A flowering of the
arts
The punggawa of Ubud between the World Wars, Cokorda Gede Raka
Sukawati, was a member of the Dutch Colonial Government's Volksraad
(People's Council) in Batavia and already interested in the "arts
and crafts movement" spreading from Europe to Asia and Japan.
He encouraged Walter Spies to settle in Ubud, thus provoking a
growing tide of visitors to this enchanting village.
At the turn of the century, painting in Bali was integrated in
religious or adat ceremonies with the themes being taken from
classical Balinese tales that were well-known from wayang performances.
Inspired by the foreign artists who settled in Ubud, Cokorda Gede
Raka Sukawati gradually changed this tradition. The unique m6lange
of traditional Balinese and modern currents of western art forms
that came to be associated with Ubud then took place.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s Ubud became the focal point
for foreign artists and other creative people gathering around
Spies, a highly gifted and versatile German artist. A Painter
and a musician by training, Spies heard of Bali on reading Jaap
Kunst's Music of Bali, published in 1925, in which the Dutch musicologist
praised neighboring Peliatan highly for its gamelan orchestra.
His work and anecdotes on the island riveted the attention of
Spies, who was then director of the sultan of Yogyakarta's European
orchestra.
Many other talented foreigners were attracted to Ubud also at
this time. Among others, Miguel and Rosa Covarrubias popularized
the hitherto little known beauty of Bali upon viewing Gregor Krause's
magnificent photo album, published in 1925. Krause had worked
as a doctor in Bali around 1912. After living in Ubud and Sanur,
Covarrubias wrote his Island of Bali, one of the classics on Bali
to this day. Rudolf Bonnet, the Dutch painter, was told of Bali's
breathtaking beauty by the etcher and ethnographer Nieuwenkamp
in Florence and came here to seek inspiration in the late 1920s.
Colin McPhee came to join Spies' experiments and stocktaking of
musical traditions, which were at this time very dynamic, with
new creations springing up overnight. They worked together with
the legendary Anak Agung Gede Mandera of Peliatan. McPhee later
published a book on Bali's musical traditions as well as an account
of his experiences here, A House in Bali.
Ubud rapidly became the village "en vogue" for many
of these visitors - an insider tip from the many musicians, painters,
authors, anthropologists and avant-garde world travelers who passed
this way, especially after Spies settled in Campuan next to Ubud,
on what is now the site of the Hotel Tjampuhan.
Spies and Bonnet both encouraged local Balinese artists, each
in his own fashion. In 1936 they founded the Pita Maha, an artists'
organization, together with Lempad, Sobrat and I Tegalan, among
many other excellent Balinese artists. This association was to
guarantee and promote the high artistic standards of its more
than 100 members.
Ubud since independence
The Pita Maha movement did survive the vagaries of the Japanese
occupation and the Indonesian struggle for Independence. However,
Cokorda Gede Agung Sukawati, assisted by Bonnet, later founded
the Palace of Arts Museum (Puri Lukisan Museum) in 1953 to provide
a retrospective of local achievements. Balinese artists thus continued
to work together, sparking a renewal of artistic activity in the
1950s.
In the early 1950s, Dutch painter Arie Smit founded the Young
Painters School of naive painting in Penestanan with Cakra. This
style, free of any philosophical or abstract influence, led to
relatively uninhibited young school children using bright chemical
colors to produce two-dimensional landscapes depicting daily life.
Their work reflects the changing vision and lifestyle of young
Balinese during the post-war period.
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