Renato explores universality of human nature

Renato explores universality of human nature

By Benito Lopulalan

DENPASAR (JP): Renato Cristiano is a painter who presents the
reality of intellectual and spatial journeys and has written
books as well as researched anthropology, archeology and history
to strengthen his paintings.

Many first-class museums and prominent collectors have his
paintings. In 1954, the Schneider in Rome, the most prominent
gallery at the time, acquired a collection of his works. A few of
his paintings have also decorated the walls of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York as well as the residence of Indonesia's
late first president, Sukarno. His sense of artistic expression
has also been delivered all over the world as a Vatican postal
stamp.

"His life is a journey," notes Rudolf Bonnet, an artist who is
a close friend of Renato. Both of them have lived in Bali, Renato
for about 11 years, and Bonnet more than 30.

It is impossible to separate Renato's success from Bali. Not
only because he and his Balinese wife, Wayan Nesa, have had two
daughters, Sari and Dewi, but also because two villages in
eastern Bali, Putung in Selat and Manggis in Karang Asem,
inspired him to create his amazing works. These paintings are the
hallmark of the first abstract painters in Bali.

For many painters, art is a journey in itself. With paths of
colors, dots, lines and images or deliberate structured forms a
painter travels beyond time and space by recalling previous
painters that have endowed him with a path to his own style.
Every person who has ever painted owes something to the painters
who came before.

"I am amazed at Carragio's colors and light. I love Rembrandt
as well as Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci," Renato said.

Written and verbal intellectuality has also contributed to his
paintings. By digging through libraries and then studying,
exploring and speculating on human nature, Renato resurrects some
past writers and philosophers. His eagerness to study and to
reflect his knowledge is illustrated by his years of study and
his numerous books, which contribute to his research in arts and
social sciences.

Born on Dec. 6, 1926 in Rome, he has studied the humanities at
Foligno, Prussia (1938-1942), and art at Museo Artistico
Industriale, Rome (1944-1945), Accademie Belle Artie, Prussia
(1945-1947) and Accademie des Beaux Arts in Paris (1950-1957). He
has also studied Sanscrit language in Accademia Tiberina, Rome
(1973-1974). He compiled his archeological finds in Manggis,
Bali, in his report Geologic and Prehistoric Vitally of
Indonesia. "The report was inspired by my life in Manggis," he
revealed.

Traveling

Renato's favorite type of journey is the most conventional:
travel. He has experienced many cultures that are very different
from his European upbringing. He has traveled across Africa, the
Middle East, India, Nepal, Tibet, Southeast Asia, Australia,
Polynesia as well as Central and South America. Because he
studied cultural anthropology during these travels, it can be
assumed that he is culturally obsessed with the idea of running
from reality at home. He avoids any reality that corners his
creativity and his idealistic eagerness for free-expression
refuses to compromise.

Renato pays his debt to the cultures that have influenced him
by creating many styles. For instance, after he traveled between
Africa and the North Sea, he went back to Italy and showed some
paintings that had been made in Marrakech. The style and
technique of Testaments that had been produced under the Arabian
iconoclast climate surprised the Roman critics. While in Bali
(1958) he painted in a Traces style: his hands and feet outlined
on canvass with splashes of color. It could have been his awe of
the Balinese dancers' intricate movement of their feet and hands.

"First, I painted in abstract style. I began to change slowly
in 1953," he said. "I wasn't particularly unchangeable. I didn't
want to be stuck in a single school of painting."

On one hand, Renato is a researcher who is somewhat linear in
his logic and explanations. However, presumably as a result of
his experience of many different cultures and their different
logic, Renato emphasizes freedom of expression in his works.
According to Bonnet, his works vary from abstract to New
Renaissance to Post-Modern Impressionism.

Recently he created what he calls "archipittura". "I referred
to the colors of rainbow. Seven colors in nature, but in my mind,
I conceptualize eight colors," Renato explained. "Actually, what
I want to reach through archipittura is the philosophy of colors
itself."

His last exhibition in Indonesia was in 1985. His most recent
started on Feb. 16 and will run through March 12 at the Duta Fin
Arts Gallery in Kemang, South Jakarta. He will then exhibit at
Darga Fine Arts Gallery in Sanur, Bali. His paintings, which
follow a theme surrounding Manggis fisherman, women, and
children, have not been shown before.

If paintings reflect opinion, his paintings reflect his
universal concept. "A sun creates rainbow," he said at his house
in Manggis. By the same token, human nature has refracted into
the colors of cultures. Through his journeys and works we can see
his belief that there is a universal human need for creative work
and free inquiry.