BALI IS A MELTING POT OF CULTURES AND TRADITIONS
synopsis on Arts & Crafts and list of Museums / Galleries
Artistically, Bali is a mixture of cultures and traditions. The Balinese people have a natural capacity for absorbing different cultural elements and blending them with their own. For centuries, artists and craftsmen in Bali worked under the benefaction of priests and ruling classes, decorating palaces and temples. The artists never signed their work and usually lived closely together in special villages.
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Nyoman Marsa
Courtesy of Rudana Museum |
As their designs followed strict aesthetic and religious guidelines, the artists generally didn’t have much room for personal expression. With the arrival of European artists in the beginning of the 20th century, this soon began to change. Local artists started to develop their own individual styles.
PAINTING
Until the start of this century, the dominant form of painting was the portrayal of Hindu epics by painters and illustrators called ‘Sangging’. Aside from large representational paintings, the ‘Sangging’ were also expected to decorate everything from gourds, wooden altars, bamboo vessels, headboards for princely bed chambers and in particular to illustrate astrological wall hangings on bark paper or cloth.
It wasn’t until the early 1900s that Western influence reached Bali. The use of Asian symbols in the works of, amongst others, Paul Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec and Camille Pissaro, created a new trend for Asian-influenced art and European painters began to move to Bali. Ubud’s fame for art can be traced to the arrival of German painter Walter Spies and Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet.
There now exists a wide range of different styles, some of which are: Ubud, Batuan, Keliki, Pengosekan and Young Artists (many of these Young Artists are, in reality, now over 70 years old).
Ubud Style
Influenced by the Western use of perspective and everyday-life subject matter, the Ubud style is one of the most ‘Expressionist’ of all the Balinese schools. Despite this, Ubud art still retains many traditional features, including attention to detail and very stylized characters.
Batuan Style
Strongly Wayang based, this style involves hundreds of intricately painted representations of Balinese life, filling every available nook and cranny of the canvas.
Keliki Style
Keliki art is very similar to the Old Batuan Style with the one exception being size; Keliki paintings measure 20cm by 15cm. They contain scenes of mythical and Ramayanic characters engaged in battle, good versus evil, on sinister backgrounds.
Pengosekan Style
From this village, on the outskirts of Ubud, a new style sprang up during the 60’s that concentrated on just a few natural components like birds, insects, butterflies and plants.
STONE CARVING
Stone carvings were mainly used to decorate temples and palaces. There is little difference between the iconography decorating temples and that of private buildings. Gateways represent the dividing line between the inner and outer worlds and as such are the recipients of some of the most fantastic carvings. Bali’s modern-day centre of stone carving is the village of Batubulan, situated halfway between the towns of Denpasar and Ubud.
TEXTILE
One of the most striking things about Bali is the rich variety of cloths and materials that are to be seen in thousands of shops throughout the island.
However, only a small proportion of these are indigenous to Bali. The myriad of batik clothes and sarongs available everywhere are mainly imported from Java. Bali does, however, have a very rich textile industry of its own. The beautiful Songket fabrics worn by performers of traditional dance are a good example. In Songket, gold and silver threads are woven into the cloth to create complex motifs of birds, butterflies and flowers.
Endek, or weft ikat, is another common method used in Bali. In weft ikat weaving, the weft threads are dyed to create the design and then woven with plain warp threads.
The least common form of weaving to be seen in Bali is the Geringsing, or double-ikat, and it is perhaps the most sought after. This is when both the warp and weft threads are dyed to their final designs before being woven together. With the exception of certain areas in India and Japan, this weaving technique can only be found in the small Bali Aga village of Tenganan in East Bali.
WOOD CARVING
Wood carving, like stone carving, has traditionally been featured largely in temple and palace architecture. Immaculately carved demons and mythical beings decorate pillars, door panels, lintels and window shutters with the aim of protecting the buildings from evil intruders. Scenes of legendary figures placed within floral decor set a more pleasant and educational tone.
With the arrival of European influences, wood carving started to develop along more innovative and commercial lines. These days whole villages specialize in producing certain styles of work. The village of Mas, near Ubud, is probably the best known for its carvings of female figures, Buddhas, characters from Hindu epics and the traditional Topeng and Wayang Wong masks.
ART ATTACK
"Photo Exhibition By Dewandra Djelantik"
At Harris Resort Kuta
March 01 - April 30, 2010
Phone: 0361 753868
Dewandra Djelantik was born in 1977 in Surabaya.
Discovering photography 11 years ago and it becomes his passion; he made it as his profession.
He is one of Bali’s most creative photographers.
Find his collection of 18 photos on the bubbly orange display at lobby hotel of Harris Resort Kuta.
"EMBRACING NATURE’S POEM"
A Painting Exhibition by Nyoman Sujana Kenyem
At Ganesha Gallery, Four Seasons Jimbaran
March 4 - April 5, 2010
Phone: 0361 701010
Since his appearance on the scene in the 1990s Kenyem has won national and international
praise for the poetic beauty of his canvasses. The subject of each of his images,
mirrored in titles like ‘Touch’, ‘Smile’ and ‘Nostalgia’ are inevitably highly personal visualizations of feelings and emotions. Swirling leaves, flowers, tiny human figures and luminous celestial bodies flow with grace and beauty like the reflection of the moon in running water. It is clear that Kenyem adheres to the ancient mystical belief that humans and artists can best find their inspiration in nature.
"OPTIMISM 2010"
A Collective Exhibition by 25 artists
At Maha Art Gallery, Club House Balibeach Sanur
Feb 18 – March 18. 2010
Phone: 0361 8728866
This contemporary art exhibition brings together various codes of realism through the work of some of Bali’s most celebrated artists. The artists
show a variety of issues and objects found within the everyday world, from our natural surroundings,
human interaction and social issues right through to basic necessities such as industrial
products, in order to comment on how they meet the urban culture we know and live within. Artists exhibiting their work include Anthony Kho, Ari Winata, Bonuz, Ketut calm, V Dedy Reru, Cundrawan, Artha Gede, and more.
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