Barli puts on masterpiece retrospective

Barli puts on masterpiece retrospective

Oei Eng Goan, Contributor, enggoano@indosat.net.id

Rarely has a painter been able to show his mastery of various
styles at a solo exhibition like the one featuring the works of
Barli at the Indonesian National Gallery, Central Jakarta, the
opening of which coincided with his 83rd birthday on March 18.

The exhibition of Bandung-born Barli displays more than 100
paintings created over a span of 60 years -- from 1943 to 2003 --
and cover various subjects from still lifes, landscapes, human
figures to portraits. His style range from realism, expressionism
to cubism and hang impressively on the gallery's walls.

For those who love fine arts, walking through the exhibition
among Barli's paintings will stir the blood and make them feel as
if they were journeying through a splendor of artistic creation,
thanks to the painter's expertise in delineating his subjects
through different media like charcoals, watercolors, pastels or
oils.

A born painter, Barli is an educated artist who, during his
student years in the early 1950s, traveled extensively in Europe,
which explains why the works of French impressionist painters
such as Edgar Degas, Raoul Dufy and Paul Gauguin, to some extent,
influenced his early work.

This impressionist influence is evident in his paintings of
ballet dancers, Parisian scenes, Gereja di Kolen (Church in
Cologne) and the nude model in Terlentang (Lying supine).

Through years of continuous experimentation and study, Barli
succeeded in finding his own trademark style in the use of
dominant colors, particularly ocher, and in the accentuated black
outlines in many of his later paintings. All this is reflected,
in pieces such as Tukang Jamu (Herbal drink seller), Pengamen
(Busker) and Belajar Membaca (Learning to read).

Barli's brush strokes -- whether spontaneously expressionist
or smoothly realistic -- and his juxtaposition of colors are
inimitably his, attesting to the skill and techniques he attained
after years of study at fine arts institutes in the Netherlands
and France in the 1950s.

Many agree that the exhibition, Melacak Jejak (Tracing
footsteps), which will run until March 31, is a milestone not
only in the life of the octogenarian painter, but also in the
history of Indonesian painting and fine arts. Melacak Jejak
reflects the struggles and achievements of one of the nation's
masters whose works have been collected by connoisseurs and
museums at home and abroad -- not to mention, Barli is a pioneer
artist who is still alive and painting today.

The exhibition opening -- officiated by Minister of Tourism
and Culture I Gede Ardika and attended by hundreds of local and
foreign dignitaries, fellow artists and art critics, as well as
Barli's family, former students and friends -- was a grand
ceremony, intended also as a birthday celebration.

Moments before the ceremony, guests were entertained by an
improvised traditional Sundanese dance and musical performance, a
brief film clip showing Barli while painting and teaching his
students and comments on the painter's character and creations by
a number of artists and art scholars.

Noted poet Taufiq Ismail enlivened the event by reciting a
short poem specially composed for Barli, praising the painter's
patriotism as depicted in the paintings Tangan Kiriku Pantas
untuk Penjajah (I extend only my left hand to colonialists) and
Pejuang Napitupulu (Freedom fighter Napitupulu).

The first painting depicts how a 19th-century regent of
Sumedang, West Java, treated a Dutch colonial officer with
contempt by extending his left hand to shake hands with the
officer. The regent, Pangeran Kusumahadinata, better known as
Prince Kornel, is known as a patriot who defended his people from
colonial rulers.

Aside from its patriotic theme, the painting is also a
testament to the painter's maturity in its detailed human
figures, animals and landscape, a composition of harmony and
proportion.

The highlight of the ceremony was the launch of Barli's
biography, written by his wife, Nakisbandiah: Kehidupanku Bersama
Barli (My Life with Barli). Meanwhile guests, after enjoying the
beautiful exhibition, were treated with a sumptuous dinner.

Of all the birthdays that Barli has celebrated, the exhibition
gala opening was perhaps the liveliest and most memorable in his
lifetime -- and still continuing -- career as one of Indonesia's
greatest contemporary artists.