Kartini: A traditional woman who continues to inspire

Kartini: A traditional woman who continues to inspire

Carla Bianpoen
Contributor
Jakarta

Once again we will be commemorating on April 21 the birth of
Indonesia's national heroine, Raden Adjeng Kartini.

Born into nobility in 1879, she has been primarily hailed as a
champion of women's emancipation. And it must not be forgotten
that issues like polygamy, women's subordination and lack of
education were subjects that Kartini linked to a greater vision
of development for women.

Her vision of the position of women in the national plan and
the larger map of humankind is the first known in Indonesian
modern history. Sitisoemandari Soeroto, in her excellent
biography of Kartini, calls Kartini the beginning of national
awakening, emerging long before Boedi Oetomo came into existence.

Stretching it further, Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his stirring
thoughts on Kartini titled Panggil Aku Kartini Saja (Just Call Me
Kartini) says Kartini is the first modern Indonesian thinker, the
beginning of modern Indonesian history.

It was she that stirred aspirations of advancement emerging in
Demak, Kudus and Jepara in Central Java, during the second half
of the 19th century, he contends.

Indeed, Indonesian students gathered in the Indische
Vereniging in Holland, later known as Perhimpunan Indonesia, and
made her visions the guidelines for their organization. Its
members later played an important role in the birth of the
Indonesian Republic.

It is said that her thinking inspired Pancasila, the five
pillars of state ideology, as well as the wording of the Sumpah
Pemuda (Youth Pledge).

Her letters to Dutch friends, written in Dutch, including
articles she wrote in Dutch newspapers and petitions to the
government of the Netherlands, were first published seven years
after her untimely death in 1904. Since then, numerous reprints
and translations in various western and eastern languages have
spread her vision all over the world.

As Kartini's conceptual visions encompassed virtually all
aspects of development, it should not be surprising that she was
also the first in modern Indonesian history to see the role of
art in education to cultivate the finer senses of the human
character, a vision that educators of today have yet to fulfill.

Kartini never got the chance to have a formal education except
for basic education, nor could her talented sister pursue art
studies.

Girls of noble birth had to stay at home after their 12th
birthday, and appearing in public was a no-no, a situation that
did not change for a long time. It was, however, different for
North Sulawesi-born painter Emiria Soenassa (b.1894), a member of
the national-oriented painters association, Persagi.

She participated in several exhibitions and even obtained
various art awards. Soedjojono called her a genius. History of
Art literature, however, paid scant attention to her.

Women remained a separate, unaccounted part in society, with
gender disparities continuing throughout the ages.

In the following years, however, women artists did break
through the glass ceiling, though most went unrecorded. Kartika
Affandi (b.1934), for instance, shattered all cultural taboos
when she blandly painted her genitalia. Foremost ceramist, Hilda
Soemantri (b.1945), introduced installation art in the early
1970s, when even her male peers had yet to become aware of the
term "installation art".

She became the first Indonesian art historian to be awarded a
postgraduate degree and was founder of the ceramic division of
the Jakarta Fine Arts Institute. Her oeuvres lifted pottery from
craft to fine art.

Noted abstract expressionist painter Nunung WS (b.1948) made
her engagement with professional art a priority, making it a
condition of Sulebar's marriage proposal.

Renowned sculptor Dolorosa Sinaga (b.1952) ventured into
working with bronze for her stirring images of women's strength
in the face of violence, suffering and grief. Astari Rasjid (b.
1953) stands out for bringing a new kind of Classic style while,
redressing Javanese traditional values in a manner that retains
the subtlety of her culture, but is poignant in its universal and
contemporary significance.

Marida Nasution (b.1956) defies her peers who switched to
commercial art, consistently keeping to graphic art, even
integrating it in her powerful installation art. Lucia Hartini
(b.1959), left behind by her artist spouse, invented a new kind
of surrealist art, and gained international recognition.

Arahmaiani (b. 1961) initiated public art and happening art at
a time when the terms did not yet exist. I GAK Murniasih (b.
1966), a virtual autodidact, boldly challenged traditional
Balinese culture with her voluptuous, often humorous fantasies
based on the sexual organs of the body. Erica Hestu Wahyuni (b.
1971) seized the art market making her shortcomings an asset with
naive images likened to endearing fairy tales.

Women artists have gone a long way since the 1970s when they
needed to join hands in order to have a chance of exhibiting
their work. They associated themselves in Group Sembilan, Ikatan
Pelukis Wanita Indonesia (IPWI) and Nuansa Indonesia.

Today, such needs still exist, as is evident in Makassar,
South Sulawesi, where women artists join in the Women's Arts
Association (IPPS) and in Ubud, Bali, where Mary Northmore's
Seniwati Gallery accommodates Balinese women artists. In Jakarta,
Group Sembilan and IPWI continue their activities, while other
loose associations are formed as the need arises.

Nuansa Indonesia, however, broke up as their members found
their own way as professionals in their own right.

Basic issues of gender, tradition and violence have hardly
changed from Kartini's time and traumatic shadows of the past
continue to find substance in the ongoing spats of violence. Yet
Indonesian women today enjoy a freedom that Kartini could only
dream of.

Young artists have emerged everywhere, exhibiting their works
in many places.

As Kartini remained convinced that "the course of destiny
cannot be turned aside" and "the triumph has been foreordained",
she also knew she would not live to see her visions come true.
Helping break the path that leads to it was important enough. It
was "a glorious privilege", she said.

May we continue to be inspired by the incredible strength of
Raden Adjeng Kartini, who came from behind the walls of tradition
over a century ago.