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work, Balinese Character, albeit famous, is now largely out of
date.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.