Travellers had started to buy Balinese carvings, however, and on our return to Bali three years later, the Balinese sculptors were turning out mass-production " objets d'art " for tourists. Even before arriving in Bali for the second time, we found the curioshops of Macassar and Java filled with statuettes of a decidedly commercial style which was totally new to us. Before this we had made acquaintance with Gusti Ngurah Gede', an old man of Pemetjutan rated among the best sculptors of South Bali. Although Gusti Ged6 was so old that he talked with difficulty, be could carve the most delicate motifs in hard wood with a precision and sureness envied by the younger. sculptors. He had started to make realistic little statues of nude girls, bathing, combing their hair, or in the process of undressing, masterfully carved out of a fine-grained white wood, figures that found ready sale among travellers. This was perhaps the beginning of a new art in which the sculptor began working for a new public: tourists who had little appreciation of the technical perfection demanded by the Balinese, or foreign a ritists who preferred line and form to intricate ornamentation.

This necessarily introduced the mercenary element into Balinese art, until then non-existent; prices were boosted and the sculptor suddenly became aware thaf'there was a good income in making statues. On the other hand, this same condition gave