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      Fig. 5 Kamasan, Fragment of a Palelintangan or Astrological Calendar, 19th C, natural paint on bark cloth, various dimensions, approx. 160 x 220 cm, from Pura Puseh, Tulikup, Karangasem, private collection (photo Gustra).

      Usually painters work on cotton cloth, and sometimes on wood. Balinese artists have also inscribed illustrations from literature on palm leaf manuscripts.⁸ With the importation of Western paper from the early nineteenth century, Balinese artists gradually adapted to the standard formats of paper.

      Bali has produced cotton for a long time, probably coming to Indonesia from India in the Middle Ages. The village of Kusamba, to the east of Kamasan, was one centre of production of cotton, which was woven on local hand looms to textile lengths, approximately 90 x 220 cm. In Kamasan, these lengths are known as langse or curtains. Other standard formats for traditional cloth are almost all square pieces called tabing, ranging from 130–150 x 140–160 cm, and the long narrow strips hung around the eaves of pavilions, called ider-ider, usually around 30 cm wide but typically half a metre to a metre long. Traditionally, artists also produce flags (kober) to be attached to spears or poles for temple and other festivals, as well as works to be hung as ceilings (lelangit) of pavilions.⁹ Paintings on wood are also found on pavilions, either on ceilings or as backing boards (parba) for platforms that sometimes serve as beds. Many other wooden objects, such as ‘chairs’ for carrying temple effigies, have been painted by traditional artists.¹⁰ Artists have also inscribed pictures on palm leaf, the medium of manuscripts.

      In Kamasan, local and imported cotton cloth was traditionally sized or primed with a rice paste, which was first boiled into the cloth, and then polished using a cowrie shell on a bamboo spring.¹¹ Paintings from other areas are not necessarily sized in this fashion. Unfortunately, the rice paste has made paintings attractive to all kinds of insects, which is one of the reasons few works of great antiquity survive. Confusingly, many Western museums classify Kamasan paintings on cloth as ‘textiles’.

      Kamasan painting has always been a communal, and largely a family, activity. The leading artist draws an initial sketch in light ink lines (ngereka), or perhaps nowadays in pencil. That sketch lays down the figures and narratives, but it is up to a group of apprentices and colourists, mostly women, to provide the main painting work. Mandra’s wife, Ni Nyoman Normi, is a talented colourist from a family of painters. When the colourists have finished their work, the final lines are done by the master artist, and then the painting is finished. Paints were once of natural vegetable and mineral dyes, and the soot from oil lamps was used for ink, although Chinese ink and other imported paints are now most often used.¹²

      When artists discuss colouring, they usually talk about primary colours, which are used in conjunction with black ink and white. Traditionally, colours are made from natural sources: red or ochre shades from minerals, blue from indigo, yellow from minerals, black from soot and white from crushed animal bones.¹³

      Different gods are depicted with different colours, so there is an immediate link between colour symbolism and the divine: Siwa, the most powerful god, is associated with white and Brahma with red. However, different explanations of the cosmos give a range of such associations. For example, in the symbolism of the directions, Wisnu is depicted as brown in skin colour rather than the usual black, while Siwa is said to be associated with the union of all colours.

      A good way of understanding colour symbolism in Bali is provided by anthropologist Angela Hobart’s interviews with the makers of shadow puppets. She was informed that colours had a range of associations depending on whether they were considered ‘cool’ (tis) or ‘hot’ (panas), and whether they were ‘young’ (nguda) or ‘old’ (wayah). In this scheme, white and yellow are associated with degrees of ‘young’ and with purity, and black with ‘age’, while red is associated with heat and danger or emotions such as anger.¹⁴

      Realism

      Artists and texts talk about ‘giving life’ in the artistic process. ‘Giving life’ refers in part to accuracy of representation, a Balinese sense of realism very different from that found in the West.¹⁵ Legends of Sangging Prabangkara, the ancestral painter/craftsman, makes this clear. There are many versions of this story, all with different forms of his name. In one, the High King of Klungkung summons Sangging to construct a palace filled with statues, which he does. The king then orders Sangging to make a portrait of the queen, which he accomplishes ably. The king then sends him out on missions to depict all sorts of creatures. He goes into the forest and makes pictures of all the animals of the forest. Then, having been provided with a crystal vessel by the king, Sangging depicts all the creatures of the sea. Finally, he is sent on a giant kite up into the sky to depict what is there, but he climbs so high that he reaches heaven, which Sangging finds to be very beautiful. He decides to stay there and not go back to the mortal realm.

      In one variant of this story, the artist is ordered to make a portrait of the queen. Sangging does this with great skill, depicting her naked. However, a fly lands on the pubic area of the painting of the queen, and it so happens that the queen has a mole in that location. The king, thinking the artist has viewed his wife naked and had sex with her, cuts off the artist’s right arm and sends him off into the forest.

      In a third story, the painter is sent out by a king who is looking for a wife. Sangging makes portraits of a number of princesses, including one whom he observed bathing. The king is so impressed by the image of the naked princess that he sends his troops out to abduct her and force her

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