Balinese art
From the sixteenth until the twentieth centuries, the village of Kamasan, Klungkung (East Bali), was the centre of classical Balinese art.
Since the late twentieth century, Ubud and its neighboring villages established a reputation as the center of Balinese art.
Ubud and Batuan are known for their paintings, Mas for their woodcarvings, Celuk for gold and silver smiths, and Batubulan for their stone carvings.
The coloring is limited to available natural dyes: red from volcanic rocks, ochre, blue from indigo, and black from soot.
In addition, the rendering of the figures and ornamentations must follow strictly prescribed rules, since they are mostly produced for religious articles and temple hangings.
On his first visit to Bali in 1930, the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias noted that local paintings served primarily religious or ceremonial functions.
Where they had once been severely restricted by subject (mainly episodes from Hindu mythology) and style, Balinese artists began to produce scenes from rural life.
A stream of famous visitors, including Charlie Chaplin and the anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, encouraged the talented locals to create highly original works.
The key points of the Ubud Style included a concentration on the depiction of daily Bali life and drama; the change of the patron of these artists from the religious temples and royal houses to western tourists/collectors; shifting the picture composition from multiple to single focus.
[7] The pre-war modernization of Balinese art emanated from three villages: Ubud, where Spies settled, Sanur on the southern coast, and Batuan, a traditional hub of musicians, dancers, carvers, and painters.
Sanur paintings often featured erotic scenes and animals, and work from Batuan was less colorful but tended to be busier.
Significant Ubud artists were already adapting versions of the wayang style by the end of the 1920s, notably Ida Bagus Kembeng of Tebesaya, who may have studied with relatives in nearby Tampaksiring village.
I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, who had come to Ubud under the patronage of its ruling lord, changed from being an architect and sculptor to executing outstanding drawings around 1931.
Under the patronage of the Ubud royal family, especially Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati, and with Rudolf Bonnet as a chief consultant, the Pitamaha Art Guild was founded in 1936 as a way to professionalize Balinese painting.
[5] According to Claire Holt, the Batuan paintings were often dark, crowded representations of either legendary scenes or themes from daily life, but they portrayed above all fearsome nocturnal moments when grotesque spooks, freakish animal monsters, and witches accosted people.
The spirit of the Pitamaha period is still strong and continues by contemporary Batuan Artists such as I Made Budi, I Wayan Bendi (b.
His painting of the Wheel of Life viewed from the Balinese belief system shows his mastery of local legends and painstaking attention to detail.
Its prime location provided the Sanur artist with ready access to Western tourists who frequented the shop of the Neuhaus Brothers who sold Balinese souvenirs and had a tropical fish aquarium.
The beach around Sanur, full of outriggers and open horizons, provided local artists with a visual environment different from the Ubud and Batuan, which are located in the hinterland.
[7] It is lighter and airy than those of Batuan and Ubud with sea creatures, erotic scenery, and wild animals drawn in rhythmic patterns.
Most early works were black and white ink wash on paper, but at the request of Neuhaus, latter works were adorned with light pastel colors often added by a small number of the artists who specialized in coloring black and white drawings, notably I Pica and I Regug, who left their Balinese initials the margins.
In 1971 Datuk Lim Chong Kit held an exhibition of Young Artists' work from his collection, at Alpha Gallery in Singapore entitled Peasant Painters of Bali.
The drawing space is divided into three solid-color areas: dark blue, bright yellow, and magenta showing the influence of the Wayang painting tradition.
In the 1990s, miniature paintings emerged from Keliki, a small village north of Ubud, led by a local farmer I Ketut Sana.
I Ketut Sana learnt to paint from I Gusti Nyoman Sudara Lempad from Ubud and from I Wayan Rajin from Batuan.
Every inch of the space is covered with minute details of Balinese village life and legends drawn in ink and colored with watercolor.
In 2006, an exhibition at the Nusantara Museum, Delft, the Netherlands Leidelmeijer[12] traced the Art Deco influence on Balinese wood carving.
When carving human characters, he shortened some parts of the body and lengthened others, thus bringing an eerie, surreal quality to his work.
He allowed the natural deformations in the wood to guide the form of his carving, using gnarled logs well suited for representing twisted human bodies.
Instead of depicting myths or scenes of daily life, Tilem took up “abstract” themes with philosophical or psychological content: using distorted pieces of wood that are endowed with strong expressive powers.
