One man's lifelong quest for paradise
One man's lifelong quest for paradise
Christina Schott, Contributor/Jakarta
On Bali, everyone knows his name -- but in Germany, his country
of origin, hardly anyone has heard of him: Walter Spies, who
lived and painted for 15 years on the Island of the Gods, where
he found his paradise.
But even in Indonesia, only a select few know about the other
achievements of this musician and choreographer, archeologist and
natural scientist, who was once an orchestra master for the
Sultan of Yogyakarta before he became Bali's first tourist guide.
Spies was born in Moscow in 1895 as the son of a rich German
businessman. After being interned during the First World War, he
moved to Berlin, where he met many contemporary artists of the
1920s, like painters Otto Dix and Oskar Kokoschka. With the
famous film director Friedrich Murnau (Nosferatu), he even had a
romantic relationship.
All this was not enough to satisfy the young painter and
musician.
"I don't feel comfortable in Germany," Spies once wrote in a
letter. In 1923, he followed his "longing for India" and signed
up as sailor on a ship to Batavia. The Javanese capital, however,
shocked the usually so open-minded person and he continued his
journey to Bandung as soon as possible.
There, he found his enthusiasm again: "The Javanese are so
unbelievably beautiful... The music here! Oh my God, that's
something marvelous: on never known instruments, never heard (of)
melodies," Spies went into raptures in a letter to his mother.
When he arrived in Yogyakarta, Spies met the music-loving
Dutch couple Sitsen-Russer, who opened to him a door to the
Sultan's court. Besides his gamelan orchestra, the Sultan had a
small European chapel with a vacant conductor's post. So the
talented German became Wedono Musik di Kraton, or the royal
conductor, while he also earned a name and money for his portrait
painting.
During his years in Central Java, Spies began transcribing
gamelan compositions into Western music scores. "No doubt, Spies
was a great painter," later noted the Dutch music scientist Jaap
Kunst. "I asked myself several times, if he didn't have at least
the same importance as a musician. He fathomed like nobody else
the secrets and the core of the Central Javanese and the Balinese
music."
Nevertheless, Spies always considered his paintings for his
main passion and main source of income.
After three years in the Sultan's city, Walter Spies became
restless again and left for Bali. Here, in 1927, he finally found
the paradise he was looking for.
"I'd rather die of hunger on Bali than leave again," he said
after only half a year on the island.
He learned the Balinese language, its music, dances,
ceremonies and crafts and started to collect all kinds of native
animals and plants. He sent hundreds of detailed sketches to
scientific institutions in Europe and even explored some newly
discovered species.
His private estate at Tjampuan resembled a zoo, with monkeys,
squirrels, turtles, snakes and birds among its residents. Over
the years, his open house became a quite tip for the jet-set
traveling to the Far East.
Although he always warned of the bad influence of Western
civilization, Spies could be called the first international
tourist guide on one of today's most popular holiday islands.
Among his guests were Charlie Chaplin, Indian poet
Rabindranath Tagore, anthropologist Margaret Mead and heiress
Barbara Hutton. Austrian writer Vicky Baum stayed for months
writing her famous novel Love and Death on Bali, in which she
immortalized her host in the character of Dr. Fabius.
When ethnologist Victor von Plessen came to Bali in 1933 to
shoot his film The Island of the Demons, Spies took
responsibility for casting, screenplay and choreography. It was
for this film that Spies created the famed Kecak dance: He
enlarged the chorus of the dedari trance dance and combined it
with scenes from the Ramayana. Thousands of tourists have watched
this impressive dance until today.
Walter Spies worked also as conservationist for the new
archeological Bali Museum. But his main occupation remained
painting. His very special naive-surrealistic style became a
model for painters all over the island.
Then and now, his works are on high demand on the
international art scene.
Together with Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet, Spies founded the
painting school Pita Maha in 1936, upon the generous support of
Balinese prince Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati. The two Europeans
introduced new techniques and materials to local artists, such as
paper and watercolors. They also encouraged the Balinese to paint
subjects from their daily lives instead of focusing on
sacral themes.
All these achievements didn't help Walter Spies when the
colonial administration arrested him in 1938 for "immoral
behavior". The colonial Dutch government obviously did not like
his open contact with the Balinese. During the nine months of his
arrest in Surabaya, Spies' friends supplied him with paints,
musical instruments and books, and he started translating
Balinese legends.
His last return to paradise lasted only until 1940. When the
German troops invaded the Netherlands, all German nationals in
Indonesia were interned in camps; Walter Spies was transferred to
North Sumatra.
In January 1942, the painter and his fellow prisoners were
forced onto a ship destined for Ceylon, which was bombed en route
by the Japanese and sunk.