Painting

Bali offers to the visitor an extraordinary richness of styles of painting, the product of many influences, traditional and modern. Until the 19th century fine arts were mainly instruments of religious expression for the Indo-Javanese courts and agrarian communities of the island. Early traditional painters created temple hangings on cloth or manuscripts, adhering to conventional themes and standardized colors handed down through generations. They illustrated the Hindu Buddhist mythology along lines similar in form and narrative to those of the puppet show theatre.

The arrival of the Europeans, from the mid19th century onward, transformed this system. Not only did the Dutch take destroy the courts and introduced the seeds of commercialization, but there was also a direct process of Western artistic influence. This started in Ubud, which became in the 20s and 30s a haven for expatriate artists and literati. There, Walter Spies (1895-1942), a Russian-German musician, writer and painter of considerable talent, and Rudolf Bonnet (1895-1977), and Dutch academic drawer, took to distributing material, providing advice and finding markets for the village painters and sculpture.

Their action, support by the local House of Sukawati, led to the Pita Maha renaissance, called by the name of the association (1935) which regrouped the main artists of the period. The themes, techniques and function of painting were transformed: naturalism became more important than symbolism, individual expression than collective, and art was now created for its own sake; instead of myths and gods of the past, painting now talked of daily life and nature too. Pita Maha was centered on the villages of Batuan and Ubud/Padangtegal.

After WW II, new trends appeared toward miniaturization, naturalism, accentuation of color etc. No less important, artists trained in the academies of Java, some Balinese, others from Java and other islands, introduced “modem art to Bali. As a result, Bali has now become the main center of fine arts in Indonesia and one of the most important in SEA.

Today, paintings – portable, cheap, and unique – are Bali’s most exported craft. Of all Bali’s art forms, painting is the most influenced by Western demand and Western aesthetics. Though still masters of technique, the majority of today’s Balinese painters work for commercial gain, reasoning that it’s senseless to go to the trouble of making a good painting when a bad painting will sell for just as much, just as fast. As a result, much Balinese painting, though opulent in color, has a paint-by-the-numbers sameness. Most pieces are more like colored drawings than paintings-too-hastily made, and sadly limited in subject matter, treatment, and symbolism. It takes careful, persistent searching to uncover work of skill and elegance.

Characteristics of Balinese Paintings
When looking at a Balinese painting, the first thing that strikes out is its unique concept of space. There is no real focus. The surface of the canvas is “full” to the point that nothing stands out, either thematically or “visually”. The eye is like “blinded” by an accumulation of elements over the surface. Another feature is systematic pattering. A Balinese painting is “surpriseless”. It combines ready-made forms distributed all over the canvas. There are for example is three or four types of eyes, five or 6 postures, eight or seven types of head-dresses, tress etc. And each is reproduced in a limited variety of ways: smaller or bigger, symmetric or parallel, all based on the same original pattern of reference.

These features point to a comic – stripe type of art. And, of course, Balinese painting is basically storytelling. When it doesn’t tell the episode of a ‘wayang’ (puppet-show) narrative, it depicts a situation of “happy Bali”: market scenes, women at bath, natural life, etc. This is an art where the art of the collective is more important than that of the individual. And it is the legitimacy of this collective mind-frame that we have to accept if we ever to understand Balinese painting. It is within their patterned world, constraining as it seems, that the Balinese artists find their “liberty of expression”.

Balinese painters demonstrate an accurate and instinctive knowledge of human anatomy and a tendency to use rich decorative colors. They never lack a theme, having been filled with stories and myths from childhood on. Jungle scenes show an elaborate, riotous decoration of leaves, flowers, and animals, with every leaf and tree carefully outlined, and tiny blades of grass and insects found in the farthest corners of the canvas.

