Indonesian Painting

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Batik Paintings - Batuan Paintings - Kamasan Paintings - Other Paintings

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Indonesian painting

Ancient Indonesian Cave Paintings Rewrite History of Human Art

Hand stencils, like the one pictured above from a cave in Sulawesi, are common in prehistoric art. (Credit: Kinez Riza)

WASHINGTON — Prehistoric paintings at least 40,000 years old that depict animals - including one known as a “pig-deer” - and the outline of human hands in seven caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are rewriting the history of art. Scientists said this week they used a highly precise method to determine the antiquity of the paintings. They found the artwork was comparable in age to the oldest-known rock art from Europe, long thought to be the cradle of the early human cultural achievement embodied by cave painting. “It was previously thought that Western Europe was the centerpiece of a symbolic explosion in early human artistic activity such as cave painting and other forms of image-making, including figurative art, around 40,000 years ago,” said dating expert Maxime Aubert of Australia's Griffith University. The fact that people in Sulawesi were doing the same things as contemporaries in Europe indicates cave art may have emerged independently at about the same time around the world, including Europe and Southeast Asia, added archeologist Thomas Sutikna of Australia's University of Wollongong. “Rock art is one of the indicators of an abstract mind of the past human, the onset of what we might consider to be one of the hallmarks of 'modern' humans,” Sutikna added.

A fragmented painting of a pig-deer or babirusa (Babyrousa sp.) and hand stencil from one of the caves in Sulawesi, Indonesia. (Kinez Riza)

The study focused on 14 cave paintings: 12 human hand stencils and two naturalistic animal depictions, one showing an animal called a babirusa, or “pig-deer,” and the other showing what probably is a pig. They were painted in limestone caves near Maros in southern Sulawesi, a large island east of Borneo. Most of the artwork was created with a pigment called red ochre to produce red- and mulberry-colored paintings. The art's existence had been known for decades, but its age had never been determined. Some experts estimated it was maybe 10,000 years old. The scientists used a method based on the radioactive decay of tiny quantities of uranium in small mineral growths dubbed “cave popcorn” that formed on some of the paintings.

The oldest Sulawesian artwork, a hand outline at least about 40,000 years ago, was comparable in age to the world's oldest-known rock art image, a red dot from Spain's El Castillo site.

The ages for the animal paintings at the famed Chauvet and Lascaux cave sites in France are more recent - between about 26,000 and 18,000 years old - than Sulawesi's figurative animals, which are at least 35,000 years old. The babirusa image represents the oldest-known, reliably dated figurative depiction, Aubert said. The artists made hand images by blowing or spraying paint around hands pressed against rock surfaces.

Paintings and Calligraphy in Indonesia
Painting is widespread in Indonesia as an accompaniment to other art forms. For example, woodcarving, masks and pottery are often painted, as are religious items, such as calendars or religious designs painted. Temple painting and other styles of painting exists on Java, but after the conversion to Islam, Bali became the center for painting in Indonesia. Until the arrival of large numbers of Europeans in the 20th century most Balinese were wall paintings or decorative hangings for temples and palaces.
Painting as an art form was really developed in the 19th and 20th century and includes batik paintings, the highly stylized paintings of Bali which depict village and traditional life as well as modern oils and acrylics. Famous Indonesian painters such as Raden Saleh, command high prices on the international market and at auctions in Singapore and Jakarta.
While non-Islamic art forms abound due to the rich Buddhist/Hindu traditions dating back for centuries, Islamic calligraphy has developed in various art forms as well. These include embroidery, wood carvings, ceramics, paintings, and the beautiful gold embroidered Tapis cloth of Lampung. Among contemporary urban artists, painting on canvas or making batik is much more common than making sculpture. Affandi, a painter, is one of Indonesia’s most highly regarded artists of his time.

Indonesia demonstrates a pluralistic art culture where not only traditional and modern art forms are pursued in harmony, but also the evolution of art forms can be witnessed through varied influences of foreign cultures and religions. Evidence of spiritual art can be traced back to even 1500 B.C. in Indonesia through stone and wooden artifacts, which represented spiritual expression with aesthetics. These elements when combined with Hinduism effectuated Indonesian court art in 7th century. The rise of westernized art came later when the country became a Dutch colony in the 17th century. When the artists started traveling to European countries to study art during 18th and 19th centuries, some of the modern forms of arts developed. Although the impact of religion and spiritualism still reflects in contemporary paintings, yet most of these artworks are a symbol of individual responses to social issues. This post outlines some of the prevalent forms of painting in Indonesia over the past two centuries, the most popular artists of that period, and discernment into the contemporary art scene with present-day artists.

Romanticism
This art form was first used in Germany in 1700s, and is characterized by an emphasis on personal, subjective, imaginative, irrational spontaneous and transcendental. In simple words, a deepened sense of emotions and senses. One of the most famous artists who created paintings with Romanticism theme was Raden Saleh. He studied in Netherlands and traveled across Europe to enhance his skills. The following is a famous painting by Raden Saleh, called ‘Lion Hunt’

Expressionism
This is an art form where the artist focuses on expressing emotions subjectively through exaggeration, distortion, fantasy etc. The aim of the artist in painting here is to be expressive, not beautiful. Many modern artists use this spontaneous technique to depict their minds rather than the outside world. Affandi is a well-known name in Indonesian art scene who made use of Expressionism to create more than 2000 pieces of art, which are displayed in a museum at Yogyakarta. Although Affandi started painting as a realism artist, he later moved to expressionism since he used an exceptional technique to paint by directly squeezing the paint from the tube to canvas. It is interesting to note that he discovered this technique by accident. The anecdote behind it goes like this. Once Affandi broke his brush and to continue to paint, he squeezed the paint directly from the tube to the canvas and then, used his hands as tools. He later started using this technique as his signature style as he believed it gave more dimension to his work. One of his paintings, created in 1950, called ‘The Artist and His Daughter’, shows a beautiful blend of realism and expressionism during the years when he was discovering his signature style.

