth and position, Bangkok’s rulers also had access to the artistic cream of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Mon and Khmer peoples native to the Thai kingdom also contributed much to the visual arts scene. The great artistic traditions of India and China, the subtle renderings of Indo- and Sino-influenced art in neighbouring countries, and the colonial and postcolonial cultural influx from Europe have also played huge roles in the development of art in Bangkok. Likewise, the decades surrounding the two world wars, Thailand’s military dictatorships of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, followed by the protest-fuelled democracy movement brought a healthy dose of politics and social conscience to the city’s art scene. Today, influences from just about every corner of the globe now find free play in the capital.
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VISUAL ARTS
Divine Inspiration
The wát served as a locus for the highest expressions of Thai art for roughly 800 years, from the Lanna to Ratanakosin eras. Accordingly, Bangkok’s 400-plus Buddhist temples are brimming with the figuratively imaginative if thematically formulaic art of Thailand’s foremost muralists. Always instructional in intent, such painted images range from the depiction of the jataka (stories of the Buddha’s past lives) and scenes from the Indian Hindu epic Ramayana, to elaborate scenes detailing daily life in Thailand. Artists traditionally applied natural pigments to plastered temple walls, creating a fragile medium of which very few examples remain.
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top picks
BANGKOK ART EXPERIENCES
100 Tonson
Bangkok University Art Gallery
Jim Thompson’s House
National Museum
Wat Suthat
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Today the study and application of mural painting remain very much alive. Modern temple projects are undertaken somewhere within the capital virtually every day of the year, often using improved techniques and paints that promise to hold fast much longer than the temple murals of old. A privileged few in Bangkok’s art community receive handsome sums for painting the interior walls of well-endowed ordination halls.
In sculpture the Thai artists have long been masters, using wood, stone, ivory, clay and metal and a variety of techniques – including carving, modelling, construction and casting – to achieve their designs. Bangkok’s most famous sculptural output has been bronze Buddha images, coveted the world over for their originality and grace. Nowadays, historic bronzes have all but disappeared from the art market in Thailand and are zealously protected by temples, museums or private collectors.
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TEMPLE MURALS
Because of the relative wealth of Bangkok, as well as its role as the country’s artistic and cultural centre, the artists