Long trail of Indonesia's terra-cotta

Long trail of Indonesia's terra-cotta

By Ipong Purnama Sidhi

JAKARTA (JP): Historically speaking, Indonesia's terra-cotta
is some 3,000 years old, a long span of time beginning when human
beings no longer lived as nomads, who gathered food, but dwelt in
one place as producers of foods. To support their lives, they
began to till the soil and plant rice.

They needed some appliance to cook their food. Understandably,
they turned to a natural resource close to their lives and
abundantly available: clay.

They began to make simple vessels for keeping water and other
containers to be used in their daily lives. Later, people made
not only containers but also non-container paraphernalia to be
used in rites or in construction.

This paraphernalia took different forms: a large jar for
burying the dead, a temple relief, figurines created for play,
and roof ornaments on houses in many northern coastal areas.

These invaluable items are now on display at the National
Museum in Jakarta, Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Jakarta in an
exhibition which will run through Jan. 23, 2001.

In this exhibition, some 300 terra-cotta pieces from the pre-
historic era, the classical era, the Islamic era, the
ethnographic era and the contemporary era. Called Exhibition of
3000 Years of Indonesia's Terracotta: Traces of Soil and Fire.,
the exhibition displays objects dating as far back as the time
when humans decided to live in one place and stop being hunter
gatherers.

Most of the items on display come from the collection of the
National Museum, the Historical and Archaeological Relics
Preservation Centers (SPSP) of the provinces of Jambi, South
Sumatra, Bengkulu, the State Museum of Trowulan, the State Museum
of Lambung Mangkurat, South Kalimantan, the South Kalimantan
Archaeological Center, the SPSP of Serang and the Center for
Archaeology in the capital city of Jakarta.

Items which are rarely shown and historically valuable, have
been brought to Jakarta to be put on display,

The exhibition occupies space in the exhibition room on the
first floor, an area newly renovated and yet to be inaugurated.
The exhibition, prepared by Hendrawan Riyanto, a curator and
lecturer on the art of ceramics at the Bandung Institute of
Technology (ITB), focuses on the functions of these early
terra-cotta artifacts.

The items are divided into two major groups --- containers and
non-containers -- and then sub-divided into smaller groups
labeled "buildings", "figurines", "items for rites" and
"contemporary" (featuring the works of young and gifted potters
from Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta).

Terracotta is made in a simple process of burning clay at 700-
900 degrees Celsius. Usually, the product is not glazed and is
highly porous. Interestingly, despite the industrialization
process, made possible with the discovery of iron and steel, man
continues to create terra-cotta.

Endang Sri Hardiati, director of the National Museum and one
of the board of curators, said that the creation of terra-cotta
continues because humans consider soil, which they tread on, most
intimate to them. That soil can be made functional thanks to the
firing technique that has been handed down for many generations.

At the front of the exhibition is a small, spoutless, light
brown kendi, an earthenware flask from Melolo, Sumba. This kendi,
which is unique as it has a short neck with a chipped edge at the
top and a round body, is estimated to date back to 2000 b.c.

Despite a variety of shapes, terra-cotta from pre-historic
times were essentially functional in nature as terra-cotta items
were used in daily activities. Terracotta was made in a simple
and similar way in all regions.

In the exhibition, visitors can see a large water jar used as
a burial crypt, including fossilized remains of a skeleton and
items included in the burial.

This jar was discovered in Muara Betung, Ulu Musi sub-
district, Lahat regency, South Sumatra province. Because this jar
is very fragile, it has been placed in a larger jar for
protection.

Not less interesting is a slightly-large-sized terra-cotta
piece in the form of a priest and made of massive cavity-less
clay hailing from Temple 3, Tanahabang, Muaraenim, Jambi. This
terra-cotta piece, which could have come from the Classical
(Hindu-Buddhist) era, has been broken into several pieces.

The main indication of the origins of this classical piece
lies in the decoration and the statue found at the temple site
dating back to the Singasari and Majapahit period in Padang
Lawas, Muara Takus, Muara Jambi and Palembang in South Sumatra,
or Trowulan in East Java.

It is quite interesting to watch the changes in style in
statuettes, many of which have been discovered at the Trowulan
site. While the terra-cotta statues in Sumatra are generally
large, most statutes in Trowulan are small and appear to depict
human comedies manifested in a realistic expressionist style.

On display are statuettes in the shape of a pig, a sheep, a
turtle and an elephant used as piggy banks. Also displayed is a
terra-cotta piece believed to have been used as a piggy bank
during the period of Majapahit. The late Mohammad Yamin believed
that this piece bore the face of the Gajah Mada chief minister.

While terra-cotta was initially only functional and
utilitarian in nature, today it has become a medium of personal
expression and with a personal value.

Some potters from Bandung, Jakarta and Yogyakarta have
submitted expressive ceramics for exhibition.

Bandung is represented by a terra-cotta piece by Wulandari, a
fine arts student at ITB, titled Mock Marriage, using a mixed
medium. Besides clay, she combines cloth, loro blonyo dolls,
photographs, glaze and so forth. She has created the torso of a
woman with hollowed breast and stomach, giving an attractive
impression. In shaping this mixed medium piece, she often used
her own body as the model.

There is a complicated terra-cotta piece by Darsjah Alam that
is a funny narrative carrying messages from Bung Karno or Gus
Dur, all engraved into the clay. He was not happy with just a
statue he has also drawn a picture on the surface of the clay.

In addition, Tari of ISI (Indonesian Institute of the Arts)
Yogyakarta also presents her abstract statues in the semblance of
two phallus-like objects that stand erect with the texture of the
entire body of the objects being made through deep etching. Then
there is also the work of Noor Sudiyati, a lecturer on the art of
ceramics at ISI Yogyakarta, titled Signal II with terra-cotta as
the medium completed with the glaze giving the impression of clay
peeling off.

This ongoing terra-cotta exhibition is very important because
it not only allows an observation of the growth and development
of the traditional ceramic art since the pre-historic era,
reflecting the great variety of Indonesia's cultural identities,
but also places the all-inferior terra-cotta art in a position
from which it may regain its vitality and shocking power to
respond to today's reality. It must be borne in mind that
terra-cotta is the "mother" of the ceramic art (earthenware,
stoneware and porcelain) created by human beings thousands of
years ago.

The writer is an art curator at the Bentara Budaya Jakarta