The best paintings reflect the Balinese sense of divine order, with all elements well-proportioned and balanced, and everything in its proper, harmonious place. This is why Balinese paintings are seldom executed spontaneously but are carefully preplanned – the coloring, shading, boundaries, and contours penciled in first. In many of their paintings, dozens of stories happen all at once and several different perspectives are employed, as if the scene were composed from different viewpoints.

To fully appreciate a Balinese painting, one should stop expecting a “visual focus”, and let instead the eye roam freely over the surface, gaze at a patterned detail. The face of a woman, for example, dig into it, identify a component sub pattern – the woman’s shawl – and then roam again on the search of another detail, following step by step the lines of identification of the drawing.

Studying Painting
Watercolorists and photographers couldn’t pick a more colorful subject than Bali. Art tours are common here. An Australian painter, Barbara Miller, runs an inn on the beach in remote Tabanan Regency, accommodating artists from around the world. Called BeeBees (fax 62361-36.021), and located just four km beyond Kerambitan near the village of Tibubiyu, the seven rustic yet comfortable lumbung-style bungalows are the perfect retreat for painters.

Scores of painter’s homestays in the Ubud area – Mimpi’s, W Wayan Serathi’s, I Wayan Suka’s, to name a few – give lessons (look for the sign “Painter & Homestay”). Certain galleries, like Agung Rai in Peliatan, offer lessons to foreign artists. Or you may want to see if you can get accepted as a student in the Balinese Art Development Center Program on Jl. Bayusuta (in the Art Center in Abiankapas). Always try for a student discount.

Traditional Painting

For centuries Java was the mother country, a fact reflected even today in the subject matter of traditional Balinese painting. The traditional styles derive for the most part from the 14th and 15th centuries when the Hindu population of East Java migrated to Bali, taking their art forms with them.

The first painters were puppet painters, a skill, which evolved over time to include painting figures on cloth according to well-established iconography rules. Known as wayang-style paintings because the figures resembled shadow-puppet characters, these highly formalized traditional paintings related scenes from Balinese mythology and from the classical Hindu Mahabharata and Ramayana epics.

Popular, everyday scenes from daily Balinese life were never depicted. This was a world of Hindu gods, demons, and princesses dressed in the ancient attire of Hindu Javanese times. Quaint but uninspiring, their purpose was to instill moral and ethical values by relating laws of adat.

Specialists in the traditional arts of religious drawing and painting were commissioned by the rajas to paste gold leaf on pieces of clothing; paint statues and artifacts in bright splashy colors; and decorate wooden cremation towers, palace altars, and pavilions. Noblemen from the courts loaned each other artists, in this way spreading art all over the island.

Types of Traditional Paintings
These early Hindus Balinese produced three main types of paintings. The first, called ider-ider, were cotton scroll paintings in the shape of banners, usually two meters long and 30 cm wide, hung under the eaves of shrines during festivals.

The second type, langse, were large rectangular pieces of painted cloth, up to 15 meters long and four meters wide, suspended from puri pavilions or used as curtains to partition off areas of a temple. Both the ider-ider and the langse were religious narrative paintings characterized by a flat, stiff, formal style-a serial representation of people, gods, and demons painted according to a very strict traditional formula and lacking in all emotion.

The third type of traditional painting was the astrological calendar (pelelintangan), examples of which exist to this day.

With the Dutch conquest of the island in 1908, the courts lost power and ceremonial painting went into immediate decline. After that, only the wealthy princes of fertile Gianyar Regency were able to retain their rank and thus continue to patronize the arts. Painting still finds its way onto statues, crossbeams, and building columns. Color is applied at its most frenzied on religious architecture and in ceremonial bale, particularly in the decoration of bed-boards and shrine boxes (prabu), and on the long banners that beautify temple eaves during ‘odalan’.

Characteristics Traditional Painting
The painter of traditional works is governed by a strict set of rules regarding subjects, scenery, and composition. Colors are traditionally confined to red (barak), vermilion (kencu), blue (pelung), indigo (tengi), yellow (kuning), white (putih), and black (selem), and a little ochre for flesh tones. These colors at one time were made from organic soot, clay, minerals, fish-gelatin, and pig’s bones, but now imported oil colors, acrylics, and black Chinese ink are used.

