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.