Srihadi strives for esthetic perfection

Srihadi strives for esthetic perfection

Amir Sidharta, Contributor, Jakarta

Fetching hundreds of millions of rupiah, Srihadi's paintings of
Legong or Bedoyo Dancers and the Borobudur have become must-have
items for collectors of Indonesian art. At an auction in Jakarta
last March, his Borobudur painting fetched an astounding price of
one billion rupiah.

"There is power in the silence of Srihadi's paintings. That is
what strikes me the most about the painting," said a collector
who was seen bidding aggressively.

Indeed, there is a solemn, meditative and even transcendental
quality in his work.

One day, a woman came up to Srihadi Soedarsono, thanking him
for providing her husband with spiritual guidance through his
work. The previous year she and her husband had purchased a
painting at Srihadi's exhibition at the National Gallery in
Jakarta. At the time, her husband was engrossed with acquiring
material gains through his various businesses. Yet, after they
had purchased the painting, he would sit down and gaze at its
majestic qualities. The painting touched his soul, reminding him
about the omnipotence of God, and how small he was in his
presence.

The painting changed him. He started to pray regularly and
paid greater attention to humanity. It is this kind of spiritual
quality that Srihadi attempts to achieve through his work,
whether it be of an ancient Buddhist temple on Java, a Hindu Pura
on Bali, or Javanese and even Balinese dancers.

Even his most garish paintings are executed with his signature
austere use of hues and scrupulous aesthetics. Srihadi would
depict the dynamism of a Pendet dance, for example, in a
minimalist composition of forms consisting of two or three main
hues. The mood and vibrancy of the dance is evoked not through
the use of diagonals and wild brushstrokes, but rather through a
careful choice of a combination of colors. Even the most opulent
of Srihadi's paintings contains a certain quietude which mirrors
the artist's own character. The soft-spoken man is careful in his
choice of words and gentle in conduct.

The quiet artist keeps within him a great deal of history.
Srihadi was born into an aristocratic family of the Surakarta
court in Surakarta, Central Java in 1931. Since he was very
young, his grandfather -- a court kris maker and guardian --
taught him Javanese customs, culture, history and myths. His
parents were producers of the Laar brand of batik, and at their
workshop young Srihadi learned not only about batik motifs and
their symbolism, but also the techniques of the dyeing process.

But it was not until after the Japanese surrendered and the
eventual independence of the Republic of Indonesia that Srihadi
started to pursue art professionally.

As a member of the Indonesian Student's Association, he worked
on designing and producing patriotic posters and banners. Later,
he was assigned to the information department of the People's
Security Force, where he enlisted primarily to design posters.
Yet, there he was given another challenging assignment -- to
record events through his sketches.

Soerono, an older artist who was boarding at Srihadi's home,
introduced him to Soedjojono, the founder of the first Indonesian
artists' association, Persagi. Following independence, Sudjojono
set up the Young Indonesian Artists' Association in Madiun and
often visited Surakarta where he worked with Soerono and other
members of the group at the Centrum Theater. Srihadi joined the
group and adopted their communal style of drawing, learning
primarily from Soerono.

Srihadi's developed his skills in charcoal drawing as a
documentary artist during the Revolutionary War from 1945 to
1949. Although most of his drawings from this period were
destroyed when the Army Information building was burned down
during the Second Dutch Military Action in 1948, he did manage to
keep some.

Not only did Srihadi serve his country as an artist, he also
risked his life acting as a courier for the Indonesian freedom
fighters, transporting weapons. One unfortunate morning in 1949,
he was caught red-handed with two grenades in his pockets by
Dutch soldiers. He was beaten and taken prisoner.

However, his art spared him, as he charmed his captors with
his sketches. He was offered a chance to attend school in
Semarang while remaining in Dutch custody and he was later
released and transported back to Surakarta.

Even before finishing high school, he had decided he would
continue his studies in art to become a painter. After graduating
in 1952 and weighing out the political inclination of
Yogyakarta's Indonesian Fine Arts Academy against the solid,
systematic curriculum of the art department of Bandung Technology
Institute (ITB), he enrolled in Bandung.