Originally, the painting surface was hand-woven cotton cloth imported from Nusa Penida. Today a thin, unbleached cotton fabric is coated with rice paste until an even, matte-like surface is achieved. The cloth is then polished to a sheen with a large smooth seashell. The coating dulls even bright colors, giving the work a vintage appearance; hence the modern terms for these paintings, lukisan antik, or “antique paintings.”

The master first systematically and mechanically draws the preliminary outline of the picture. Assistants color it in, then the master gives the finishing touches. Shading to indicate perspective is traditionally not used. Profiles are rare and full-face representations rarer still. Most faces are drawn in three-quarter profile, with the eyes always shown.

All available space is covered in designs. Cloud and wind patterns, flaming ornamental borders, rocks or mountain motifs, and characters standing back-to-back are common devices used to separate the plot-related scenes. Captions are written in the fluid script of archaic Old Javanese or Kawi.

Traditional paintings are read like a comic strip, the characters and events represented in separate space cells, the scenes all taking place in a divine cosmic world with the same heroes appearing again and again in different attitudes. Important scenes are positioned in the center, peripheral events to the sides; gods are at the top, demons on the bottom. Sky and clouds are indicated by stylized, codified ornamentation.

Each god is distinguished by details of dress and aspect which set him or her apart, whether they be halus (“refined” heroes, deities, and princes) or kasar (“rough” rogues, giants, retainers). Noble, highbred figures wear rich courtly costumes, elaborate headdresses, and jewelry. Their faces are aloof and poised with a serene smile on their lips (even during the bloodiest battles), their arms and legs are long and thin like classical dancers.

Coarse characters are denoted by their wild, bulging eyes, sinister sharp teeth, bulbous mouths and noses, hairy black scowling faces, and threatening poses. A character’s attributes dictate his age, class, demeanor, position, and actions. For example, the eyes of women are downcast; those of men are proud and alert.

Although rigidly standardized and holding to a inflexible set of conventions, traditional “Kamasan-style” paintings have a balance, a quality of design similar to that of Persian miniatures, Byzantine mosaics, or illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. While European religious narrative art of medieval times portrayed episodes from the New Testament, Balinese religious art show scenes from their sacred, popular Hindu mythology.

By far the finest original examples of traditional paintings date from the 14th century’s Gelgel/Klungkung dynasties. These are found on the painted ceilings of the Kerta Gosa (“Hall of Justice”) in Klungkung, where you can see (with the help of binoculars) the different tiers showing all the levels of existence between heaven and hell. The most famous panels illustrate the torments of evildoers-people being torn, impaled, crushed, mutilated, eaten, and boiled alive.

All these paintings were rendered by anonymous medieval artisans lying on their backs for months on end. The kings, princes, and temple councils of other courtly centers in Gianyar, Tabanan, Sanur, Bangli, Singaraja, and Karangasem also commissioned ritual art.

Kamasan or Wayang-StyIe
An ancient traditional painting derived from the wayang kulit (shadow puppet) religious myths. The best place to shop for these is in Kamasan village, south of Klungkung. Mandra is considered a living master.

Ubud-Style
Basically, there are three different types, all using acrylic paints. In the Spies-style, extravagant vegetation envelopes small human beings or dancers with terraced rice paddies and steaming volcanoes in the background.

The wayang-style are religious paintings but are more frightening, mature, and three-dimensional with a whole array of baffling, howling, contorting supernatural figures. Finally, the Bonnet-style portrays large figures harvesting or winnowing rice and tying rice bundles, often working in a line across the canvas.

