2200 BC – Present
The art of Indochina and the East Indies, called Southeast Asian Art includes the lands of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Indonesia, and Singapore. The Philippines are sometimes included as being on the far reaches of Eastern Southeast Asia.
The cultures of Southeast Asia are marked and influenced by several outside factors. On the one hand they are historically overshadowed by the great empires of nearby India and China, and on the other, they have been colonized and suppressed by a variety of different nations, all of different cultures and languages, as in the Vietnam and the French, the Dutch in Indonesia, and the Americans, English, Portuguese and Spanish in other regions and nations. This gives Southeast Asia, on one hand, a background of shared influences, and on another, entirely differing influences.
Southeast Asian Art Origins and Historical Importance:
Thailand

Sukhothai period – Buddhist sculpture
Thai art is heavily influenced by stories of the Buddha and Indian epics, with sculpture being almost exclusively of the Buddha. Featured heavily are stories of the previous births of the Buddha, his life, and Thai versions of Buddhist narratives based on Thai folklore.
Buddhist sculpture is beautifully expressed in the Sukhothai period in which sculptures of the Buddha have smooth oval faces expressing the spiritual nature of the Buddha. They based the look of the Buddha on Pali texts that directed that he have “skin so smooth that dust cannot stick to it”, “legs like a deer”, “hands like lotuses about to bloom”, “head like an egg”, and many other dictates.
Laos
Artisans in Laos are skilled metalsmiths, sculpting in bronze, gold, and silver. Most castings are of small sculptures and items, but as in the case of the Phra Say, a large golden statue of the Buddha, large images are sometimes created.
Vietnam

Dong Son drums – Southeast Asian art
Vietnamese art dates to decorated pottery in the Neolithic age, advancing to elaborately decorated Dong Son drums cast in bronze with details of geometric patterns and narratives of the lives and conquests of the culture.
Over the centuries Vietnam has had many religious and philosophical influences, including Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The French occupation had an influence on painting and established schools there.
One of the most popular Vietnamese arts is silk painting because mystical effects can be made using the combination of silk and paint. Because of their love of vivid color and more liberal use of paint, Vietnamese silks are unique in the genre.
Cambodia
Stone carving in Cambodia is intricate, detailed, and narrative. The detail is so fine that individual leaves are carved from trees, yet even tinier details are made possible by the carver.

Stone carving in Cambodia
Cambodian art has also included silversmithing, lacquerware, a variety of textiles, and kite making. A school for Cambodian arts was established in the 1940s, and modern art was encouraged, commissioned, and purchased for the government and its officials.
Art in Cambodia is reemerging through the strength and will of a formidable people. Following the genocide practiced by their government on their people, artistic revival is being reinvigorated and renewed.
Myanmar
Art in Burma/Myanmar primarily centers on the Buddha and is expressed in sculpture, architecture, relief, murals, and carving.
Before the advent of paper, Burmese “books” were created by stacking palm leaves one on top of the other and then binding them.
When the paper was developed, the new books were still made in the shape of the palm leaves in a uniquely Burmese tradition. Rather than binding, the book pages were glued end to end and then folded accordion style so that the entire length of the book could be unfolded and viewed at once, with book lengths sometimes reaching 20 feet. These books contained images from the scenes of the life of the Buddha on both front and back, interspliced with natural scenes for pauses.
Indonesia