There, Ries Mulder, an art educator who worked in the manner
of Analytical Cubism, became an influential figure, affecting the
work of Sadali, But Mochtar, Mochtar Apin, as well as Srihadi. It
was Mulder's strong influence that led critic Trisno Soemardjo to
label Bandung as the "laboratory of the West". Noticing Srihadi's
stylistic shift, at the 1955 Asia-Africa conference in Bandung,
Sudjojono harshly criticized him. Although Sudjojono seemed
bitter, Srihadi recognized that the criticism from the legendary
pioneer of Indonesian art was not meant as a personal attack but
rather as constructive advice.

Srihadi completed his studies in Bandung in 1958, and was
immediately offered a teaching position, which he gladly
accepted. Political tension over the fate of West Papua or Irian
Jaya, which had started the previous year, had reached a peak.
Dutch citizens still residing in Indonesia, which included Ries
Mulder, were expelled from the country.

Meanwhile, Srihadi obtained a scholarship from the American
government and enrolled at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
The year was 1960, and New York was surpassing Paris as the
world's center of contemporary art. While Abstract Expressionism
and Minimalism was popular, Srihadi did not blindly adopt them.
He was more interested in learning the creative processes
American artists underwent rather than the end product. Here, he
started to develop his personal artistic fundamentals, which,
among others, incorporates the Javanese concept of rasa (taste).
The artist received his master's degree in 1962, and returned
home just when students in the United States were repatriated as
political tension between the two countries escalated.

He returned to a turbulent Indonesia and continued to teach
art at ITB. The following year, he married Siti Farida Nawawi,
and started his family.

In 1970 Srihadi was offered a teaching position at the newly
set up Jakarta Arts Institute. The next year he received the
Anugrah Seni, the country's prestigious Art Award, for his
accomplishments, including having participated at the Sao Paolo
Biennial in 1969 and creating a sculpture for the Indonesian
Pavilion at the World Exposition in Osaka in 1970.

Not long thereafter, he was appointed chairman at both
institutes. During this time his works contained sharp criticism,
which he subtly wrapped in a cloak of vibrant albeit somber oil
colors applied onto the canvas with expressive painterly
brushstrokes. Only a few realized the strength of his statements
and the meanings of his metaphors at the time.

However, not all were subtle commentaries of social change
during that time. At the inaugural exhibition of the Taman Mini
Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta in 1974, Srihadi presented a
painting showing Jakarta's famous water fountain in the southwest
corner of the National Square, with a background of buildings
embellished with advertisement billboards. To the amazement of
the invitees, Jakarta's respected governor Ali Sadikin defaced
the painting in anger when he saw it, criticizing the work and
saying it advertised Japanese products.

At the end of that year, the Indonesian art scene witnessed
young art students protest the choice of paintings selected for
the Grand Exhibition of Indonesian Art, an incident that became
known as Black December in Indonesian art history. The avant-
garde New Art Movement, propagated by a group of artists younger
than Srihadi, emerged the following year.

Rest assured that artists from the younger generation were
already following his lead in making sociopolitical statements
through their art, he began to paint images more contemplative in
nature and more refined in execution. From the mid-1970s onwards,
Srihadi focused on nonpolitical subjects, namely landscapes and
dancers.

The artist himself considers that his paintings from this
period onwards were more "manifestations of the spiritual
essence" rather than "physical impressions of the subjects". Art
critic Jean Couteau, who wrote the recently launched definitive
volume on the artist and his work, Srihadi Soedarsono: The Path
of the Soul, divided Srihadi's paintings into two categories:
cosmic works and figure paintings, both in the vein of "his quest
for union with the Divine".

Over the decades, Srihadi's paintings have undergone several
transformations both in artistic form and philosophical content.
Landscapes and figures are among his favorite subjects in recent
years. Few realize these are subject matters that have obsessed
him since his formative years. He paints them over and over again
to this very day, striving for his own aesthetic perfection and a
perfect spiritual union with God Almighty.

It is his perseverance in his search for spiritual
transcendence through aesthetic perfection that has afforded him
the recognition of being the most prominent living Indonesian
artist today. The recent publication of the book on the artist
written by critic Jean Couteau reaffirms this recognition.