Batuan-Style
Tiny figures painted in black and white on paper with absolutely no unfilled space. The subject is usually a rustic scene of everyday village life with the ubiquitous Rangda and Barong dance. Collectors of this style should visit Batuan village and see the galleries. The recognized premier practitioners are currently Budi and Bendi. Batuan-style paintings have changed little since the 1930s.

School of Balinese Art
During the period of inactivity in the 1930s, an utterly new style emerged in Penestanan near Ubud. Later is to become known as The Young Artists School. Teenage artists began to produce refreshingly bold paintings using strong primary colors and simples confident lines. Encouraged by such resident artists is as Arie Smit (Dutch) and Donald Friend (Australian), this style was characterized by a joyful, childlike, artistry yet contained a youth’s insightful view of reality.

The story goes that the style was founded one day in 1956 when Arie Smit was painting a landscape outside Ubud. A 12-year-old boy shepherding a waddle of ducks nearby watched him and began drawing village scenes and people in the dirt. Smit asked him if he would like to come to is work for him and learn how to draw on paper and use colors. Permission first had to be obtained from the boy’s father, who only granted it after it was agreed that Smit pay for hiring another boy to take care of the family’s ducks. Soon the talented boy, through the sale of his paintings, was able to buy a cow for his father. Within three years the group of “Young Artists” consisted of 25 boys. Smit’s first and most devoted pupil, Nyoman Cakra, still lives and works in Penestanan.

The best Young Artists paintings show the same masterful sense of color and love of imaginary animals, mysterious spirits, and ordinary country life, as did their artistic forebears. The striking characteristic of this school is the primitive, flat colors used-a practice, which prevails to this day.

These simple and naive paintings, particularly the landscapes, are produced quickly and in large quantities. Critics have gushed that the Young Artists constitute “perhaps the most fascinating and brilliant example of peasant art to be found in the world today.” Something you should know: Young Artists’ pictures, ever popular with tourists, are frequently priced the same as other works of superior quality that take one to two months to paint and demonstrate a much deeper knowledge of anatomy and perspective.

Tropical Birds
In 1985, large pastel paintings of birds started appearing all over Bali. Once popular with interior and hotel designers, the birds have now fallen out of vogue, though the images are very attractive and suitable for some settings.

Modernists
This school takes in Affandi and Aziz to Mohamed. Usually Javanese, not Balinese, artists. One of the best known Modernists is the multi-media artist Abdullah Aziz from Jakarta who lives in Mas. Aziz paints pictures of Balinese boys and girls flirting; also into boat-building, music, and painting women. Fine technique.

Naked Women
It is a favorite subject of painters in Bali since the 1930s. Schlocky, clumsy paintings are sold in galleries and on foot proliferate. No one has ever emulated the Dutch artist Hofker in the rendition of the graceful Balinese female form.

Buying Traditional Paintings
Modern examples of traditional wayang-style cloth paintings are still created, particularly by artists living in the village of Kamasan, a few kilometers to the south of Klungkung (Klungkung Regency). These paintings make superb souvenirs because their cotton cloth can be folded easily. When you get back home, just stretch the canvas or spray or dampen it with water, then iron it carefully on the back on a low heat setting.

In the past, the Kamasan studios worked with natural paints made from slivers of bone, a mixture of plain and holy water, and powdered stone (from which the color was derived). The paint’s base was worked with a pestle and mortar for an hour, and the only color that was not natural was blue. Today, the majority of artists use acrylics because few people still know how to prepare the natural paints.

Fine specimens of Kamasan paintings are seriously undervalued. As in former times, paintings are still unsigned and the artists are taught from a very early age not to express themselves in original and individual forms but in highly patterned ways.

Look before you buy. Watch the painter at work if you can, then you know they’re authentic. Spend time learning about the painting you’re considering. Let it grow on you. What’s the story behind it? Just like the stained-glass windows in the cathedrals of Europe, which illustrate fables from the gospels, these Kamasan paintings portray a certain character or god in Balinese legend. Have the artist explain the work to you.