Balinese paintings in Indonesia
Africa lays claim to the oldest evidence of art, but Indonesia has the oldest example of art applied with two stencils of hands and paintings of animal figures dating back 40,000 years.
More recently, the lands of Indonesia are famous for Balinese paintings, which are natural in subject and expression, and in the relief sculptures (measuring 100 meters) at the temple Borobudur in Java. Contemporary Indonesians are highly regarded for their colorful and detailed designs in batik, a dye painted fabric.
Singapore
Singapore has a thriving modern art scene abounding with sculpture, painting, and other types of visual arts including rich textiles. Sculpture is a particularly impressive movement and many very large scale examples have been created.
Southeast Asian Art Key Highlights
- The Phra Bang statue of Laos is said to hold the relics of the Buddha.
- Thai ceramics were decorated with natural botanical scenes and animals during the middle ages and were quite popular. It is the only Thai period in which ceramics had much success.
- In Vietnam, special occasions were marked by visits to a village teacher to receive a calligraphy painting of poetry or folk sayings.
- Cambodian artists have long made kites, but kites there are flown at night during monsoon season and have an attached bow that somehow makes the musical sound when it blows in the wind.
- The temple at Angkor Wat features an image of a creature that people believe resembles the stegosaurus. Skeptics relate it to the Mountain Horned Dragon or chameleons that are found in that area.
Southeast Asian Art Top Works
- Garudas – Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok
- Phra Achana – Wat Si Chum
- Phra Say
- Temples of Angkor
- Please Let There Be Peace – Chhim Sothy
- Planet – Singapore
Art History Movements (Order by the period of origin)
Dawn of Man – BC 10
Paleolithic Art (Dawn of Man – 10,000 BC), Neolithic Art (8000 BC – 500 AD), Egyptian Art (3000 BC - 100 AD), Ancient Near Eastern Art (Neolithic era – 651 BC), Bronze and Iron Age Art (3000 BC – Debated), Aegean Art (2800-100 BC), Archaic Greek Art (660-480 BC), Classical Greek Art (480-323 BC ), Hellenistic Art (323 BC – 27 BC), Etruscan Art (700 - 90 BC)
1st Century to 10th Century
Roman Art (500 BC – 500 AD), Celtic Art. Parthian and Sassanian Art (247 BC – 600 AD), Steppe Art (9000BC – 100 AD), Indian Art (3000 BC - current), Southeast Asian Art (2200 BC - Present), Chinese and Korean Art, Japanese Art (11000 BC – Present), Early Christian Art (260-525 AD, Byzantine Art (330 – 1453 AD), Irish Art (3300 BC - Present), Anglo Saxon Art (450 – 1066 AD), Viking Art (780 AD-1100AD), Islamic Art (600 AD-Present)
10thCentury to 15th Century
Pre Columbian Art (13,000 BC – 1500 AD), North American Indian and Inuit Art (4000 BC - Present), African Art (), Oceanic Art (1500 – 1615 AD), Carolingian Art (780-900 AD), Ottonian Art (900 -1050 AD), Romanesque Art (1000 AD – 1150 AD), Gothic Art (1100 – 1600 AD), The survival of Antiquity ()
Art History - 15th century onwards
Renaissance Style (1300-1700), The Northern Renaissance (1500 - 1615), Mannerism (1520 – 17th Century), The Baroque (1600-1700), The Rococo (1600-1700), Neo Classicism (1720 - 1830), Romanticism (1790 -1890), Realism (1848 - Present), Impressionism (1860 - 1895), Post-Impressionism (1886 - 1904), Symbolism and Art Nouveau (1880 -1910), Fauvism , Expressionism (1898 - 1920), Cubism . Futurism (1907-1928 )Abstract Art (1907 – Present Day), Dadasim,. Surrealism (1916 - 1970),. Latin American Art (1492 - Present, Modern American Art (1520 – 17th Century), Postwar European Art (1945 - 1970), Australian Art (28,000 BC - Present), South African Art (98,000 BC - Present)
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Southeast Asian Art – Major Artworks
Art History Movements (Order by the period of origin)
Dawn of Man – BC 10
Paleolithic Art (Dawn of Man – 10,000 BC), Neolithic Art (8000 BC – 500 AD), Egyptian Art (3000 BC - 100 AD), Ancient Near Eastern Art (Neolithic era – 651 BC), Bronze and Iron Age Art (3000 BC – Debated), Aegean Art (2800-100 BC), Archaic Greek Art (660-480 BC), Classical Greek Art (480-323 BC ), Hellenistic Art (323 BC – 27 BC), Etruscan Art (700 - 90 BC)
1st Century to 10th Century
Roman Art (500 BC – 500 AD), Celtic Art. Parthian and Sassanian Art (247 BC – 600 AD), Steppe Art (9000BC – 100 AD), Indian Art (3000 BC - current), Southeast Asian Art (2200 BC - Present), Chinese and Korean Art, Japanese Art (11000 BC – Present), Early Christian Art (260-525 AD, Byzantine Art (330 – 1453 AD), Irish Art (3300 BC - Present), Anglo Saxon Art (450 – 1066 AD), Viking Art (780 AD-1100AD), Islamic Art (600 AD-Present)
10thCentury to 15th Century
Pre Columbian Art (13,000 BC – 1500 AD), North American Indian and Inuit Art (4000 BC - Present), African Art (), Oceanic Art (1500 – 1615 AD), Carolingian Art (780-900 AD), Ottonian Art (900 -1050 AD), Romanesque Art (1000 AD – 1150 AD), Gothic Art (1100 – 1600 AD), The survival of Antiquity ()
Art History - 15th century onwards
Renaissance Style (1300-1700), The Northern Renaissance (1500 - 1615), Mannerism (1520 – 17th Century), The Baroque (1600-1700), The Rococo (1600-1700), Neo Classicism (1720 - 1830), Romanticism (1790 -1890), Realism (1848 - Present), Impressionism (1860 - 1895), Post-Impressionism (1886 - 1904), Symbolism and Art Nouveau (1880 -1910), Fauvism , Expressionism (1898 - 1920), Cubism . Futurism (1907-1928 )Abstract Art (1907 – Present Day), Dadasim,. Surrealism (1916 - 1970),. Latin American Art (1492 - Present, Modern American Art (1520 – 17th Century), Postwar European Art (1945 - 1970), Australian Art (28,000 BC - Present), South African Art (98,000 BC - Present)