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was confined in the past to casting Buddha
images. The carried this art to perfection both in technique and
artistic expression. Some anci ent specimens of this art can be
compared favourably with other nation's classical arts.
was also in the past confined to mural
tempera painting within the
buildings. The style was more conventionalised and achieved some
artistic manifestations to a high degree, but it cannot be
compared to sculpture which was a perfect artistic achievement.
are of
Western style. But in order to carry on her artistic traditions
as peculiarly her own and enriching humanity, the problem is to
preserve her own classical arts as a source of inspiration for
evolving her own modern arts with the progress of the times in
order to preserve her own identity individual cultures suitably
within the culture of a wider one. |
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like
her sister art, music also served religion. Its technique was of
Indian origin, but the Thai evolved the arts peculiar to their
own. The actions are very graceful, slow in motion but not
unpleasant to sensible minds. Thai dramatic performance is
called lakhon, a word of Indonesian origin, and is well known to
enthusiastic lovers of this art both inside and outside Thailand.
In former days, the people could only witness such performances
in the compound of the monastery on festive occasions only.
Nowadays many new types of dramatic performance are usually
adapted or copied from the West and the popularity of the cinema
takes the place of the classical ente rtainment. The latter may
be seen only occasionally as performed by the artistes of the
Department of Find Arts. |
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The
used is more
artificial as more and more words from foreign origins,
especially Pale, Sanskrit and Cambodian, were introduced into
the verses, while the former are more natural and still popular
with the common people. However both achieved their technique
and emotional in many of
their works. The subjects of Thai prose and verse in the earlier
works were mostly inspired by Buddhist literature and meant to
serve religion. Later on more secular subjects relating to
episodes of history, legends and indignous tales were introduced
to serve dramatic art and reading. Of the two great epics of
India, the Mahab harata and the Ramayana, only the latter was
turned in its entirety into Thai verse in dramatic form, while
only certain episodes were taken from the former. The Ramayana
of the Thai version differs radically in detail from the
original Valmiki version, but agrees here and there either with
the Tamil, the Bengali, the Javanese or the Malay versions. No
doubt this shows that at one time or other, there have been
intermixtures of cultures going on among the S.E. Asians and
with India to an appreciable de gree. The Ramayana is well known
to the Thai people, especially in the Central and Southern areas.
The Lao of the North-eastern area had a tale of Rama in their
local literature, but they incorporated many of their local
traditions and tales into the st ory, and in many places showed
traces of Indonesian influence cue obviously to the once highly
hinduized Cham people whose country Champa is now Annam. The
Ramayana of the Thai version is one of the literary achievements
in the language.
Within
the last century, there has appeared a new type of literature
written in prose which has become very popular with the public.
It is a translation of those popular Chinese historical romances.
The translation is complete from the dawn o f Chinese history
down to the last days of the Ming dynasty. The Thai of older
generations know the outline of Chinese history through these
translations. One of them, the The San Kuo Chai You I or the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, has been very popula r and its
merit, apart from the theme of the story, is the style of its
translation. It is perfect and in the best prose style. The
pronunciation of names of the various characters in this Chinese
romances is Fukian, despite the fact that most of the Chi nese
who came in later days were Swatow people. The Swatow dialect
has one peculiar tone in its phonetic system; while the Thai
language, although a tonal language like the Chinese, has not
this tone. Nevertheless the Fukians pronounce this tone at a
different pitch and the Thai have it too, hence Fukian dialect
was used in the Thai language has six or probably seven pitch
tones. but in theory there are only five tones. We know for
instance the names of Liu Pei, Kwan-u and Tiohui.
In
recent times Western literature has been in introduced into the
country and there have been constant translations mostly through
the medium of English. There has arisen in quite recent times
too Thai novels and short stories in the Western style, Some of
Shakespeare's works such as Romeo and Juliet, As You Like it.
The Merchant of Venice were translated by King Vajiravudh, so
also a number of English and French plays. Many of them were
adapted and staged, giving an impetus to a new kind of
performance. King Vajiravudh also translated and dramatized,
through English translations, a number of Sanskrit classical
dramas, for instance, Sakuntala, Savitri. Through King
Vajiravudh's genius and influence, a new era of Thai literature
has evolve d and developed up to now. |