In the village of Krambitan, 20-km southwest of Tabanan, the painters’ association Karya Dharma has revived a regional offshoot of traditional Balinese painting that thrived here during the 1930s. They produce wayang-style paintings but with more colors and a bolder style. For antique pieces, look in the antique shops of Klungkung and Kamasan.

For something unusual, check out Balinese traditional calendars, which depict a cross section of Balinese culture. These paintings are chiefly made for tourists but are also used to predict the future. (See the special topic “The Balinese Calendar” for more information.) There are two kinds of these old-style calendars, both of which pictorially represent the days of the month.

Modern Painting

As early as the turn of the century, the art of northern Bali had come under European influence. But by 1930 Balinese painting was stagnating, the art form no longer in demand by the Balinese themselves. The palaces stopped commissioning artists, and the highly stylized, traditional hangings were no longer painted. Bali was about to undergo a tumult of suffering and chaos, but it was the period between the two great wars that brought the heaviest changes and greatest surge of creativity.

Guidebooks have repeated the outdated fairy tale that was started in the 1930s by the Dutch scholar Sutterheim and the painter Rudolph Bonnet (1895-1978). The men published articles claiming that modern Balinese art was born during the years 1933-39 when it first made contact with Western painters. This premise was put forth to further the career of Bonnet, and it reflected a strong colonial bias that colored all Dutch scholarship in the first half of this century.

This legend is only half-true. Bonnet, the German artist Walter Spies (1895-1942), and others did demonstrate to Balinese artists that painting could be free of set formulas. Rather than paint to a single stylistic convention, the Europeans introduced by way of example the concept of the third dimension, the imaginative use of color, modern graphic elements, and a wider range of subject matter. They also provided Balinese artists with new media and materials such as Chinese ink, bristle brushes, watercolors and tempera, steel pens, and European paper.

But the Balinese were not romantics given to passionate improvisation, expressiveness, and creativity. It was as much their exposure to modern stimuli, the economic inducement of the tourist industry, and their growing knowledge of the world at large that encouraged Balinese artists to stop painting according to rules and to start re-creating their own visual experience. Tourists began to request that their canvases be stretched and framed; this tended to limit the subject matter of a picture to a single scene instead of depicting episodes taking place in a series.

The extraordinary creativity of the 1930s pulled Balinese art out of its lethargy, but all the upheaval of WW II and the postwar Indonesian struggle of independence from 1945 to 1950 put a sudden stop to artistic activity. After the wars, Balinese painting entered another low period, with much of the original creative impetus of the 1930s dissipated. Subject matter was designed to appeal to tourists; artists churned out paintings with idealized, unrealistic legong dancers, women presenting offerings, men working the fields, and cockfights.

The Young Artists School
Suddenly, around 1956, a new style of modernism appeared. Under the guidance and encouragement of Dutch painter Arie Smit, young boys around Penestanan and Ubud began creating naive three-dimensional paintings based on scenes from their daily life: a village street, a woman feeding hens, people working the harvest or bartering at the market, ritual and dance festivals, birds and animals, a cremation-themes that had never been attempted before.

This movement became known as the Young Artists School, and the exuberant paintings in bright, bold, hallucinogenic colors found a ready market. Here was taking place a rekindling of artistic expression, a new realism that soon developed into a sophisticated, distinctive, naturalistic style.

A new generation of Balinese artists came to the fore – I Sobrat, Made Griya, Gusti Njoman Lempad, Ida Bagus Made, Ida Bagus Anom. Though they all had unique styles, these artists were traditionally talented. That is, their genius only found expression working within the general iconography and formal framework of tradition. Their skills were still aimed at making recognizable shapes and characters that could be related to traditional stories or themes known to sell.

During this early period, pleasingly harmonized mosaics of spindly black lines washed with foreboding gray and black tones appeared. Canvases became crowded with dark fantastic forests; strange ghostlike animals; tenuous, halftone figures of villagers almost hidden amid shadowy jungle vegetation; or nightmarish visions of monsters with snakes for genitals.

