Classical Balinese Fine Art Museum

This museum is located in Klungkung Regency, about 35 km to the east of Denpasar. It is located in Banjar Banda on a three-way intersection at Takmung, Klungkung. The owner is a painter named Nyoman Gunarsa who built it as the realisation of his love to the arts and dedication to his homeland. The Indonesian Minister of Education and Culture, Wardiman Djojonegoro officially declared the museum open on January 16, 1994. Established on an area of 2380 square meters, the museum consists of a three-floored building with a mixture of styles of architecture of both traditional Balinese and modern.

Each floor of the museum has a different function. The first floor is employed as a fine art exhibition hall. The second floor is used to store museum collections such as Balinese classical paintings and sculptures inherited from Balinese kingdoms that used to hold the power in Bali. Some of these museum collections are Kamasan puppet paintings, kober (a kind of flag usually put in holy places or used in Balinese Hindu ceremonies), malat (a kind of spiritual hymn), ider-ider (strips of cloth attached to the eaves of temple buildings for decoration during a ceremony, usually made of prada or coloured cloth decorated with gold paint or gold leaf), and statues.
The third floor is used as the room to display Nyoman Gunarsa’s work. In this room we can see Nyoman Gunarsa’s paintings from the beginning of his career until the present.
The Balinese Classical Fine Art Museum has accumulated 166 collections of paintings and sculptures. Nyoman Gunarsa, is still actively painting as a means to maintain the museum’s financial survival. (Gung man)

Traditional Paintings of Ubud

Ubud’s traditional style of painting received significant influence from Rudolf Bonnet and Walter Spies, two European painters who resided in the Ubud area. The themes, panoramas, and expression of these painting are far freer than those of the Kamasan style. The Ubud artists did not simply depict wayang stories, but were expressive about the beauty of daily activities, landscapes, rice fields, market scenes, temple ceremonies, and many kinds of dance performances such as the topeng ( mask dance ) and arja ( folk dance – drama )

The figures of the Ubud painting style are more dynamic and attractive than the Kamasan paintings. The composition is much improved and attention is giben to proportion, anatomy, perspective, and shading effects. The artist make use of watercolours, oil and acrylic paints applied to canvas.

The painting technique:
The traditional Ubud artists follow these basic steps:
A Pencil sketch is made. Nyawi: the sketches are outlined in black using a bamboo pen.
Ngabur: the addition of shading in order to intensify or soften the effect of the painting. Shading is done with a black colour working from the darkest to the lightest parts. Nguap: applying transparent colours only after the black under shading has been satisfactorily applied. Nyenter: the application of white or yellow paint to give special light effects.