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.