Towering over the group was Gusti Nyoman Lempad (1862-1978) of Ubud, a master artisan, carver, architect, and painter. He was both a strong advocate of conservative Balinese culture and an avid cross-cultural innovator. Choosing as his medium paper rather than larger-sized cloth, Lempad was the first in the group to experiment with the single-scene format, rather than multiple narrative frames. His works illustrated episodes from Bali’s rich folklore and mythology.

In 1936, together with Spies, Bonnet, and the nobleman Tjokorde Sukawati, Lempad helped found an art association, Pita Maha (“Great Vitality”). The group presented exhibitions in Java and Europe and maintained a high level of quality among its members. For the first time, art began to be bought by collectors and museums. At its peak in the 1930s, Pita Maha counted more than 150 painters, sculptors, and silversmiths among its ranks. By the time Lempad died at the age of 116, the society had emancipated Balinese painting from its comatose state.

Anyone who has an interest in Lempad should see the brilliant film made of his life and the magnificent body of art and architecture he left behind. Directed by John Darling and the late Lorne Blair, it is available through Mystic Fire Video Inc., Box 1092, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10276 (tel. 800-292-9001).

Art critics have mistakenly compared Balinese painting with the eerie jungle scenes of Henri Rousseau, with the black-and-white ornamental illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, and even with the gruesome spooky fantasies of the 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Although Balinese painting shares some similarities with the themes and techniques of these artists, it’s almost certain that early Balinese artists never saw their works.

Non-Balinese Artists
Beginning in the 1930s, an influx of foreign artists fell in love with Bali and did some of their most significant work here. The famous Dutch painter W.O.F. Nieuwenkamp traveled and painted on Bali long before Spies, Bonnet, or anyone else. In fact, it was he who informed Bonnet about Bali.

Willem G. Hofker and Bonnet became masters at painting the female form. Bonnet worked mainly in crayon on paper and his paintings today fetch very high prices. Theo Meier (1908-1982) inspired by German expressionists, painted vibrant and colorful religious ceremonies.

All the works of these Europeans today command much higher prices than any Balinese artist of that era. Paintings by Spies, who died at age 47 and painted few canvases, sell for as much as US$500,000. Any of the others’ work can easily fetch US$50,000.

The canvases of contemporary painters also can fetch astronomical sums. Australian Donald Friend (1915-1990) was a gifted writer and wrote several books, which he himself illustrated. The flamboyant hilltop home of Antonio Blanco (b. 1926) is a shrine to erotic art and illustrated poetry. Han Snel (b. 1925), a Dutch soldier who refused to fight the Indonesians in their war of independence, owes much to his teacher, Theo Meier. Arie Smit (b. 1916) paints mainly landscapes and temples in oil or acrylic. Smit has always been prolific though now that he’s nearing the age of 82 he is slowing down somewhat.

Javanese, Sumatran, and Western artists have started moving into the area between Mas and Ubud, setting up shop and selling paintings to tourists-competing with the Balinese on their own turf. Each year new art styles come into vogue, then fade out. See under “Arts and Crafts” in the Ubud section (Gianyar Regency chapter) for more on individual painters working in the area.

The Academic Painters
Modern Balinese art is now expanding and developing in two different directions: the art of artisans and the art of academicians. Academically trained painters are concerned with a distinct personal style and a national identity. With formal training in the European tradition from art academies on Java and in Denpasar, they exhibit a diversity of styles. Only in subject matter, not in ingenuity and skill, do they differ from their European or American counterparts.

The captivating erotic sketches of Nyoman Gunarsa have been very well received. Though he has had academic training on Java, Gunarsa has also been heavily influenced by the traditional wayang style. His museum and gallery are just before Klungkung (if traveling from Gianyar), but he spends a lot of time on Java.

