Images of power: Batuan masters rediscovered
Images of power: Batuan masters rediscovered
By Jean Couteau
UBUD, Bali (JP): While obviously very different from pre- colonial paintings, many modern Balinese have come to see the styles of painting born in Ubud and Batuan during the 1930s as "traditional". A new exhibition of the Batuan paintings held in the ARMA -- Agung Rai Museum of Arts -- in Ubud is bringing a new light to the matter.
Called Images of Power, after the name of a book written by the American anthropologic Hildred Geertz on the topic, the exhibition (Oct. 14 to Nov. 19) presents some eighty mainly black and white drawings by Batuan artists on commission by the renown anthropologist Margaret Mead and her philosopher husband Gregory Bateson. When they commissioned these paintings between 1936 and 1938, the two were on a field trip to the "Island of the gods" and eager to demonstrate the veracity of a theory of characterological classification then trendy among American academics. The book they produced from the results of this field work, Balinese Character, albeit famous, is now largely out of date. But the paintings they brought back to the US are, judged from the quality of the exhibition at ARMA, obviously a monument of Balinese art.
The late 1920s and early 1930s are special periods in Balinese culture. Under the auspices of a colonial power well intent on further Balinizing, and thus, better dominating Bali, there grew a weird, productive but unequal partnership between a few marginal Westerners -- artists, academics and traveling soul-searchers -- and mainstream village Balinese from Ubud, Batuan and Sanur, all peasants well-ensconced in their village tradition and the practice of its arts. The first brought their "taste", the "market", the call for "novel" creation, and paradoxically, a "worship" of Balinese tradition. Walter Spies from 1927 on, Bonnet a few years later, then Covarrubias, Margaret Mead and Bateson, and others, they have left such a mark on the Balinese that many still see themselves through the eyes of these mythicized Tuans.
The second brought their soul and their hand; most are now forgotten. This resilience of the myth in this case of the Westerners and the oblivion of the Balinese artists talks for the pervading dominance of "lords" over "natives", now North over South.
Therefore, one of the important aspects of this exhibition is to put the "native" on at least an equal footing with the Tuans.
Hildred Geertz, in her presentation of the works of the Batuan painters, says that they are a bicultural endeavor which, "rather than providing materials for an ethnography of Bali" as may have been expected by Margaret Mead and G. Bateson, gave instead an ethnography of Balinese imaginations. She continues, "each painting is an individual statement by a young person of Bali at a particular historical moment. Most of (these statements) are phrased within a language of narratives, of folktales about princes and princesses but also of eventful actual confrontations with spirits and sorcerers... They have put their lives before our eyes."
Seen in the language of the anthropology of the arts, the main development seen in the works of the Batuan painters is indeed that of the apparition of a personal language. Even when dressed in the guise of the Balinese stories, the images presented to us have nothing in common with those we know from the older tradition, when the art of painting was made for religious purposes and consumed at religious occasions. This ancient Balinese iconography is strictly codified; very little room is left to individual artist imagination and emotions. The underworld of Balinese belief or, to use the jargon of psychoanalysis, the individual's subconsciousness, is kept under tight rein. It is a world of iconic patterns which are immediately readable, with no surprise to one who knows its language.
Collective soul
Nothing such with the black and the white works of the exhibition. No one will deny, at the look of the works as a whole, that they display general thematic and iconic features which belong to the artists of the villages as a whole. The artists thus show in their works, for lack of a better world, a collective "soul".
Theirs is a world of spirit, witches, illness and death. This dark psychic world, however, is in no way gagged and ultimately suppressed as it is in classical painting, where the subconscious is "sublimated" into a sophisticated and highly didactic iconography. On the contrary, the dark sides of the Batuan artist's individual soul freely come out. What they depict is unmistakably true. It is the deepest layers of their personality one sees, not the sanitized ones such as shown in classical paintings. The works indisputably show a step toward a certain liberation and personalization of the Balinese arts.
Part of the innovation may have been caused by the anthropologists' specific demands. They were "cultural anthropologists", focusing in the psychological aspects of the native souls. And, from what personal informants have told us, they may well have enticed the Balinese artists to unearth "images" until then reserved to the world of magical practices. To the artists, this was scary indeed, and may account for the fright one feels at the look of some of these images.
Arguably no less important is the impact of new techniques brought by the Westerners, and in particular the use of paper and ink. They did not use the traditional colors anymore, each with its symbolic -- and constraining -- significance. All was dark, and "darkened". One is stunned by the expressionist quality of many of the works. The patterning of the forms derived from the classical iconography, in particular from the wayang and witchcraft imagery, is somehow relaxed. Features are made simpler, more expressive. The painters, discarding some of the old rules, seem to exploring new forms, new patterns, better suited to their perception of the Niskala (abstract) world and thus to the expression of the depth of their psyche. This naive expressionism is further emphasized by the stunning use of the shading technique. Most of the paintings are stunning compositions of black and white, of light and darkness, the Rwabhinneda poles of Balinese culture and psyche.
Beyond their collective appellation as Batuan painters, the exhibition reveals individual talents. Indeed. Among them are Jatasoera, Tomblos, Togog, Taweng, Ngendon and Bala. Ngendon was perhaps the most "advanced" in the depiction of his scenes and the sophistication of his compositions. He had in particular the ability to perceive the "outside world", as shown in one of his paintings depicting Margaret Mead and G. Bateson departing for New Guinea. He had been in closer contact with the Westerners and their ideas and he died fighting for the country's independence. But his world is nevertheless the same as that of the other villagers.
Togog can be noted for the near geometric structure of his composition, and Bala for the strength and simplicity of his composition. None is "individualized" in the modern sense. They are simply expressing, through their own personal talents, the richness and tensions of the Balinese psyche.
What happened to this Batuan school between the 1930s and now?
From the point of view of expression, the shackles released for a few years during the post-war period were reinstated. This did not mean a whitening of the school, though, but its transformation. As they were restoring the tight patterning of the iconography, post-war Batuan artists were also sharpening their use of the shading and wash technique, in particular with the use of color, ending up with a new, highly sophisticated school of wayang miniaturists in the late 1960s and 1970s. Of late, alas, the quality of this miniaturist school has been deteriorating, owing to the change in the "Balinese" memory, now shaped by television and school, and to the demands of the low- scale tourism.
If only for this very reason, it is important that this exhibition be shown in Indonesia, and in particular, to Balinese viewers. It is ironical, in this matter, that it almost bypassed Bali. Started in the United States, the exhibition was scheduled to tour Australia and then to skip over Bali for Japan before returning to the States through Europe. It is only because of Agung Rai's swiftness, and stubbornness, that Bali can now see, and appreciate, the works of this important past.