Panoramic Painting in Indonesia

When modern painting styles are to be known by the Indonesian community there arises the new “Indie Mooy” style or alluring Indonesia. So was called because most painters are foreigners that always express the nature of Indonesia to be more beautiful world than its original.

What they painted in the past certainly is contrary to the current situation. Formerly, their life was far more glamorous as they were in the Dutch colonial era. Even the ugliness of life of the Indonesian hardly ever gets attention from foreign artists. They are amazed at the beauty of Indonesian nature that was analogized as ‘the lost paradise’.
In addition, painting on the beauty of nature was most favored by the rich men and collectors. They prefer to display paintings of something beautiful in their luxurious home.
It has been noted some foreign painters were fond of painting the allurement of Indonesian nature such as Walter Spies, Leonardus Eland, Willem Imand, Leo Eland, Piet Ourborg, Carel Lodewijk Dake Jr., and Ernst Dazentje. Their works were more beautifully impressed than its original and liked best by rich men and collectors. The beauty of the equatorial country that is full of color and sunlight decorates widely in the home of the rich in the European hemisphere.
Later, it’s not only foreign painters that makes the nature of Indonesia as the object of his painting. Some Indonesian painters started to paint in Western styles and technique; even there was Indonesian that studied in a Fine Arts Academy in Europe. In the meantime, for local painters that had not the opportunity to go abroad they learned directly from foreign painters that lived in Indonesia.
Raden Saleh, for instance, was an Indonesian painter that deliberately went to Europe and deepened his painting capacity. His paintings that described various happenings and beauty of nature were impressive. He accomplished to move the original nature to canvas medium. He accomplished to adopt mimesis aesthetical principle that later was followed by Indonesian painters like Abdullah Soerio Soebroto, Mas Pringadi, Wakidi, Basuki Abdullah and so forth.
Apart from that, there are several painters that painted the beauty of the Indonesian nature differently. They do not make the skill to move nature to canvas as something fixed, however, put priority on emotional expression of the artist himself. For them, their central point on the painting was not on the attempts to imitate the natural patterns accurately. Yet, they tried to make an effort frankly to present the emotion of the painter into his work. These painting style are called expressionism that assuredly is not something new in Europe. Indonesian painters that practices this style are Sujoyono and Affandi.
Difference of principle among painters frequently occurs. Based on historical records, the birth of faculties in art of painting was one of them originated from the existence of different perspectives. Birth of new ‘ism’ in arts of painting also spreads to Balinese and Indonesian painters.
Painting on the alluring nature of Indonesia in the last decade often received insults. Even the painter of panoramas was isolated from society. However, it did not make the painter of panoramas stop painting. They persistently paint pursuant to their sense of beauty. Names like Dullah, Theo Meier, Arie Smith, Siauw Tik Kwee, Widayat are painters of panorama that up to current times are still popular. It does not include some young painters like Made Budhiana, Gung Man and Mangu Putra along with their respective styles who are absorbed in painting panoramas. (BTN/Wiednyana)

Exhibition at Griya Santrian Gallery

Since being opened by I Nyoman Sura, a Balinese contemporary dancer, this exhibition entitled “Seni sebagai Ekspresi Diri (Art as Self Expression)” at Griya Santrian Gallery, Sanur, is always crowded with visitors. On Friday (6/5), as well as the tourist who stays in Griya Santrian, there were many guests around Sanur area, Nusa Dua and Kuta who came to see the works of this artist. “There are at least 10 – 15 tourists a day arriving to see this 22 painting exhibition. They had come from New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and Indonesia (Jakarta and Bandung)”, said the custodian.
The same situation also appears at cartoon exhibitions for the last couple of months. “About 20 – 30 tourists a day come to watch the funny cartoons exhibited,” he said. The exhibition will continue until 25 June with two works of Sanur painters, Ida Bagus Putu Purwa and I Ketut Teja Astawa.
The work of Ida Bagus Putu Purwa’s sexual differentials along the body up to certain limits. He defines the masculine art as a description about male artists identities, as well as body and soul, feeling, and position within society.
I Ketut Teja Astawa centers on his private environment, and documented his daily experience with the aid from puppet figures. He uses the classic figure (puppet) to describe his individual experience, which sometimes ironic.
Another exhibition at Village Art-space in front part of Griya Santrian Hotel is “Gambar Erotis (Erotic Pictures)” up to 31 May, presenting 18 masterworks of the painter I Wayan Miartha. This exhibition of the son of the late famous sculptor I Made Suthedja from Guwang, Sukawati, Gianyar, is presenting the moments of random archaic visual representation, chaos scenes, which express and shiver human acquaintance. (BTN/015)