Wayan Lotra is self-taught, but paints in an academic style and has been much influenced by Hofker and Bonnet. Abdul Aziz, Lee Man Fung, and Basuki Abdullah employ Balinese and Javanese motifs and diverse techniques (including painting on batik), and have a tendency toward abstraction.

A growing number of Balinese artists, particularly those affiliated with government schools like STSI, are breaking away from modern traditional (kreasi baru) and are producing advanced and sophisticated experimental art. With the strong support of an emerging Balinese urban middle class, they have created a distinct local version of an international, cosmopolitan artistic culture that is only partly Balinese. Young artists to keep your eye on, all of whom show a strong and unique creative vision, are Made Sumadiyasa, Ngakan Rai Lanus, Ketut Budiana, Nyoman Cakra, and Ketut Soki.

The Non-Academic Painters
Non-academicians have learned their trade by serving as apprentices under established masters. These artists, though not formally trained, often display extraordinary technical skill. Their work is eclectic and can’t be easily classified, but most still paint in the traditional style for the tourist market.

You need at least a rudimentary knowledge of Balinese literature to appreciate them. Subject matter includes detailed scenes from Buddhist mythology, bird-and-banana leaf panels (the current rage), and vivid depictions of the natural world. The art comes straight from the heart.

Among the most eminent are I Made Nyana, Bendi, and Budi, whose paintings cost up to US$1000. These painters work in the Batuan-style-naturalistic, heavily shadowed figures, and miniatures of paper with little leftover space. Another extremely successful artist is I Nyoman Meja, whose studio is in Taman near the Nomad Restaurant (if coming from Peliatan, turn right). He asks US$2000 for one of his phantasmagoric, exquisitely executed paintings.

Women Artists
The women of Bali are freeing themselves more and more from being mere objects of paintings to being active painters themselves. There are women’s gamelan orchestras, women carvers, and a gallery in Ubud, Seniwati Gallery (Jl. Sri Wedari 2 B, Banjar Taman, tel. 62361-975.485, fax 975.453), devoted solely to art by Balinese and Indonesian women and girls. The gallery is open 1000-1300 and 1400-1700; closed Monday and Friday.

Dewa Biang Raka studied under Bonnet, and was the only female artist among 10 pupils who used to go into the rice fields with him to paint. Now she lives like a hermit and paints monochromatic works, yet the subtle colors grow on you. Raka doesn’t sell her works because she wants to know where they are and who buys them. Some paintings you may buy but may never sell.

Motherhood is a favorite theme of Tjok. Istri Mas Astiti, whose works often depict pregnant women with children. In her paintings, Astiti also examines the roles of women in different societies and relationships. Her moving work is reminiscent of the social realism found in the art of modern China and Vietnam.

A well-established artist in the Batuan-style is Gusti Ayu Natih Arimini, who paints lively pictures full of charming details and enchanting stories. Sri Supriyatini has gained recognition for her dark, gloomy paintings, which have a rough, textured surface, almost like a bas-relief.

Javanese-born Yannar Ernawati is known for her expressive, surreal pictures and unusual colors. Ni Made Suciarmi (b. 1932) is a master of traditional Kamasan-style paintings, adapted from wayang kulit. Made started her career mixing paints for her uncle during the renovation of the original Kerta Gosa masterpiece in Klungkung in 1938. One of her high quality one- by one-and-a-half-meter paintings costs around a million rupiah. Even her students charge this much!

Information
A visit to the following artists is recommended to familiarize the visitor planning a purchase: Han Snel in Siti Bungalows (Ubud), Antonio Blanco (Campuan), Ida Bagus Tilem (Mas). Ida Bagus Made (Tebesaya) is still crazy, still the best of the old masters. He doesn’t care about fame or money so you won’t find his paintings in galleries, only in museums. He won’t sell his work but if he likes you he may give it to you. Also visit Nyoman Sumertha and Nyoman Ada in Peliatan, one km east of Ubud.

