Saya Aye (Burmese: ဆရာအေး; 1872–1930) was a major painter from Mandalay of the Traditional School who took some of the earliest steps in Burma in modernizing and Westernizing his painting,[1][2][3][4] both religious and secular.

Ultimately, Saya Aye stood on his own and opened up his own studio in Mandalay and began to make a reputation for himself with illustrations and art decoration for funereal ceremonies.

[2][4] Saya Aye’s first taste of fame arrived with the patronage of U Khandi, a hermit monk of Mandalay who was keen to preserve the habits, customs and values of the Konbaung Dynasty through the imagery of painting.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, these Buddhist works were generally done on metal sheets,[3][5] quite often zinc,[2] and hung high beneath the ceilings in monasteries and pagodas.

[3][5] At least two of Saya Aye's court scenes of the Burmese monarchy (on zinc plates, dated 1918) have survived in good shape and both of them are startling.

[4] The works borrowed many techniques from Western painting—anatomical accuracy of proportion, depth perspective, shading, foreshortening, and moody expressiveness of personality.

In these works, Saya Aye, who had no real formal training in Western painting, took giant steps in creating an original expression in Burma.