Many Indonesian artist are also in a straight
forward manner, drawing from a variety of traditional activities connected
with then own personal cultural experiences or what they have observed
in others. Sudiana Kerton (b. 1922) has devoted his creative skills
to portraying the common activities and traditional events ill the
lives of ordinary people. His painting of a Sudanese (West Java) wedding
shows the newlyweds, after having left the mosque, taking part in
a chanting ceremony in which money and grains of rice, Symbolizing
fertility, are thrown over them by a revered elder. Djoko Pekik is
another artist strongly committed to genre painting, particularly
that which concerns work and traditional ceremonies. His Pilgrims
Witnessing Offerings to the Sea and his Procession After the Death
of the Ninth Sultan are fine examples of this. And finally there is
the use by artists of parts or objects in traditional ceremonies such
as Nyoman Gunarsa ernplovs in his painting the Offering Gate. It is
a depiction of the brightly colored offerings made of dough that are
given by the Balinese to placate and honor the spirits. This offering
at the same time is in the shape of an entrance gate or threshold,
a symbol which we have seen is extremely important throughout Indonesia,
and especially in Java and Bali.
This essay attempts to illustrate the intimate relationships between
tradition and the sources of much modern art in Indonesia. It is the
analysis and observation of a non-Indonesian and an art outsider.
It should be treated as only one set of possible explanations for
the basis and character of contemporary Indonesian art. It is meant
to open up discussion, to get others to test the hypotheses and above
all to generate accurate and useful definitions of what is "traditional"
and what is "modern" in past and present Indonesian art. |
