Balinese Art - Adrian Vickers

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influence, a number of Balinese artists have experimented with single-viewpoint perspective, most artists fall back on this flattened, absolute point of view.25 Typical of this play of points of view is the work of the artists of Batuan, who do not seek to show things as seen by a human observer standing outside the frame of the work, but instead juxtapose blocks of buildings and walls, often with blocks towards the back being larger than those at the front (Fig. 7).

      Beauty

      Landscape and the pleasing, proportionate arrangement of figures both imply notions of beauty in art. As the legends of the Sangging show, Balinese understand art to be about attention to beauty. Such Balinese terms as melah mean that beauty is more than just pleasing to the eye; it also evokes a sensation of satisfaction in the viewer. There are other words that evoke beauty, usually of people: ayu (for women) and bagus (for men). These can be used for works of art as well, although they are more references to character, and have the dimension of being tied to notions of status, in which people of high social standing or caste actually have these terms as part of their status titles.26 Otherwise, the general term ‘good’, becik, can be used for something that is beautiful, and in the context of art work this has connotations of being skilfully rendered, and even moral goodness.27

      A more profound sense of the beautiful is held in the word langa, which is employed extensively in the literature of high poetry that began in ancient Java and has been continued in Bali. This literature, written in varieties of the Old Javanese language, demonstrates that langa, as a notion of beauty, is about sensual experience or longing. In the literary tradition, beauty is an element in a process of yogic meditation, by which a poet or artist achieves union with the divine. Such a union is as that of the God and Goddess of Love, Smara (or Kama) and Ratih. Artists strive for perfect beauty through the skilful rendering of characters. Thus, works regarded as the epitome of perfection in terms of skill and proportion are also seen as consummate renderings of the beauty of the male and female figures, as incarnations of Smara and Ratih. Art, like poetry, is meant to generate feelings, and here the term used is the Indian rasa, that have effects both in the world of the senses and the world beyond the senses. Thus, poets and artists (being mostly male) find inspiration in female beauty, which arouses sensual pleasure. Such female beauty is homologous with the beauty of lonely natural places, particularly mountain forests and seashores, that are charged with power28 (Fig. 8).

      Fig. 9 Candi Tigawana, Sadewa Bows before a Priest, c. 1250– 1350, south side base, andesite relief, h 51 cm (photo Ann Kinney).

      Innovating and Incorporating the Foreign

      Calling Balinese painting ‘traditional’ misrepresents the dynamic and highly innovative nature of painting in Bali. ‘Tradition’ implies lack of change, adherence to set types. While both the old tradition of classical Kamasan painting and the new tradition of modern art that developed in the 1930s work from such set types, they allow for a high degree of change. Innovation takes place in Balinese tradition through imitation. Each artist copies the works of others, but introduces elements both of his or her own making that are connected to social and cultural changes.

      Bali has a long artistic tradition, with ancient bronzes and stone statues testifying to the originality of Balinese creative work with forms and motifs. The earliest written records indicate that Bali was constantly interacting with Java, politically, socially and culturally. The development of the shadow theatre and related modes of telling stories, both in literature and sculpture, is recorded as having happened in east Java in periods when ties with Bali were strong, from about the eleventh century onwards. During this period, relief sculptures from east Javanese temples show that the depiction of mythical and semi-mythical narratives had evolved from the Indian-influenced central Javanese style to being a much flatter style, closer to the forms of the wayang and of Balinese art (Fig. 9). Many of the formative principles of Balinese painting came from east Java, particularly during the period of the great kingdom of Majapahit (1273–1527), which ruled over Bali. According to Chinese records, wayang-style paintings, rolled out and performed by puppeteers, existed during the Majapahit era.29 Javanese painting and wayang figures evolved in their own direction, but it is clear that Balinese painting shared a common ancestor with Javanese sculptural art, as shown by temple reliefs depicting both figures and landscapes. Ancient Javanese art shares with Balinese art not only the arrangement of figures like puppets on a screen, but also the use of trees and other background figures as significant elements of composition. In landscapes, the same absolute sense of perspective prevails.

      An internal dynamic of Balinese painting comes from the ways that artists innovate through imitation. They copy the works of others, but they produce highly original interpretations, both in terms of composition and style. Certain paintings in the village of Kamasan were highly prized and frequently borrowed to serve as models for other artists.30 The aesthetic of imitation has its origins in ancient Java, but as Peter Worsley, the only scholar to examine this phenomenon in Indonesia, shows, this kind of originality through copying is common both to the ancient West and to Asian traditions.31 Artists strive to preserve the cannon of ‘stylistic repertoire’ while adding their own creative elements. An example is the story of Garuda challenging the gods, a story from the Mahabharata, in which the powerful anthropomorphic eagle Garuda, vehicle of the god Wisnu, fights to obtain the liquid of immortality. I Nyoman Mandra’s late twentieth-century version (Fig. 2) is very different from the version produced some fifty years earlier by his teacher and uncle, I Nyoman Dogol (Fig. 10). Dogol’s work is much more about violence, and emphasizes Garuda’s great power by showing him as larger than the gods. The dynamism of the work comes from the way the air/dust motifs create lines and fields of movement, into which the weapons of the gods, breaking and bending as they strike Garuda, are incorporated.

      An earlier Kamasan Garuda, painted to be hung on the back of a pavilion rather than a roof, as in the Dogol painting, does not align the gods with the directions and includes other elements, such as followers of the gods at the bottom, and the sun in the centre at the top (Fig. 11). The comparison between these last two works shows the strength of Dogol’s expression, particularly in the way that Garuda’s outstretched right hand and the alignment of his feet create the rounded and firm pose of a dancer, centring him in a web of power. In comparison, Mandra’s painting is a meditation on order, on divine figures as distant icons, rather than as disturbing powers. The gods and Garuda are more equal, with the divine weapons not broken against the bird, as in the other paintings.

      External change in Balinese art come from Bali’s long interaction with the rest of the world. Ornamental elements in Kamasan paintings, whether from painted borders or flower and rock motifs, show clear Indian and Chinese influences, which is not surprising given that Bali was on sea trade routes that went from the Spice Islands of eastern Indonesia to both major centres of Asia, from at least 100 CE. Chinese porcelain and Indian textiles have long been imported into Bali. Indian flower decorations from chintz and other fabrics, and Chinese swastika ornaments from plates, are a regular part of the Balinese artistic vocabulary (Fig. 12).

      Fig. 10 I Nyoman Dogol, Kamasan, Garuda Nawasanga, Garuda Challenging the Gods for the Liquid of Immortality, 1920s, natural paint on cotton, 165 x 124 cm, ceiling painting from Pura Dadia, Kamasan, Forge Collection, Australian Museum, E74225 (photo Emma Furno).

      Fig. 11 Kamasan, Garuda Challenging the Gods for the Liquid of Immortality, 19th C, acquired 1938, paint on cloth, 112 x 135 cm, tabing, gift of Mrs de Vogel-Theunissen, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, coll. nr. 6207-211.

      Changes in motifs and content are part of a wider pattern that makes Balinese art so complex. The ancient myths of Bali derive from India, the source of Bali’s Hindu-Buddhist religion, but have been localized. Bali’s famous barong, the lion-dragon figure that defends humanity from the depredations of the witch Rangda, is directly derived from the Chinese lion dance.

      The capacity of Balinese art to absorb and reshape elements from outside

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