A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Libraries reveals the talent of a highly esteemed, longtime ajarn in the Thammasat University Faculty of Arts. Reminiscence from Corfu to Bhubing 1961-1964 by Associate Professor Dr. Piriya Krairiksh accompanied an exhibit in 2014 at the Siam Society in Bangkok of drawings done when the artist was living on the Greek island of Corfu from 1962 to 1963, and following His Majesty King Rama IX on a visit to Bhubing Rajanives Palace, a royal residence in Doi Buak Ha, Muang District, Chiang Mai Province, in 1963 and 1964. As the Nation noted in 2014, Ajarn Piriya’s

quick sketches of Their Majesties the King and Queen recall wonderful memories.

With energetic and expressive lines, the artist was able to capture characterful moments, so that even a minimalist drawing of His Majesty the King wearing a backpack is immediately identifiable. Ajarn Piriya explains:

After my return to Bangkok in September 1963, my uncle, Khun Poonpherm Krairiksh, who was head of the Royal Pages Division, officially presented me to His Majesty the King at the Chitrlada Villa at Dusit Palace… His Majesty already knew me as Khun Poonpherm’s nephew because I’d visited him at the Villa Flonzaley near Vevey, Switzerland, in 1960, where Their Majesties were staying during their visit to Europe. Moreover, during Christmas that year I had joined Their Majesties for a skiing holiday in Gstaad. After my presentation, His Majesty graciously gave me permission to paint portraits of him in his study, playing the saxophone and playing badminton. He also allowed me to paint him while presenting robes to monks at Wat Bowonniwet Vihara at the end of Buddhist Lent.

Part of the charm of these images is their informal spontaneity. Accompanying a Royal tour of Switzerland, Greece, Belgium and Austria in September 1964, Ajarn Piriya was present when His Majesty Rama IX visited the Austrian painter Oskar Kokoschka in Switzerland. Aged almost eighty at the time, Kokoschka had created his most dramatic works around the time of the First World War. In 1965, Ajarn Piriya further pursued his artistic training by studying sculpture with the noted British artist Henry Moore at the Royal College of Arts in London. Renowned as a monumental sculptor of massive figural studies, Henry Moore also produced expressive drawings. Such eminent old artists as Kokoschka and Moore apparently did not inspire Ajarn Piriya to follow their path, as he would soon be studying at Indiana University for a bachelor’s degree in the history of art. As he recounts in Reminiscence from Corfu to Bhubing 1961-1964:

So I laid down my brushes and took up art history. One art critic regretted that I had thrown away my future as an artist, saying, ‘His early work has defined him as potentially one of Thailand’s greatest artists’.” That was Herbert P. Phillips, and the expression of dismay appears in the book The Integrative Art of Modern Thailand.

Professor Herbert P. Phillips is an anthropologist and ethnographer at the University of California, Berkeley, whose books in the Thammasat Libraries collection also include Thai Attitudes Toward the American Presence; Modern Thai Literature: with an Ethnographic Interpretation; and Thai Peasant Personality; The Patterning of Interpersonal Behavior in the Village of Bang Chan. By regretting Ajarn Piriya’s career path, Professor Phillips was contradicting the views of the English poet A. E. Housman, who was quoted by his friend the mathematician G. H. Hardy in his A Mathematician’s Apology:

Whether the faculty of literary criticism is the best gift that Heaven has in its  treasures, I cannot  say; but Heaven  seems to think so, for assuredly it is the gift most charily  bestowed. Orators and poets…, if rare in comparison with blackberries, are commoner  than returns of Halley’s comet: literary critics are less common… In these twenty-two  years I have improved in some respects and deteriorated in others, but I have not so much improved as to become a literary critic, nor so much deteriorated as to fancy that I have become one.

A.E. Housman was pointing out that many people try to write poetry, but the number of genuinely sensitive, tasteful, and knowledgeable critics in the field are few by comparison. The same may be said of all the arts, including painting. Many of the finest writers about art and art history were also talented artists, such as John Ruskin, the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, who created drawings and watercolors that are much admired today. Being able to sketch artworks or buildings can be an essential skill for the historian or critic. So Ajarn Piriya’s talents in the visual arts were especially useful after he earned a doctorate in the history of art from Harvard University. His dissertation was on The Chula Pathon Cedi: Architecture and Sculpture of Dvāravatī (1975). After working as the curator of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Ajarn Piriya began teaching the history of art at Thammasat University. There he directed the Thai Khadi Institute, focusing on Thai society and culture, until 2006. He has also served as president of the Siam Society and as senior research scholar for the Thailand Research Fund. This stellar career of service to the Kingdom culminated with the founding of the Piriya Krairiksh Foundation. According to its website, the foundation began in March 2012

to promote original thinking in the study, research, and dissemination of knowledge in the field of Thai art history and related cultures.

It was inspired by Ajarn Piriya’s art historical works, including The Roots of Thai Art, quoted on the foundation website:

My approach is to give an account of the development of artistic attitudes in Thailand from the point of view of illuminating the culture, which reflects changing values both in terms of materials and motivation, rather than purely looking at the aesthetics. By making people aware of the value of the past in Thailand they can more easily understand the ideas behind the creativity and styles of today.

In 2012 Ajarn Piriya told The Australian Financial Review that The Roots of Thai Art was intended to change popular preconceptions:

Thai art as recently as 1930 was called ornamental, decorative – the crowned Buddhas all dressed up and that sort of thing. That I believe is not exactly fair, because it’s looking through the spectacles of Western art education. And so we have to lead people to appreciate the things that they’re not used to.

Among Ajarn Piriya’s many other books in the TU Libraries collection are Towards a Revised History of Sukhothai Art; A History of the Visual Arts in Thailand: the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Periods; Sculptures from Thailand; and Art in Peninsular Thailand Prior to the Fourteenth Century A.D. Faced by this rich harvest of knowledge and understanding, expertly presented, every reader must feel grateful. In 2013, Forbes Magazine showed some of this gratitude by naming Ajarn Piriya one of its Heroes of Philanthropy for establishing his foundation

to promote art, which challenges orthodox beliefs and encourages research into the art history of Thailand and nearby countries.

(All images courtesy of the Piriya Foundation and Wikimedia Commons).