Another painting by Affandi painted in 1967, called ‘Wisdom of the East’, shows the hand of God reaching across the ocean to the West, while holding wisemen of East – Gandhi, Lo The, and Semar.

Another prominent artist, who is generally rated amongst the five maestros of Indonesian modern art was Hendra Gunawan. His painting style was a combination of western techniques and Indonesian aesthetics. He was not only a painter, but also a guirella fighter during Dutch colonial rule. He later became an activist against the ruling government and was incarcerated from 1965-1978. He continued painting in prison, on small scraps of canvas he had available. Hendra’s paintings have a unique vibrancy to them, despite his life situation and his poverty. The paintings usually show workers in their day-to-day activities, and the background of the paintings seems to be in motion.

His painting ‘Catching a Butterfly’ (source: https://www.cobosocial.com/dossiers/hendra-gunawan-revelations) shows a young girl in her innocence and purity, thus evoking emotional connection with admirers. Most of his paintings have this affect on viewers.

Mooi Indie (“Beautiful Indies”)
This art style was developed in Indonesia during the Dutch regime in the 19th century. It was mainly a way for the Dutch government to increase the tourism appeal for Dutch East Indies. The colonial government at the time wanted to showcase a romanticized view of Indonesia and most artists were not allowed to express the reality, many artists believe that this style represents a slave mentality of colonial era. In fact, one of the most important visual artists before independence, Sindu Sudjojono (1913-1986) coined the term ‘Mooi Indie’ and rejected this movement as “an idealised view of the colonial period and not a true representation of Indonesian society”. Nevertheless, numerous magnificent paintings were produced which showed beautiful, serene, heavenly, and peaceful scenes like mountains, rivers, valleys, villages in Indonesia. Today, the artworks produced in this genre are amongst the most expensive in auctions. Abdullah Suriosubroto was a famous artist who painted Landscape art or Mooi Indie paintings. Notably, he had enrolled in a medical school in what is now Jakarta. But when he went to Netherlands, his interest shifted to fine arts, and thus was born a legendary name in Indonesia art history. The following painting of Priangan landscape by Abdullah Suriosubroto captures the exquisite beauty of landscape and immense talent of the artist.

Realism

This style of art, as the name indicates, depicts ‘real’ objects and scenes. Realism or naturalism, as it is often called, provides an accurate description of the anatomy of humans and animals, details of color and light, and resembles the real world closely. You could understand realism as photograph-like portrayal of objects, characters and scenes. However, it does not imply that the artist painting realism artwork did not paint imaginary characters like angels, demons, flying horses, or ghosts. The imaginary and intriguing stuff often finds its way into realism although the proportions and details of the objects and characters are accurate like in real world. For example, the artist may paint an angel, however, the body will be human like and the wings would be proportionate to the body. A ghost, similarly, would not be blown out of proportion and there would be detailed light effects to indicate that it is a dead person. Some artists and scholars refer to this type of realism as ‘Illusionistic Realism’. Realism as an art form began as a reaction to romanticism, hence, principally they are opposites.

There were two notable artists in this genre in Indonesia - Basuki Abdullah (Abdullah Suriosubroto’s son) and S. Sudjojono.
Basuki Abdullah was a maestro artist and painted focusing on culture and tradition. He painted people, flora and fauna, themes of struggles etc. He was known as a portrait painter, though he used to enhance the beauty of his subjects. An example of his work is – Fight between Ravana and Jatayu.

This painting depicts a scene from the Hindu Epic Ramayana where Ravana is kidnapping Sita, wife of Lord Rama, and a bird called Jatayu is trying to save her from him. S. Sudjojono, on the other hand, was an activist. He wanted to depict social issues through his art and was the pioneer of socialist realism in Indonesia. His expressed his political views through his paintings and wanted them to provide historical and educational value. His painting ‘Comrade of Revolution’ is amongst his most famous artworks.

Balinese Art

This form of art was introduced into Indonesia in the 14th century through the Majapahit’s conquest of Bali. The initial works of art in this style were usually wood carvings and stone carvings. Balinese art was originally carved, painted or woven into objects of daily use. But later, it expanded, and several beautifully refined and intricate paintings were created, which resemble baroque folk art. These paintings often have the theme of battles between good and bad forces, the narratives originating from Hindu-Javanese epics, Javanese folktales and Buddhist texts. Most of these paintings were created as a collaborative work and hence, the artists are anonymous.

This painting is called ‘Wayan Kayun-Barong dance’. In current day, countless of galleries in Bali showcase phenomenal artwork from the famous modern artists as well as from the continually growing local art community. Some Indonesian paintings are displayed in museums and temples across the world. The oldest painting from the 15th century is a lotus painting with Ganesha’s figure and is now preserved at Pura Besakih.

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More info: Wikipedia - Indonesian_painting
Understanding-historical-development-of-indonesian-modern-art

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More info:
Wikipedia - Indonesian_painting