Nine Dragon Mural
First placed in Singapore: 1962
SCCCI Building, South Bridge Rd
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Patron: Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce
A nine-dragon mural in glazed ceramic tile. Based on the model of the mural on the North Bank of the North Sea Park in Beijing. Six colours are used. Said a publication of the SCCC to commemorate the new building in 1964: "The two murals are glorious although they are not as perfect as the Peking original. The colour effect is on the whole very pleasing. But the craftsmanship leaves something to be desired. The porcelain pieces have shrunk a little and gaps have had to be filled with suitable material and painted over. "Another shortcoming from the point of view of the artist is that the pearls disgorged by the dragons should have been red instead of white. Perhaps something went wrong when the tiles were being treated without copper fragments. They were however been painted red [sic] now." All of this only illustrates the vagaries of the difficult art of porcelain murals. "Singapore however can now claim the distinction of having two of the few dragon porcelain murals in the world. Let us cherish them as rare works of art of which we can be proud."- C.M. Wong, "The Dragon Murals and Their Meaning", in L.G. Mani, editor, Fifty-eight Years of Enterprise, Singapore: LM Creative Publicity Ltd, 1964 In fact this seems, from literati perspective, a very strong and pretentious sort of monument for a bunch of merchants to create? Photo by Jnzl under a CC-BY-2.0 license.
Last updated: Jul-24-2022