Founded in 1979, the Taman Werdi Budaya or Denpasar Art Center is on Jl. Nusa Indah in Abiankapas, on the road to Sanur. It’s a center for painting, mask, and woodcarving exhibits where Balinese and Indonesian artists are featured. Each year from mid-June to mid-July the Center also hosts a summer art festival with painting expositions.

An event worth attending is the Walter Spies Festival put on by Yayasan Walter Spies each February at Denpasar Art Center; get the foundation’s newsletter by writing Stichting Walter Spies, Steenstraat 1, 2312 BS Leiden, Netherlands.

For a thorough discussion of the traditional Kamasan painting style, see “Kamasan and Vicinity” under “Vicinity of Klungkung” in the Klungkung Regency chapter. The following books are definitive references to Balinese painting: The Sukarno Collection of Paintings (Jakarta, 1959), a catalog of great Indonesian paintings in the collection of the late President Sukarno; Perceptions of Paradise: Images of Bali in the Arts, published by the Neka Gallery (1993) with text and photographs by Garrett Kam; Willem G. Hofker, Painter of Bali, a helpful treatise; and Walter Spies and Balinese Art by Rhodius and Darling (Amsterdam, 1980), an excellent introduction to the man and his extraordinary life and work.

Indonesian Art by Joseph Fisher is a catalog produced for the “Year of Indonesia” traveling exhibit of 1991. It includes a section on Balinese painters. Balinese Painting by A.A. Djelentik (Oxford University Press, 1986) is a tiny book that tries to wrap up the whole subject. Good try. For more information about the origin of Klungkung-style paintings, refer to Idanna Pucci’s exhaustive study of the Kerta Gosa paintings called The Epic of Life (Van der March, 1985).

Mystic Fire Video (225 Lafayette St., Suite 1206, New York, NY 10012, tel. 212-941-0999) sells a 60-minute color video called Lempad of Bali (1979) directed by Lorne Blair. This film captures some of the strength and genius of this remarkable artist who was known throughout Europe in the 1920s for his religious and erotic art.

Museums
You’ll soon learn that many galleries call themselves museums but are really display rooms selling paintings. The real museums are well known. Preeminent among them is the Bali Museum in Denpasar (East Side of Puputan Square) which contains many masterpieces tracing the development of Balinese painting. This venerable museum, the ultimate repository of Balinese culture, also frequently exhibits contemporary artists.

To familiarize yourself with high-quality historical works, visit the Puri Lukisan Museum in Ubud. Founded in 1954 by Tjokorda Sukawati and Rudolph Bonnet, this “Palace of Art” houses a permanent collection of many early treasures of modern Balinese sculpture and painting-from impressionism to abstract expressionism. Displayed in chronological order, the museum gives the viewer an idea of the stylistic trends in Balinese art over the past 25 years. One wing is devoted to new work, where it’s possible to meet the artists.

Framing and Shipping
If you don’t want the frame to the painting you’re buying, you can often buy it without the frame, but bear in mind that frames here are real bargains compared to prices in the West. All Balinese frames are different; sometimes they’re plain with no carving, sometimes they have very ornate carving. But for the most part, Balinese framing is heavily carved-not the austere sort of thing that would go well in a minimalist New York apartment.

When visiting galleries, be aware that the frame could add substantially to the price of your purchase. The most elaborate ones cost around Rp15,000 per meter-works of art in themselves. For the lower-cost paintings, you might find that the frame may cost you more than the painting. The price of the frame also depends on the wood used and who carved it.

The gallery will (or should) break down your frame into four pieces, roll it up safely in cardboard, and package it for carrying or shipping. Up to 10 paintings can be rolled into one mailing tube without damage (frames should be packaged separately). Stationery stores in Denpasar sell plastic or cardboard tubes. Some galleries will even package and ship for you, either through an air-freight company or via surface post through the Indonesian post office (which takes a lot longer but is safe and cheaper).