Wednesday, May 27, 2009

ASIAN CIVILISATIONS MUSEUM & MERLION

I visited the Asian Civilisations Museum on 21 May to catch the exhibition on Emperor Kangxi (Qing Dynasty). Before that I dropped by the Merlion attraction - a Singapore tourism symbol - since it was on the way. On a side note I just realised there was a DeviantArt meeting (DevMeet Singapore) 2 days ago at this merlion spot... argh. Oh well I had the flu since a week ago so never mind. The weather that day was EXCRUCIATINGLY hot - the skies were almost cloudless. I thought I would die of sun stroke and my head got dizzy. The photos however, came out nicely! 

The front view of the merlion. A night shot is also nice, but we didn't hang around till that late. Oh did you know a few months back the Merlion had his mane struck by lightning? He was under repairs for a bit lol.


Back view. There was a breeze and the wind blew mists of water on us which might've been a delight if I wasn't trying to protect the lens from moisture.


'People of the River' series art sculptures by the Singapore River. Entitled 'First Generation' by Chong Fah Cheong. It shows 5 naked boys jumping into the river for a swim.


Scan of the exhibition pamphet. It costs S$8.00 for an adult ticket. No photography was allowed in that gallery so I don't have any pictures. My opinion is that it was a modest, small-sized exhibition. They have several artifacts belonging to the Emperor including robes, haberdashery, ornaments and paintings - my faves were the 22-metres painting scroll for his 60th birthday and the 80-metres (!) painting scroll of the southern inspection tour.

Below are the permanent galleries where photography was allowed. I don't have many decent photos as the lighting was not sufficient for my camera. The galleries are: South-east Asia, West Asia & Islamic, Chinese, and South Asian. Artifacts included ancient tribal jewellery, clothing, calligraphy, performing arts items and religious statues.

A buddha.


Giant indian sculptures - the left one is a peacock with a snake in its beak. The other one looks like a lion.


Wayang Kulit - indonesian shadow puppets.


Javanese masks.


I can't really remember what these statues were for.

2 comments:

debra@dustjacket said...

Great post and pictures miss lemon! xx

Rosebud Collection said...

Beautiful pictures. I enjoyed all the wonderful statues..Good job.