Nature dominates Dittmar's paintings
By Arif Suryobuwono
JAKARTA (JP): Have you ever observed how nature seems to paint with lichen and moss across weather beaten walls?
It is this natural effect that Peter Dittmar ventures to attain in his paintings. Dittmar strives to empty his mind so that colors flow with their own will just as nature transforms walls and rocks with its own palette.
"An instrument through which colors run," is how the German painter, who converted from Catholicism to Buddhism 15 years ago, describes himself.
This self-proclaimed role results in paintings which are reminiscent of Eugene Delacroix's concept of "feast for the eyes".
The Oct. 15 through Oct. 21 exhibition at Gedung Pameran Seni Rupa on Jl. Merdeka Timur, Gambir, Central Jakarta, features 53 paintings, 20 on loan from private collections. The rest are for sale with prices ranging from US$2,000 to $15,000.
This exhibition is the first ever to fully represent the work he has done over the last 16 years and presents the paintings in chronological order. Dittmar's early works (1979-1988) are displayed in the building's right wing, his latest (1993-1995) in the left wing and his paintings from the years between in the main hall.
In order to quench his thirst for an unalienated life, the Munich-born painter chose to start with landscapes, fluctuating instance between painting panoramas and close-up views.
Many of his early works depict scenery from a bird's eye view. These works exhibit European tendencies with traces of romanticism. His close-up views, on the other hand, show the influence of Balinese paintings. For instance, Secret of the Plants (1983) flaunts Bali's love for detailed, contoured paintings of leaves that depict even the midribs and veins. No wonder. Dittmar has been working for several months every year in his studio in Bali since 1982.
Surveying his works from 1979 to 1995 is like traveling from "the outside (tangible) into the inside (intangible) domains," as he puts it.
This constituted a gradual shift from strokes of colors reminiscent of oil paint techniques to splatters and squirts, which make people think of watercolor paint, although most of his paintings are acrylic on plywood.
Nature
Particularly outstanding during his "outside" period is his application of Paul Cezanne's concept "art works parallel to nature". For instance, The Kris Dance (1985). It centers on a banana leaf whose midrib was made to skew slightly to the left by inserting the midrib of a coconut leaf alongside it.
"The midrib is the dagger," explained Dittmar, who refers to his works as abstract. He painted the picture out of fascination for a Balinese temple feast dance, in which the dancers tried to stab themselves in a trance.
"Just as the dancers try to seek divine experience, I, too, try to gain equivalent experience by painting the leaf, which is a symbol of nature, which is divine," said Dittmar who "turned to Buddhism without being necessarily fanatic" after some discouraging experiences with Catholicism.
This spiritual thirst started his journey to the East. This thirst has become more defined through his one hour of meditation before daybreak every day. It has also led him into the realm of China's Taoism and Japan's Zen. Hence, his latest works, of 1993 and 1994 in particular, are heavily calligraphic.
However, unlike Chinese calligraphy, which begins with a well- prepared idea in mind, Dittmar's calligraphy is impromptu.
Whether or not the "blood and bones" of good Chinese calligraphy exist in his calligraphy is difficult to tell because "it is meaningless", as Dittmar once told a Chinese master of calligraphy in 1993.
"I paint spontaneously. And I do it for myself. Whether or not people understand my paintings is not my business. The idea of what I'm painting usually develops during the painting process," he told The Jakarta Post.
But sometimes the idea does not seem to grow, giving the impression that the artist simply follows where the brush leads. Because of this, coincidences rarely occur. But once this did happen and stunned him. The Chinese master of calligraphy pointed out that one of his calligraphic works, which he latter called The Big Emptiness (1993), had a literal meaning.
The scribble -- too clumsy to be recognized readily as a Chinese character -- can be read as thien, the Chinese word for heaven. And because he is Buddhist, he understands heaven as nirvana or complete unity with vast emptiness.
Bokki, the flow of energy considered the most important element in Zen calligraphy, dances in this works. Perhaps, that is why his paintings earned a certificate of honor in an art exposition in China last year.
Dittmar, whose 50th birthday is being honored with the ongoing exhibition, listens to music while "making the pictures dancing".
He feels comfortable with Indonesian pop music, rock, reggae, Japanese meditation music and classical music, but not with heavy-metal or rap music.
The latter two, which he terms as noisy and lacking melody, bar him from reaching his ultimate end in painting: being united with the cosmic unity. This means "a feeling of completely being one with the wholeness, including with the painting that I am painting".
But when the music stops, and the painting is done, he finds himself still in search of unknown territory, as if he were leafing through pages of a book waiting to be opened. But the book has an endless number of pages.
"Aren't you searching in vain?"
"Yes, but isn't our existence, and life itself, a vanity?" he asked back.